I.
I am Cristobal Antillo, a graduate of the Faculty of Law, I live in Santiago, Chile.
As in the previous edition, my text will focus on the less glamorous side of science fiction; in this case, it is related to the dystopian future of 2100, in which we will not enjoy the amenities that technology provides us, or the classic appeal that the science fiction genre usually projects on similar topics when we imagine the world of tomorrow. 
This text is intended to remind and evaluate what we already have today, what we expose ourselves to if we make the wrong decisions, and the role that technology can play in a dark reality where the most important thing is the ability to resist and perseverance. to cope with the enormous emotional burden that can arise as a result of making the wrong choice. This is the responsibility of the whole society. 

II.
The memory machine.
Day 1
I wake up in the morning with a broken mind, with deep fatigue and confusion, in a thick fog that is the mouth of eternities playing melodies. Here I am, dreaming and living at the same time. I do not know exactly in what order.
I look around and recognize the cold walls that have accompanied me for the last 30 years, the same lights, the same shadows, the same random lines that, connecting with each other, form in my imagination the face of an old man – this is what my father would look like –or, at least, I am convinced of this daily to remind about This one.
The present is suffocating, but tomorrow is written. At least for us, the elderly: We will “live” here or pretend that we live until the day when our bodies, longing for the freedom of the past years, wishing to walk through the meadow or spend a day on the beach; give in to the squalor of reality and perish, as it has already happened to most of my loved ones. 
Wouldn't it be better to accept our fate and bow to the attack? Wouldn't it be more humane to slowly rid us of the terrible radioactive fallout? Perhaps yes, but we are animals who, although rational and capable of creating the most beautiful and at the same time the most fantastic, have an intact survival instinct. Decades, centuries, millennia will pass, and here we will be, trying to survive at all costs, trying to imitate the gods, playing immortality.
It's already 9 a.m., it's time to wake up. Obviously, we work by agreement, not by the light. We forgot what the sunlight was like.
I go to the dining room and sit down. I eat the same tasteless but long–lasting cookies-although, to be honest, they look like I just bought them yesterday at the corner store where my mom sent me. I slowly chew my 3 cookies, and that's enough, I'm used to rationing, in which we have no more than 1,000 calories per day. day.
The alarm sounds, and they call me: "Pedro, come to gate No. 5, the car is ready.”
I quickly and with some anxiety enter the room, greet Katie, the assistant engineer responsible for the maintenance of the car. 
- Alone again? – I ask, seeing his displeased face.
- When have you seen a female engineer helping a female technician? – he responds with irony and makes me smile, although he does not look me in the eye.
"I like my job, I enjoy the laughter of my patients during the procedure," he confesses to me.
He sits down in a small armchair to the side and gestures for me to come to the machine, connects a helmet to me, which will send a signal to my hippocampus, and connects the appropriate wires and valves. When everything is ready, he asks me – What age are you going to choose?. 
–My 10 years," I tell him. 
Katie starts the countdown, and in 3, 2, 1... My mind is sinking.  
I'm playing soccer in the square in front of my house, my four best friends are Pipe, Alfredo, Enzo and my best friend Seba. We are sweaty, dirty, thirsty for water and hungry for glory, dreaming of scoring a goal in a full stadium for our beloved team; those stupid and wonderful dreams that we had in my country. 
For an hour and a half of the match in 30-degree heat, my knees itched from the blow that I struck Myself, and which he laughed at because he dodged it and scored a goal in the same way. I tell him that just because he's two years older than me, I'm already going to beat him.
You can't discourage me, I'm inspired this afternoon. I go to the left, then to the right, make a body jerk and hit the ball hard and down. Without a doubt, the Pushkas Award of the day. I give my friend a defiant look while we both laugh in the perfect combination of competitiveness and complicity.
In the midst of the madness of our game, the ball accidentally, albeit violently, hits a nearby car that was parked at the intersection. Don Gregorio looks out on the balcony like an angry ogre, quickly descends and takes the ball from us while we all run in different directions. 
15 minutes pass, and the plan is ready: The ball is in the ogre's garden. Seba helps push me away from the next wall, and I run furiously to get mine back. I take our treasure, and we run as far away from this place as possible amid laughter, delight and adrenaline.
I come out of my trance, I hear Katie's voice. I apply a regular cotton swab with this unpleasant-smelling liquid to wake her up. 
– Did I infect you with my laughter? – Just kidding.
"Yes, you looked like a 10–year–old boy picking up a ball," he laughs.
I leave room 5, go to the library and start reading the classic of philosophy: Leviathan Hobbes. In your brilliant description of the state of nature, I see what happened 30 years ago.
– The social contract has clearly failed – I close the book with disappointment that our society would not have seen what this subject saw 450 years ago. 
It's late, and I'm going to dinner. I share a can of canned food, and my delight lies in a teaspoon of honey. It's time to sleep.

