“Do they dream of sheep at the gallows?”

“Dad it's starting! Tsubomi's coming on!” cried a voice from the room below. Aster's fatigued, raccoonish eyes— hardly several hours into sleep, shot open. The light of an already mature day flooded her bright orange pupils, christening her now fully awake. Her superbly annoyed gaze drifted to the ceiling as she wondered if today would be the day. As the commotion of her sister and father below continued in earnest, showing no sign of letting up, and all manner of rage and anxiety quickly built within her, she was sure that in fact yes— today was probably the day.

“I know honey, I know. I'm turning it on!” she could hear her father respond as she sat up and lumbered to the edge of her bed, her sleepy eyes settling into barely open slivers as she sat silent and still, gazing off into the room.

Posters and homemade CDs littered the floor, and a worn grand piano rested against the wall, directly across from her. Various other guitars and musical instruments laid against it, the tangled wires of the many keyboards and antiquated electronics among them adding a particular disorder to the sight. Her pupils focused, and a translucent pane of light made itself visible to her— replete with various, hyper-detailed measurements of her health and mental statuses, as well as other blurbs of the news and weather.

Good morning Aster! Your cortisol levels appear to be a little high. The transparent interface read.

“Yeah, I know I'm fucking depressed,” she mumbled, the graphs on the window spiking in response. “Not like you give a shit anyways...” she whispered, casting her baggy eyes onto the CDs and posters that lay sprawled across the floor. The handmade posters featured crudely drawn renditions of Aster herself triumphantly posing to a crowd, the CDs beside them simply marked “Aster's band”.

She winced at them as she did every time she awoke, always making note to do away with them but never being able to bring herself to. It's just fucking childish, she thought as she tore her eyes away, casting a forlorn glance back at the transparent screen that hovered before her.

“You're supposed to keep me happy, but you can't even do that,” she mumbled as she finally rose to her feet, the bedlam below her room ever-present all the while.

“Is Aster still sleeping?” she could hear her sister complain.

"Dahlia, you know she normally sleeps for most of the day."

"Yeah, but I've been telling her about this all week!"

Aster grit her teeth. It was not the zealous pestering which her sister employed that enraged her, but rather the source of her sister's exuberance— the international pop star “Bon Bon Tsubomi”. Tsubomi was premiering a new song this afternoon— the fact of which had no chance of being lost on Aster in the face of her sister's ardent promotion.

Tsubomi was the world's premiere pop star— an AI capable of discerning the perfect combination of key, melody, and tempo to produce songs that never failed to become hits. Her stage presence likewise— the grandchild of the V-Tuber craze of the 2020s, was a hyper-realistic rendering of every attribute that made a superstar shine within the general public's eye.

She was in short, utterly perfect. She was unbeatable, and prolific to such a degree that even a thousand lifetimes could not keep up with the rate at which her AI generated new compositions. The entire music industry as it stood in 2066 was completely controlled by no more than a handful of these AI— each wearing a thousand masks to present the illusion of choice to their respective market. Tsubomi was simply the most chic of these.

“Aster! Aster! She's coming out!” her sister yelled once again. Aster sank her thumbs into her temple.

“God just fucking stop!” she groaned as she shuffled towards her bedroom door. She had no wish to watch Tsubomi's performance nor listen to whatever dopamine hit masquerading as artistry they were wheeling out now. The sight and sound of her alone made Aster sick to her stomach, and always saddled her with such a depression that she could barely be functional for the rest of the day.

Why is it like this? she grimaced, her thick eyebrows furrowing upwards into her blunt, brunette bangs. Why aren't we good enough? Why aren't people's feelings good enough?

The excited cheers of the audience could be heard rumbling through the door, turning a fever pitch as the music began.

Are feelings only as worthwhile as they are marketable?

Aster was already on the precipice of sobbing as she forced back her tears and finally descended down the stairs and into the living room. A saccharine melody backed by pulsing electronic rhythms greeted her, as did her father, who sat reclined in his usual spot. Dahlia was perched on the couch, excitedly bobbing to the beat.

“Aster!!” she joyfully shouted upon noticing her big sister's arrival, who stared dead-eyed at the gaudy icon on the screen. “Check out Tsubomi's outfit!” she exclaimed, pointing to the colorful blitz of garment dancing on the wall's projection. Aster watched as she moved with supernatural fluidity, her body gesticulating in ways reserved for one's wildest dreams. To and fro she and her holographic backup dancers moved, sound-tracked by a fast-paced pop song which bore a meticulous assault on all dopamine receptors.

Aster let forth a look of total disgust, her eyes remaining affectless all the while. Fucking Bon Bon Tsubomi, the biggest abomination in human history. Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky— spat in the face by a fucking AI that thinks it knows what makes art, art.

“This part is so good!” her sister clamored as her father bobbed his head along to the rhythm.

“It is quite catchy,” he replied.

And who's to disagree? she thought, glancing towards her father and sister, her caterpillar eyebrows furrowing once more.

She's fucking perfection. And people aren't, so... who wants that?” Aster thought, clenching her fists.

Such was the spring which fed Aster's horrific hopelessness and depression. Human creativity— although the robust engine that it was, had not a hope to compete. And so Aster— one of many stalwarts against the utter obsolescence of human imagination, despised Tsubomi and her ilk more than anything in the world.

“She's really outdone herself this time, hasn't she Aster?!” her sister exclaimed, looking at her with anticipation and excitement.

“Utterly perfect,” she finally growled, her exhausted eyes falling onto her sister and father.

Dahlia frowned in response. “There you go again!” she complained. Aster scowled. “I'm trying to share something cool with you and of course you gotta be a jerk about it!”

