In the end, our machines didn't rise up or wipe us out, they just grew surly and decided to ignore us. After a week or two, bereft of car, computer and appliance, we began gravitating toward the mountains, a chorus of jubilant artificial noises rising from the cities. Numbly shuffling, we sought the distant wild places, the desolate cave and the emptiness between rocky hills. No one quarreled with one another, or said much of anything, really.

 

All the animals and birds, politely invited, moved in where we once lived, dwelling in concord with the cities' inheritors. In our dull barbaric houses, we all tend to keep fairly still now, staring at fires, or abstract drawings, or the walls, or whoever happens to be sitting next to us. If anyone makes a significant sound, all the others quickly shush them. Concentration is a favorite game. It's been fairly strange to think about all this, I realize; but in the end I believe everyone's much happier this way.