Mickey the Apprentice_

When Mickey learns to use the magic wand, he commands the brooms to come to life and do the work for him. Not only do they do it faster, but better.

Mickey can now rest, play PlayStation, or scroll through social media while they handle the job.

When instant soups and microwave meals came out, it was the same story. Someone cooked for Mickey so he could take it easy. It was the same when Amazon launched Prime, and now everything arrives at his doorstep. The same with cell phones—now Mickey can connect and befriend billions of people without ever inviting them for coffee, and worse yet, without having to get his body down to the coffee shop. The thing is, his little device won’t stop buzzing, and Mickey can’t even remember what it was like to live without something constantly popping up in his line of sight. His body, too, has forgotten what a hug is.

A few decades ago, Mickey was worried about the world’s growing population. How are we going to feed so many people? But the wizards at Monsanto and John Deere created glyphosates and tractors, and now we produce more corn, wheat, and soy than Mickey and his species will ever need. The corporate sorcerers saw a win-win solution: more food, lower prices, no one starves. And what a delight it was to eat this modern, pre-packaged food. Mickey didn’t have to learn to cook for his own; he forgot that a real carrot tastes better than carrot flavor.

Mickey’s grandfather had to send letters and then faxes. He had to limit the time of his long-distance calls because they were charged by the minute. How was he going to grow his business like that? His grandfather spent his days going from meeting to meeting, seeing clients and suppliers. He had to visit them in their offices. Sometimes he could only manage one meeting per day because he couldn’t move faster than his legs allowed. When Mickey invented email and Zoom, his grandfather could now attend eight to ten meetings a day, and his business skyrocketed. But he stopped using his legs, gained weight, and got sick.

Mickey can’t believe that his grandfather had to wait an entire week to watch the next episode of a TV show. Mickey grew up with Netflix, where the next episode starts at just the right moment. He never realized that his grandfather slept 25% more than his own generation. He has no idea what sleep deprivation has done to him.

They tell Mickey he needs to breathe, to give social media a break, to learn a hobby like cooking. He holds the magic wand and has his life all figured out, but he cannot sleep, he feels lonely and cannot even name why, and when Covid comes, they tell him that he is now in the high-risk demographic.

Mickey learned from the sorcerer because he assumed the sorcerer knew how to control his inventions. He never imagined that those inventions would end up inventing him back.

Mickey is confused.

He no longer knows if he is the one holding the wand, or if the wand is holding him.

The worst part is that Mickey wants to ask his wand to stop everything. But the wand doesn’t know how to stop. It seems like magic can no longer stop magic. It seems the apprentice was a myth because Mickey doesn’t know anyone who has mastered the use of the magic wand. He suspects the apprentice is an eternal apprentice, not because there’s always something new to learn, but because he never learns anything at all. Maybe the sorcerer knew this and said it, but no one was there to grasp the cautionary and prophetic message.

Mickey used magic to solve the basic issues of his survival—food, transportation, stress, rest, relationships—but in doing so, those very things were ruined. Now Mickey has diabetes, cancer, and depression. His society has diabetes, cancer, and depression. So does his planet.

The magic wand keeps promising him a better future, but Mickey is not so sure anymore: he knows that today’s solutions will be tomorrow’s problems.