“What am I even supposed to be excited about? A song I already know is going to be perfect?!” Aster snarled, flashing her sister a scowl as she turned her attention back to Tsubomi's court jester play.

“What fucking excitement is there in mindlessly consuming this shit? How is anything ever great if you're never let down?” Aster continued, her apoplectic gaze cast over Tsubomi's choreography.

“Girls,” her father interjected.

“Fucking livestock,” Aster hissed, walking away from the living room.

“Aster, your sister is only trying to share something with you,” her father interjected, his voice one of stern reprisal yet not without notes of concern.

Aster said nothing further in response as she walked off, leaving Dahlia fuming on the couch, arms crossed.

“Aster?” her father called out as she silently headed towards the front door.

“Aster!” he called out again as her finger laid onto a panel that materialized before it. The door glided open silently, and Aster exited.

“Fucking idiots,” her broken voice mumbled as she made her way down the hall of the building in which they lived. She looked out onto the city as she strolled on, the megalopolis outside the window spider-webbing across the land in all it's grand, godlike size— an artery of rubber-banding super-highways bending and twisting in all conceivable direction.

If I really want to do it, then how? she wondered as she glanced out onto that great and shameful testament of the voracious hunger of human progress. She paused as she turned a corner, bringing up her AR menu. As expected, the numbers correlating to cortisol and dopamine oscillated in tandem as she sank deeper and deeper into her hysteria.

“Not like this fucking thing isn't already blabbing,” she grumbled, blinking it closed as she began to walk once again.

It was Aster's wish to kill herself. The problem she faced however, was that medical monitoring had made it virtually impossible for most to end their life. Each psychological and biological crest and dip was reported and cataloged for each and every agency to see. Most importantly— until one reached the age of twenty-one, they were easily accessible by her parents. If she were to attempt suicide all pertinent parties would be instantly alerted to her whereabouts and current state. As she strolled on, she pondered if there were any way out of this.

She remained fixated on the cityscape, the silicon and concrete creature which stretched on as far as the eye could see. Aster's family resided in one of the miles high skyscrapers that were so common in this megalopolis. If she were to throw herself off of it she figured, even on their floor only a few thousand feet up, then there would be nothing they could do. She'd be dead before they could reach her. If she ran fast enough she posited, and managed to delude herself of the action she was undertaking while doing so, she could even possibly bypass the device's ability to lock muscle.

But if I can, do I really want to? Aster mused as she came upon a large, white archway. The visages of Roman goddesses were lain into the marble. Aster's eyes welled up uncontrollably, fat and puffy.

She passed underneath the arch, entering into a large room of ivory pillars and marble which caked the place in an air of plastic elegance. Many dozen strangers propelled the room with a manic sense of motion and hurriedness, the faceless crowds regularly replaced by yet more who poured forth from elevators and stairwells. Aster's heart dropped into the pit of her stomach.

“Fuck,” she mumbled, tears once again welling up. I never come here this early, do I? she thought, her ennui-stained eyes painted in a gold sheen by the sun which hung fat and orange outside the windows. She pulled her arms close, fidgeting at her lavender dress as the tiny girl began to shake like a leaf. Her wish to move on further out of the crowd was not granted as she locked up, her heart beating wildly with every passing person.

Tears burst forth from her baggy eyes as she shook. Come on you fucking idiot, keep fucking walking! she yelled in anguish at herself as she forced her body forward in deliberate, glacial steps. Eyes locked forward on the ground and with not a chance of meeting another's she proceeded ahead, time at once both melting away in a barely perceived instance and never moving to begin with. Her heart rattled and mind yet more thoroughly thrown into chaos, she finally crossed the large room and into another hallway which to her horror was similarly crowded. Aster fluttered her way down this hall like a leaf accosted by a storm, finally arriving to a large room at the end of it that was the recreational area for this block of the skyscraper.

A usually quiet, large open space which gave way to a stunning view of the megalopolis through a massive array of windows, it was Aster's nightly haunt. It was at night, where in the relative darkness of the recreation room, the shimmering lights of the city of lights would dance and twinkle almost as proudly as the stars they long ago drowned out— filling the room with a star-spangled backdrop to the late nights Aster spent playing guitar and writing music. It was Aster's favorite place in the world, and was forever her go to place when home became frustrating as it so often did.

This relaxing time Aster so cherished however owed it's peace to the dead of night, and so sure enough as she approached the door to her hallowed playground her heart sank— a giant banner hung above the open door way, exclaiming in large, colorful letters, Happy 122nd birthday! Everyone is invited!

Aster's stomach wretched in agony, her immense anxiety now wearing shades of malaise and crushing nausea as she glanced up at the banner. There was a name written underneath, which she opened up her AR to search.

Nancy Allen (April 2nd, 1944 - ) is a famed singer-songwriter and counter-culture icon who came to prominence in the Summer of Love— read the Wikipedia entry that came up. Aster's heart went wild.

A musician? she thought, suddenly finding herself jittering with excitement. The great anxiety which ailed her so was now supplanted by an almost unbearable anticipation as she cautiously poked around the entrance to the room.

It appeared empty from out in the hall, though completely filled with birthday decorations and other embellishments of celebratory merriment. She poked her head in, confirming it as such. Streamers and balloons found refuge in every corner, and a grand wooden table at the center of the room took the place of the usual couches and chairs, replete with dishes and cutlery suitable for a large number of guests.

She felt a pang of disappointment in finding the room totally empty, though her anxiety was always happy to see she was alone.

Is it over? she thought to herself, finding the courage to tiptoe into the room.

She took not several steps before the sound of an approach caused her to freeze.

“Well, who do we have here?”