POV: In the year 2037 when CloneUTech, a wholly owned subsidiary of Worldwide Meta Media (WMM), developed the capability to produce a real world version of your metaverse avatar based on patented cloning technology*, I was game. I could send my mavatar out into the world and observe everything they experienced from the comfort of my barcalounger recliner via iPad, all the while chatting with them via app. Where the technology fell short, I discovered, was the ability to simulate mood (or any convincing emotion) a failing that quickly earned them the nickname 'cadavatars'. I had paid $250k for what essentially amounted to a replica of my most nonplussed, humorless and mildly annoyed teenage self. When given a command her eyes would respond first, slightly out of sync with the rest of her body, giving me sullen side-eye before stomping off to do my bidding. Ironically enough cadavatars don't sleep and if you forget to put them on pause before bed, they will spend the night working through a to-do list their AI enhanced brain has inferred from your actions both on and offline over the previous 5 days. I never remembered. Pictured here is my mavatar (officially Maura but who I referred to as QD, short for Queen of the Damned) the morning they came to take her back to the factory, after she listed the house for sale, fully staged it and bought us one way tickets to Tokyo while I slept. I hope they remember to keep her on pause.

* as of 2046 the intellectual property claims behind this were still being vigorously litigated by WMM, 23AndMe and Perdue

POV: I am the Keeper of the Eagles in Middle Earth, deaf in one ear from a swimming accident in my childhood on Long Lake. When they told me to "have the eagles take the ring to Mount Doom", I heard "have the eagles take wing on mushrooms". When the eagles returned from their inadvertent airborne shamanistic ritual with reports of a dark tower with a giant, bugging out flame eyeball spirit on top, I wrote it off as mass hallucination. I am pictured here reading Elron's lips, slightly distracted by the globs of spit that fly out as he is screaming 'get those goddamn eagles to Mount Doom, right now'. Like this is the time for more hallucinogenics.

POV: it took you 25 naked, dripping wet minutes to follow the instructions for strapping yourself into your new Dyson Body Blow Plus® full body insta-dryer with ultraviolet sanitizing light when you realize you don't know how to turn it on or get out, and the instructions are 3 feet away laying by the sink. The doorbell rings.

POV: In a parallel universe where I finished my BFA at CMU, married the handsome young scion of a Stewart's franchise in Youngstown who was majoring in industrial engineering, raised a family of 5 kids in the suburbs of Cleveland while working part time as a substitute art teacher, before starting a popup facepainting store business. Pictured here in the light of the bonfires on the playa at Burning Man 2042.

POV: I went on a Mars terraforming mission 20 years ago and have been waiting for the transport carrier to arrive with my friends and family ever since. You open your eyes from your cryosleep, see me, and know we all made it safely to the new world.