Back in My Day by fang_shinobi
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does. Naturally, I don't own the Poem as Lovely as a Tree Poem either.
A/N: Resubmitted from my collection of one shots, MBF. I've taken it down and reposted each one shot.
…
"Back in my day, we actually walked to school."
"That was because your schools were actual places near your homes, unlike VirtualEd." The boy walked ahead of him by a few steps.
"We walked dogs."
"Dogs are extinct." He bent over the rail, looking down at the "natural" scenery.
"You have those teacup hybrid things though. Whatcha call them? The ones that also look like cats?"
"Calines?"
"Yeah, those. They purr and bark. And they don't have fur. Sorta gross, actually."
"They are healthier to keep, at least. They do not cause allergies as well. At least, they are not as gross as cockroaches in your day."
"They still exist, boy."
"They have been exterminated."
"No, they haven't. Nuclear war couldn't kill them. It's all a conspiracy. Outside these walls, probably even under the city, they still exist."
"They do not," the boy said firmly.
"You only know what they want you to learn."
The teenage boy rolled his eyes. "Stop calling me boy, oldie."
"S'long as you stop calling me oldie."
"Sure, gramps."
The man rolled his eyes at the boy's behavior, mirroring his grandson's action. They continued down the glistening glass walkway, the supposedly perfect garden deceived one into thinking such a thing "naturally" existed in this mechanized metropolis.
"Back in my day…"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, 'we had better manners'."
"Pft. No," the man said outright. "Back in my day, wearing spandex in public was sort of obscene in some ways."
The teenager pulled on the form-fitting fabric on his chest. "Huh? But this is like a second skin, more flexible, aerodynamic-"
"A second skin, huh?" The old man made a face. "As if showing too much skin back in my time was indecent… these tight-fitting tighty-whities should be illegal! They don't flatter flab and cellulite – Oh, and the colors! Why don't they come in more than two colors?"
He wore a black body suit that had a red stripe running down each sleeve and pant leg. His grandson wore one that was orange on the torso and black on the sleeves and the bottom half of his body.
"Catch up, oldie. Modern styles and simple color combinations are popular these days." The boy took a seat on a transparent bench in one of the walkway's glass-like pavilions. "Did your grandfather annoy you with his 'back in the day' stories as well?"
The old man sat beside him with a puff. "Nope, the old geezer died when I was small."
The boy was suddenly quiet, a thoughtful expression on his face.
They watched the dull array of spandex-wearing civilians pass by. The man made yet another face. Besides the unfashionable clothing, the bizarre new generation wore the weirdest hairstyles. Why are super long hippy hair and Mohawks and buzz cuts in? Both genders only wore their hair in these manners with little variation. Furthermore, almost everyone sported jet black hair, a recent fad wherein black was the hippest hair color around.
Tan skin was now also viewed as a commodity. With the metropolis' highly-controlled climate system and high defenses against outside radiation, fair skin was prevalent among the younger generations. Artificial tanning was also deemed too dangerous for the skin, leading to it being banned. The old man's grandson had a tan complexion, but he was blond (he insisted he preferred his "natural" hair), and for reasons the man could not comprehend, the boy was quite popular with the girls (why wasn't this fad around when he was young?).
"We didn't have whole parks of genetically-engineered plants and animals before," began the man.
"Conservation, gramps. This is a conservation, not a park." The network of glass walkway tubes were suspended a few meters above the vast expanse of greenery, motion-detecting monitoring devices taking care that nothing disturbed the "natural" environment below them.
"Conservation? What's there to conserve? Your new-age scientists manufacture these things. What used to take twenty years to grow takes only a year with your new fast-growing seeds. Whatever happened to the poem that was a tree or whatever it was?"
The boy looked at him with a puzzled expression.
The old man groaned. "It was an old poem. Don't they teach these things in VirtualEd or whatever you call those places?"
The teenager shook his head. "They teach us classics though."
"What's not classic about that poem – Hmph, never mind. Education, diluted and served on a bowl. I bet they don't teach you how to actually make poems anymore, do they?"
"Nope. Plagiarism is too rampant, and no one really cares for those things anymore anyway."
"So much was lost over the last few decades," sighed the old man.
"Don't say that, you geezer." The boy started fiddling with the zipper on his neck. "Just because the metropolis is self-sufficient and isolated…"
"Self-sufficient, eh?" The man looked up to the glass-like ceiling enclosing their city home, blue and cloudy in its attempt to duplicate what was once known as the sky. The sky was a sad state outside the confines of the city, its color close to a muddy brown in the least. Who knows where the wastelands ended and where the "heavens" supposedly began out there. It was absolute nothingness.
The boy was silent for a while before he finally said, "Gramps, what was it like outside before? Before the New War and the Toxicity Crisis?"
The elderly man shrugged. "I never paid much attention my surroundings before. But everything was so… lively… I guess that's what you can call it. The beaches were awesome during summer. The ladies!" He laughed. "And tan skin could be acquired, just by being under the sun a lot. Speaking of the sun, the sunset and sunrise simulations can't quite measure up to the original thing when they used to exist. The other seasons were great too, even though it was sometimes too hot or too cold. We don't have seasons here, do we?"
"We do not have use for them anymore, since the vegetation is artificially adapted to the metropolis' permanent climate."
"Oi, oi, don't make that face," the gramps said upon seeing his grandson's expression. He placed a hand on the boy's head. "It's not so bad now, right? Everything's all bleak on the outside, but everyone's happy here, right?
"Not the same."
"Ha. Back in my day, an old geezer like me and his young grandson wouldn't have been able to hang out like this."
"I know. The generation difference…"
"No, no, not that... Back in my day, an old man whose body ceased to function anymore no longer has a second chance. I never ever imagined they can actually clone a healthier version of you to transfer into. Unbelievable. Even the consciousness is downloadable these days." He laughed.
The boy gave a rueful smile. "Gramps, sorry I was too mean back when you were still alive."
"What am I then? Dead?" He gave the boy's head a sharp tap.
"Ow, corporal punishment is not supposed to exist anymore. In fact, it is illegal."
The old man rolled his eyes. "That wasn't exactly corporal punishment. And one more thing… We have to do something about the way you talk. Don't they teach abbreviations anymore?" He laughed. "If you were talking like that back in my day…"
End
A/N: Just a little something I was musing over while walking to Math Class. If you only knew how far the Math Building is from my dorm… Phew. Anyway, imagine the world a century or a half from now. It would never be the same. This is my take on the future, though it is rather bleak. Not the most original though. I may have subconsciously used ideas from some books and movies, which I now realize. I apologize!
Tan skin and dark hair will be desired… It's possible, right? Oh, and Sasuke wouldn't have so many fan girls hehe…
If you still haven't identified the characters, they're Naruto and Jiraiya.
Please review. Sankyu!