The Matrix: Prelude

I was walking through an office building yesterday while on a business errand, something I've done many a time before, but this time I took a harder look at what was going on around me. It was fairly quiet, reminding me of the library, except for the constant tapping of fingers on keyboards.

Almost every single person I could see was attatched to something. Keyboards, headsets, phones, photocopiers. Everybody seemed to be an extension of some sort of technology, rather than the computers and phones being tools for the users. Now, I have an avid imagination, so it's no surprise that when I started to notice these things I may have begun to exaggerate them in my head, but it really did seem to be some sort of prelude to The Matrix. The keyboard tapping made it almost eerie.

Later on I was walking to the bus stop and as I passed an internet cafe I looked inside to see more people attatched to computers. They were all hunched over their computers, staring straight ahead, with their fingers on the keyboard and headphones over their ears.

The subject of humans becoming slaves to the technologies they use has been mentioned before, and it is quite an interesting topic. As I say, my imagination can sometimes run wild, but these people really did remind me of zombies, engrossed in their own realities.

Perhaps the Wachowski brothers had a similar experience to this before they wrote The Matrix...