Day 2
I wake up again in the morning with a broken mind, with deep fatigue and confusion, in a thick fog that is the mouth of eternities playing melodies. Here I am, dying and dreaming at the same time. I do not know exactly in what order.
I've been in the same place for decades, I know it by heart. Thirty-three steps from my 7 square meter room to the dining room. Twelve steps to the shared bathroom on our floor. 
Time and experience have done their job, and I have become somewhat of a man-hater. Sometimes I talk to Jorge from the next room, but we are so different, I have never met a more serious and emotionless person. There is cordiality, but we are not friends. I hardly talk to the others. There are a couple of children from the Carrasco family and Leyva from the second floor who should make this conclusion more chaotic and interesting, but they are always quiet, and I suspect that they are older in spirit than us.
I didn't feel like having breakfast, so I went straight to the library. I started reading another classic:”Thus spoke Zarathustra" by Nietzsche. This complicates me because I like it and dislike it at the same time. It is a reality for everyone that God died in this society, and with him the morality that was subordinated to his image. We have conducted a long-awaited reassessment of all values! Perhaps we are the superhumans that the author describes… But-am I happy...? – my fleeting excitement quickly disappears. 
"Pedro, come to gate 5, the car is ready," the speaker says.
I open the door, and to my surprise, it is not Katie who is there, but Karin, the engineer responsible for the maintenance of the car. We greet each other coldly, and the procedure goes quickly, he connects the cables, puts on a helmet, until finally he asks:
- At what age? –
–At 18, please, – I confidently answer…
I'm at home, my mom says goodbye to me with a gentle hug that only a mother can give. I am driving with my father, heading up the hill to do sports; but my thoughts are not on the hill, but on Valentina, my girlfriend who lives far away and whom my parents do not yet know by sight: a radiant brunette with long dark hair. the hair reaches to the waist, which I'm head over heels in love with – Will it be his face? His gentle but imposing character? Will he have a sense of humor? – I do not know, and I do not care. I just know that I like it.
After half an hour of walking in the clouds, I realize that we are not going up the hill. 
- Where are we going, Dad?  I ask him in surprise.
– Yesterday I walked all day and was tired, so I thought of something else, - he tells me with his usual smile, which he cannot hide.
We drive up to the bus stop, to platform 44, and, not understanding anything, I suddenly hear a scream.
- Pedro! Pedro! – 
I see Valentina approaching, running up; she throws herself on top of me, and we kiss like in a Hollywood movie. 
When we get home, we laugh, sing until we are speechless, and on the way home we cook pizza to share with my parents and Valentina. We eat to the brim, gather a circle on the floor and take out a board game. The Pedro/Valentine team defeats the dad/mom team with enviable speed, the final score is 5: 1.
Fatigue is such that we fall asleep on the couch with Valentina, side by side, face to face and cross-legged.
I open my eyes and see that Karin has cotton wool under her nose.
Without processing anything and only after experiencing the shock of returning to the real world, I burst into tears.
"She didn't have any shelters nearby," I tell myself.
Karin tries her best to calm me down, she tells me that apparently they have come into contact with strangers and that maybe tomorrow we will find out if it is finally safe to go outside. What he doesn't know is that these fantastic stories are in vain for me. I've heard the same story a thousand times, a thousand times it was mistakes, or hopelessly radiation-infected subjects, or wandering people who, even being terminally ill, are looking for settlements to rob and intimidate.

Day 3:
I wake up in the morning with a broken mind, with deep fatigue and confusion, in a thick fog that is the mouth of eternities playing melodies. Here I am, on these identical days, agonizing, but breathing at the same time. I do not know exactly in what order.

