MUSIC AS SHE WENT
BY BULENT AKMAN
Tara was born on September 23, 2010.
This makes Tara a Virgo.
On September 24th, Doctors injected nanites into both of her auditory nerve bundles, between her eardrums and her brain.
The nanites would lie dormant for the first two years of her life. Then her parents would start feeding her supplements. The supplements would stimulate and feed the nanites. The nanites would grow into wetware DRM circuitry that, when activated, would receive and filter all sounds requiring a license.
Tara's DRM would activate sometime around her 6th birthday. She would only be able to listen to broadcasts if she had purchased a license, the signals would be sent directly to her audio wetware.
Fastforward a decade: At a local concert.
"Hey Tara! Glad you could make it! How 'bout this band!" said Michael, a boy from school Tara thought was totally cute.
"Yeah, it's really heavy," said Tara, having no idea what kind of music was playing because her parents hadn't given her enough cash to pay for the digital rights to the concert so all she picked up was the sqeaky
unamplified voice of the singer and the weak, unamplified undistorted, unflanged sounds of the singer's band.
"Uh, right," said Michael, who couldn't understand how such a cool girl could misread a slow romantic ballad so badly, he couldn't admit even to himself the possibility that she just hadn't paid for the concert.
"So Michael, I gotta run, I promised my friends I'd get back right away," said Tara, who'd come alone but was now desparate for a means of escape.
"Yeah, sure," said Michael, sensing there were questions better left unasked.
Tara walked home burning with humiliation, why hadn't her parents paid for the full DRM service? Then she could have heard the concert the way it was meant to be heard, but with their outdated hippy ways, all she could hear
was unmodified acoustic instruments which meant she was limited to the occasional string quartet. At least they'd bought the tv/radio package, otherwise she wouldn't even have been able to aspire to normalcy.
Sometimes she wanted to rip the wetware circuitry right out of her head. Even though she knew it would only make her deaf.
Sometimes she felt the urge.
And tomorrow, what was she going to say to Michael?
On September 24th, Doctors injected nanites into both of her auditory nerve bundles, between her eardrums and her brain.
The nanites would lie dormant for the first two years of her life. Then her parents would start feeding her supplements. The supplements would stimulate and feed the nanites. The nanites would grow into wetware DRM circuitry that, when activated, would receive and filter all sounds requiring a license.
Tara's DRM would activate sometime around her 6th birthday. She would only be able to listen to broadcasts if she had purchased a license, the signals would be sent directly to her audio wetware.
Fastforward a decade: At a local concert.
"Hey Tara! Glad you could make it! How 'bout this band!" said Michael, a boy from school Tara thought was totally cute.
"Yeah, it's really heavy," said Tara, having no idea what kind of music was playing because her parents hadn't given her enough cash to pay for the digital rights to the concert so all she picked up was the sqeaky
unamplified voice of the singer and the weak, unamplified undistorted, unflanged sounds of the singer's band.
"Uh, right," said Michael, who couldn't understand how such a cool girl could misread a slow romantic ballad so badly, he couldn't admit even to himself the possibility that she just hadn't paid for the concert.
"So Michael, I gotta run, I promised my friends I'd get back right away," said Tara, who'd come alone but was now desparate for a means of escape.
"Yeah, sure," said Michael, sensing there were questions better left unasked.
Tara walked home burning with humiliation, why hadn't her parents paid for the full DRM service? Then she could have heard the concert the way it was meant to be heard, but with their outdated hippy ways, all she could hear
was unmodified acoustic instruments which meant she was limited to the occasional string quartet. At least they'd bought the tv/radio package, otherwise she wouldn't even have been able to aspire to normalcy.
Sometimes she wanted to rip the wetware circuitry right out of her head. Even though she knew it would only make her deaf.
Sometimes she felt the urge.
And tomorrow, what was she going to say to Michael?
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