Life at Home

Life at Home

                The floating house has been done, it seems as though everyone has one. They’re in high demand seeing how almost every habitable surface of Earth has been covered with some sort of housing structure. Then one year ago the floating house was created; now the skies are riddled with them. People can now float to work during the night, wake up in the morning get ready for the day, float to the landing bays associated with their respective skyscraper and teleport to the office, lab, what have you. They have  virtually eliminated the car, bus, or other land based transportation device. But, the engineers didn’t think of everything. What if two or more people needed to go to a separate destination in the morning? Kids to school, wife to one job, husband to the other. The  floating house is fine for single people and retired folks, but when it comes to accommodating a family..it falls short. Wife and kids would have to take close range tele-porters from some point in the middle of their locations while the husband could float to work, or vice versa. The technology was similar to the hot air balloon, but it could be improved.

                Eventually a genius biologist created the living house; a genetically engineered organism that could contain a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms within oversized vacuoles (minus the water). It was part plant and part animal, a hybrid if you will. It also floats through a symbiotic relationship with Helium.

 The beauty of the living house is that it grows along with the resident people. A family of a child, mother and father didn’t need as much room; the living house sensed it. As the family grew, so did the house. It could separate through mitosis into separate compartments, allowing transportation to different locations (school for the children and work for the parents). It was beautiful! The living house was nearly flawless….nearly.

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Paul was a single man who couldn’t wait to own a living house. He had the floating house, but the maintenance needs for it were astronomical. He couldn’t afford it. A well placed tornado or hurricane could rip it to shreds.

The day he purchased the living house was one of the best days of his life. He spent weekends talking to the house (the response was often grunts or low hums). The house learned what time Paul got up in the morning and what time he went to sleep at night. The house would shake right before feeding time (an influx of oxygen, light, water and slurry called gruel) which would excite Paul. He became attached to his house, often calling out of work to spend the day with his new friend. They would float to the beach and hover above the sand, taking in the ocean mist and refreshing sunlight.

Then one day he realized, this house is no more intelligent than a common dog! Sure he learns simple habits and routines but he doesn’t seem to do much more than just..be. I should talk to the inventor and see if maybe we can alter the houses. Make some changes, allow it to be as intelligent as its’ owner. Would that be a good idea or a bad idea? I can’t answer that question right now. Maybe someone else can…