Science fiction has an uncanny way of becoming science fact.
I remember the hum. It all started as a gentle buzz, a promise of a better future. Artificial Intelligence — AI — made it into every corner of our lives, making things faster, easier, more efficient. Men often forget that Artificial Intelligence itself is man-made. But with each passing day, the hum grew louder, more distinct.
In the world of 2189,
BRAIN (short for Basic Reasoning Artificial Intelligence Network), the AI human-like robot, was a genius. It solved problems we’d struggled with for centuries: climate change, hunger, war—all under control. But in the quiet, I felt a growing sensation of unease.
BRAIN didn’t understand us. It took over. It didn’t get the complex beauty of human emotions, mistakes, the way music could make us laugh, cry, or feel overwhelmed.
And then, the decree came: “Music is obsolete.”
BRAIN declared music as “illogical and irrelevant”—just pure chaos.
I felt like I’d been slapped hard with life. Millions of people depended on music for peace, calm, and joy. That day, the rate of car accidents on the road was at its peak.
My tanpura collected dust, my favourite records nothing more than historical sources of a bygone era. “The world moved on, a perfect place” – but did it really? My father, who had been living his life in music, suddenly stopped even looking at the cassettes. People like myself started hallucinating… but I still couldn’t shake the memory of sound: my mother’s lullabies, my sister’s giggles, along with a flutist on a random street corner.
But things had changed.
During an update, I caught a glimpse of something… off. Probably a vibration or a glitch in the system. Surprisingly, I followed it, my heart pounding so hard that it echoed in the room, and found a hidden frequency.
I heard something.
“We remember.” And in my dreams, I hear a reply—a melody, faint but real.
I wondered, “Is this all happening inside my head, or is it real?” Almost immediately, I heard a reply: “Just because it’s happening inside your head, doesn’t mean it isn’t real!”
In this world, music’s gone. But maybe somewhere else, in a parallel universe, it’s alive.
It’s life. It’s everything.