There are more bulls than usual. I would say waiting. They still believe that it may be safe to go outside and that they have been able to establish contact with the outside world. Jorge (my “quasi-friend" from the next room) tells me that they would contact other survivors, of whom there would be thousands, and they would have a Geyser counter to make sure it was safe. According to him, they don't want to tell us yet, in order to avoid riots, but that one of our people would have already come out in one of the few remaining protective suits and would have passed the second barrier of the three that are in the shelter. 
"He's probably going to die or be killed," I tell myself.
Without paying much attention to it, I'm leaving. I ignore the non-believers and, as usual, go to the library.
As always, I'm looking in the classics section. I choose Descartes. I'm watching him play… I'm trying to extrapolate something completely objective from subjectivity. 
I am sure that my feelings are unreliable, because in the apparatus of ward No. 5 I see something completely different, in my dreams everything happens exactly the same... What if in fact this situation is a terrible nightmare, and my reality is what I see in the car or in a dream? Descartes is right, I'm just a thing he thinks about, and honestly, at the moment, that's the only thing I wish I wasn't...
Almost lost in my sobs, I suddenly feel the earth shaking; an earthquake, another bomb, what do I know! I quickly leave the library to see what's going on, and my surprise increases. People are crying and crowding, hugging and kissing. 
- Finally! Freedom!Freedom! – this is the phrase I hear the most.
In the ocean of people – I never thought there were so many of us – I see two meters away from me an unflappable Jorge, but this time he has watery eyes and a smile from ear to ear. I realize that we are free. 
After a few minutes, a crowd of people rushes to freedom. Jorge and I are the oldest, and we had no choice but to be the last in line. I pass the first barrier, and it seems to me that instead of 65 years old, I am 40, I pass the second barrier, and I am already 20; we walk along the third barrier, and after climbing a couple of steps, I am illuminated by light. What does it matter! My eyes will adjust, my skin will remember that it once grew in the sun –I have a fit of laughter.
We have reached the surface, we are on our land. All of us, who were complete strangers an hour ago, are now big brothers. The past doesn't matter, the future doesn't matter, only this moment matters, for me, for us, the greatest in the history of mankind. 
The clock started working again, and we didn't waste any time. We laughed and sang in a circle until we were speechless.
And although the scene of fun is absolute, I can see from afar the children of the Carrasco and Leyva family lying there silent, awkward and looking askance at the shelter, as if desperately asking to return to their home, as if wanting to get away from this strange new world. 
I am loudly asking my new great brothers to give me some clothes. The joy is complete, and everyone agrees, without hesitation and without wondering why and why: it rains, jackets, shirts, scarves. I take a few pieces, tie them with a shoelace and make a soccer ball with my own hands. Jorge is not far behind me, and we invite the children of the Carrasco and Leyva family to play. At first shy, then curious, to finally play with maximum enthusiasm and youthful frolic.
- Pedro, come to door No. 5 – It seems to me that it is slightly audible from inside the shelter. 
I look back at the shelter hatch, but I'm not interested in it; instead, I look at Jorge, give him a short pass, he quickly returns it to me and I make a right pass that goes right along the inner edge of the makeshift arch that we put the coat on the floor... A GOAL!
I look at Jorge, and for a moment I think I see Cebu, and I feel Enzo, Alfredo, and Pipe bustling around me. I'm here in a new world, living and playing at the same time. I do not know exactly in what order.

III.
With the help of repetitive and often claustrophobic prose, a fair attempt has been made to convey this feeling to the reader... What would it be like to live a life in which there is nothing new? How would we survive a loop from which we have no hope of getting out? 
It is in this context, in human ingenuity, that we find the memory machine as the only way to come to terms with this overwhelming reality.
During the development of the text, we see how the human mind searches for answers and, failing to find them, flirts with insanity; we see how pessimism captures even the most optimistic; and, finally, how it affects social relations, which seem cold and depressing.
Different authors are mentioned, depending on the mental state of the protagonist; first we look for an answer in the political sphere; then we connect with the idea of eternal return; so that on the third day we try to find refuge in the desired, but necessary, according to the author, interpretation of Descartes' reflections, trying to find answers to these questions. to seek solace, which bears a certain resemblance to Segismundo's second monologue from "Life is a Dream" by Pedro Calderon de la Barca.
When least expected, we realize that life is completely uncertain, and that at the worst moments, when we think everything is lost, the world can smile again.
In any case, there remains one unresolved issue.… Choose the real world or stay in the memory machine? The answer is clear to me…

References in texts: 
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.
Friedrich Nietzsche, that's what Zarathustra said.
Rene Descartes, Reflections.

The original in Spanish is in the application

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