Blue cars hum ceaselessly. Two for the front and two for the back, but for us it's always two for all. It's January. It's February. Later it's December. There's no one else here.

And it's dark. We're to be driven through the dark, through the science fair, through the smarmy parade of old technology. Through the big three letters: A. T. T.

And we're wrong. It's so dark. We don't turn where, we exit when, gently around the corner into Lascaux. Ten thousand years ago we were building web pages out of damp stone and ochre. Do you remember yet? How we used to talk?

Someone is talking around me, close, not in my ear but just behind my shoulder, a small, smooth-speaking advisor, unintrusive, wearing Jeremy Irons chords. Some preferred the steady, strident companionship of Cronkite. We'll never know. The Brit murmurs sweet pressings as we purr up the timeline.

They nod to one another, these seated Egyptians, with their papyrus and their clerks. They don't know how far their writ goes. Somewhere, on the other side of a wormhole perhaps, our descendants watch us watch the past and wonder if we understood the wide, netted lace of communication.

North and south... all roads led to Rome. The chariot is a speeding ghost but the trailing scent is the living death of raw embers. Rome is dead, but we still eat its chicken. Transportation, language, interconnectivity - how can these scenes be disconnected when we have never left our straining cars?

The monks work alone, but their voice harmonizes, and they write for all who would read. The painter paints, upside-down, for all who would see. The words come fast then: newsprint, switchboard, living room box. We think we know this world better even though its actors still look past us. We have memories, or we've seen the evidence, but here all is more close and real than any intangible remnant.

Is the streaking tunnel of colours for now or later? Should I, with my laptop/PDA/DSL/cell phone that makes toast and takes a picture of it burning, settle into the charity reserved for the last crank of the Carousel of Progress? Is it the right Tomorrowland in the wrong park?

How can I hold myself as a tramp on a bench at the end of the line when Jeremy turns my face and whispers me to behold, "this... our Spaceship Earth." And there we are, a planet against the stars, a diorama against the posterboard, a contained knot of sending and receiving. We do not go forward with our fibre and our iridium satellites flashing against the straying sun. We go where we have always gone with all possible speed.

If a conference of mile-stretched countenances on flat screens is more recent past than approaching future, we still can't begrudge the excitement of our destination as written by our past. We are shuttling down now, heads tilted back so the mass of it all might overtake us. There are bumps, but there are always bumps. We keep moving. The chorus swells and Jeremy settles upon our awed senses "the ability, and the responsibility..."

We return into our own space, taking our places in the exhibit. The lights are brighter. Jeremy has left us in the care of a crying imp, "Come visit AT&T's newww global neighbourhood! Come on, I'll meet you there!"

We forgive. We ride five more times. I learn not to be afraid of the continuously moving platform.

Recommended:
Yes

Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Dec - Feb