NetTown

It was when Netflix came to repossess my house that I finally had to come to terms with the fact that things had changed for the worse, for myself, my family, and for the world.

I live in NetTown. Which is owned by Netflix, as are the other three suburbs that are next to me. NetVillage, NetHamton and NetState. Not to be confused with the state NetState though, which is a joke my friend who lives there often makes. Though the city I live in is Amazon Prime 14(should have seen that one coming).

When they first announced that Amazon was no longer going to pay it’s employees in their countries currency, and instead offer them large salaries based off of Amazcoin. I have to admit I didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t surprised. Cryptocurrency had run it’s course, people weren’t becoming millionaires off of it. It did turn out to be a pretty big loophole for Amazon to avoid paying certain taxes, and the employees could take out their Amazcoin easily enough and put it into their countries currency.

I did raise my eyebrows when major grocery stores and other retailers, started to accept Amazcoin as an option of payment, and the only way to pay at Whole Foods was by Amazcoin. They had set up a machine where you could transfer your ‘real’ money and put it into Amazcoin. You had to make an account though. Where would be the harm in that though? It wasn’t really my problem, I never shopped at Whole Foods anyway.

It wasn’t long before other international corporations started to try to do the same thing. Amazcoin, however, had marketed itself as being easy and fun. A wave of the future, and to join in was to be a part of it. Soon, the other corporations coins failed, and Amazon swept in, offering them a much smaller tax than any other government had ever charged; to use Amazcoin to pay their employees.

I honestly don’t remember the last time I saw a dollar. Though I bet I have a few lying around. Maybe in my couch.

Here is the thing. People started to realize that they didn’t have to pay taxes if the didn’t take out their Amazcoin. There was no proof, and no way the governments could prove how much you made. The whole system as we knew it went down a lot faster than anyone expected. Cities went bankrupt first, with not enough money for the federal governments to help them. It soon became time to sell.

It was a buyers market.

I don’t mind Netflix. To be honest I’m not the biggest TV guy. You would have thought moving into a Netflix owned suburb you would at least get a discount. I have co-workers who live in Amazonville and they don’t have to pay for Prime benefits… but, no such luck. I have to pay the bill each month as well. Though every time I open the refrigerator, I make the baa dumm sound. My kids love it, my wife rolls her eyes.

I kept working with cash for as long as I could. And I kept working with local businesses and kept mine a float for a long time, longer than most. Really, for as long as I could. I didn’t jump ship like most of the population did. As it happens, I waited too long.

I could have, and was offered a job at one of the Amazon Shops. They offered for me to run it, and at a hefty salary that I couldn’t have possibly made anywhere else. I was sure that the whole thing would blow over at the time. That we wouldn’t simply let corporations take over from our governments. So many people were literally enjoying it as they watched our rights and freedoms be stripped from us.

I will admit that I did not fight. I have a family to protect, and it was not all sunshine and rainbows while the transitional years were happening. I wanted to instill in my children a sense of self importance and self respect. I was holding on to old ways of thinking.

The first few years once the transition finished up, were not that bad. Instead of a charter of rights and freedoms, or a constitution or bill of rights. We had a mission statement. Though, aside from that, it was all pretty much the same. People went to work, got paid, pursued a life of happiness.

Technologically superior bureaucracy was the advantage that they had over us. We were all used to the unionized governmental systems. They were still using But I noticed it when the Terms and Conditions of living in my house started to get updated and changed almost every week. Agree, or disagree. Failure to agree would mean losing my house and my family would be homeless. Losing a house for failure to agree or abide by the Terms and Conditions almost guaranteed that your only option would be Wal-Housing.

Wal-Housing is bad. Really bad. Wal-Mart, they did well for themselves, they had already been well on their way to making people work and spend only at their stores. When they started to buy out cities, and as people struggled with the transition, they took them in. If you worked for Wal-Mart, you got into Wal-Housing. It fed you and clothed you gave you room and board. It also gave you nothing else.

Wal-Housing also suffered from a lot of crime and drugs. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to make sure that my family would never end up in those hellholes. Or so I hoped.

The Terms and Conditions continued to increase. It became mandatory as part of living in a Netflix suburb to subscribe to various different services. If you had children, they were required to watch a certain amount of specific YouTube channels and Netflix propaganda cartoons. We were also required to order our clothes from Amazon, as part of living in Amazon Prime 14. Alexa was a requirement as well. Which if we thought that had been listening to us when they first came out, were confirmed when certain verbal privileges were revoked in an update of Terms and Conditions.

Neighbours started to get their homes repossessed, and then we would never see them again.

Most corporations were buying up the last vestige of locally owned businesses and simply shutting them down. I eventually got bought out as well and was offered a job at the lowest salary at Amazon. It was my only option.

That’s when the Terms and Conditions changed dramatically in our house. The damned colour of the walls changed as soon as I took a job. And each morning at 5am there would be a broadcast of Amazon propaganda that, well, was frightening.

I had taught my children well. I taught them to stand up for themselves and to dream big. To fight against injustices they saw.

So when my fifteen year old son walked up to one of the monitors and said, “Fuck this.” as he smashed it with a hammer. We had, officially, broken our Terms and Conditions agreement.

They came the next day to give us notice that they were repossessing the house tomorrow, and that we had to be there in the morning for it. I was informed of my termination from Amazon as well.

It was a lie of course. We knew we had until nightfall, that’s when the trucks came to take you to Wal-Housing.

We would have to run. I don’t know this world anymore. The plan is to make if it as far North as we can, I’ve heard talk about a place that never allowed corporations into it. A small cabin resort town with brutal winters, yet somehow self sustaining.

I hope it’s there. I hope that they don’t catch us on our way out of town.

We cut out the payment microchips from our arms. Tossed out our cellphones. I had an old van that never got properly ‘restored’. So they wouldn’t be able to track it. I gathered all of the old money that I could find. Maybe, just maybe, it would come in handy in our new life. My wife and children are afraid and I try to be strong for them. We gather up our supplies, we had known this day might come. We had planned on being one of the first, we knew that this was going to happen to everyone eventually. If we got out now, we stood a chance.

The hardest part was finding paper maps. It took me years of saying I loved old maps and to use them as a decorative art around the house, before Alexa simply ordered some for me. I don’t know how accurate they are.

We start the van as the sun begins to set. As we leave the city I look in the rear view mirror and see my children, they look excited and scared at the same time. My daughter has a quiet tear streak across her face. I get there attention and they look up at me.

“Baaa Duum”