Charissa Morris wins Northland Wrap Festival short story prize for The Day God Died

Far North Kahika (Mayor) Moko Tepania presented Charissa Morris with her short story award.

A Kerikeri High School student Charissa Morris was the winner of the Northland Writers, Readers and Poets festival short story competition. Her story The Day God Died was inspired by the prompt: the internet completely shuts down. How does life in your town change? To celebrate Charissa’s success, the Northern Advocate is sharing her award-winning fiction.

“The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even printing.” – Douglas Engelbart, American engineer and inventor.

On January 1st, 1983, God was born.

God’s congregation grew, from a handful of computer scientists to hundreds when the World Wide Web was opened to the public in 1993. Chunky, cuboid computers with slow, dial-up internet paved the way for sleek laptops, cellphones and ever-progressing technology.

This God could not be seen or heard, but His invisible hand reached to all corners of the globe, demanding praise from everyone. Teenagers especially felt God’s pull, devoting hours of their days to worship.

Of course, some refused to convert, but over time God reached His hand into every aspect of life, through tiny speakers and cameras, demanding utter devotion from humanity. God was always listening, always watching and never slept.

By the 21st century, God had found His way into watches people never took off, smartphones people couldn’t bear to put down. Seducing the Earth, God appeared to be humanity’s saviour. However, a streak of something else rippled below. A silent curse poisoning the world through their salvation.

The day God died

Tuī’s lilting arias wake the residents of Kerikeri, same as always. Downtown, electronic signs in storefronts flicker on, shiny and new. Alarms command the town’s teenagers to sluggishly reach out and grasp their phones. In eerie unison, over 1000 adolescents groggily hold their phones to their faces, to find ... nothing. No Instagram DMs. No TikTok notifications. Nothing. Simultaneously, over 1000 teenagers frown, rub their eyes and open their settings to see ... nothing. No Wi-Fi available, no data network found. As one, over 1000 teenagers sag.

The birdsong and the morning sky are as bright as always, but a loud silence grows, as if overnight the world has stopped a uniform hum.

Tuī’s lilting arias arouse the residents of Kerikeri, same as usual. At the retirement villages, some of the elderly reach out for their phones. Some grasp for their murder mystery novels. Some just open their eyes and look up at the ceiling, revelling in the birdsong. Carers explain the situation; most shrug. Some call their children or grandkids to see if they can fix it. Across the town, TVs flicker on. Netflix and Disney+ won’t load. Scowling, some flip over to regular television, muttering about the ads. Obliviously, other families tend their gardens and get ready for the day.

Throughout Kerikeri, little work gets done today. Schools can’t access most resources. Children and teenagers write in barren exercise books; managers call meetings and retrieve dusty notepads and pens from forgotten drawers. An old-fashioned teacher smiles and continues teaching her students from hardcovered books. A newly retired couple don’t even realise what has happened until their daughter calls them to check in.

Across town, all of the banks are in utter chaos. Without God, no one can access their accounts. Bank lobbies are flooded with desperate people demanding their money in cash. Locking the doors and glancing away from the violent clamouring on the outside of the frosted glass, bank tellers force a smile and try to distract themselves from their own lost finances.

Today, thousands scream at their phones and laptops and TVs, sobbing that God has abandoned them. Millions blame each other, the billionaires and celebrities and politicians and their neighbours and friends.

Same as always, two siblings spend family dinner staring at their screens, uninterested in their mother’s attempts at connection.

One month after the centre of the Universe imploded

Corporate workers are still complaining about the changes – having to physically write reports or use versions of Microsoft Word that an older colleague proudly dug out of his disc collection – sending physical letters, families retrieve CD and DVD players and everyone grumbles about having to learn how to read a map. Reminiscing, the older generations smile as the world begins to resemble life in their youth. Children use iPads less, venturing into garden jungles and discovering islands in paddling-pool oceans. The electric signs aren’t turned on in store windows anymore.

The teens and yuppies tightly grip the ghost of their god before the crash. Checking their phones daily and praying to see their Wi-Fi routers light up become the new normal. Millions kneel and pray at altars to the missing god.

Across the globe, thousands are lost in day-to-day life. A newly hired intern throws down his crumpled tie after an hour of trying to remember the instructions from the “how to tie a tie” YouTube video he watched before his interview. A university student begrudgingly calls her mother to figure out when chicken is cooked enough.

Despite the earth’s dissonant muttering, a spark of hope has begun weaving through the world. Between growls and grumbles, everyone starts to look out their windows every so often. Voices start to stitch together the gaps where wires once ran. Screen times drop universally. People talk to their neighbours more. In the face of frustration and the collapse of the 21st century god, life slows down. In the lack of social media, online shopping and everything a mere screen tap away, the earth begins to heal. In the internet god’s absence, humanity finds new meaning in life.

At the dinner table, Mrs Allison Smith removes her apron and sits down. Her children do not notice. Clutching his Nintendo Switch, the boy smiles, glad his favourite game works offline. The girl desperately tries to refresh Instagram over and over again. This has become their normal. Throughout the meal, the only sounds are buttons clicking, a young girl sighing and a mother’s cutlery clinking as she accepts defeat.

One year after the world’s liberty

Teenagers don’t edit photos of themselves to post online anymore. The universal pressure to look flawless and muscular is fading. Without constant comparison to photoshopped models and celebrities, a 14-year-old girl doesn’t even know that her perfectly natural legs once would have brought labels of “flabby” or “thunder thighs”. Universal “brain rot” humour has been traded in for jokes born from individual connections.

Self-checkouts are all but abandoned as people actively seek interaction and connection. The Government has issued coupons for groceries and gas and cash is used frequently. Massive corporations have no option but to shift their focus from profit margins to the people’s needs. The once-beaming electric signs lie dusty in storage closets, chords neatly wrapped and forgotten.

Mental wellness is on the rise. People aren’t constantly comparing their lives to others’ cropped existences. Bullying is rarer and at least when a bully attacks someone at school, now the assaults can’t follow them home on their phones. Suicide rates are at an all-time low.

A lonely grandfather now smiles almost daily as his grandkids visit him often. As they sit around his once-deserted table, they now look at him and play cribbage and talk to him about their lives.

The altars where we all praised for decades now lie deserted. Computers grow dust in forlorn cupboards. Fingermarks stamp more and more book corners and the library is fuller every day. The stars are brighter now and the dark feels less lonely. Without the internet telling us what to think and fight for and care about every moment, it’s as if we all learned how to prioritise what we really care about: our families, our planet, our friends.

Without the internet dictating our every move, Kerikeri – and the whole world, I suspect – has learned to dream again. The walkways are strewn with friendly strollers instead of rubbish and no one is hesitant to meet my eyes anymore. Curiosity and creativity flourish.

Through the last year, we have all become the Judas to the internet “god.” Our silver pieces are more precious than any technology could have been. “God” is dead and buried for good.

Over time, the anger towards the collapse faded, leaving behind a slower-paced, quickly healing earth. It was the quietest apocalypse you could imagine – there was no smoke, no fire, only a seductive voice growing silent.

The loss of digital connection revealed the true connection we had almost forgotten. The connection that has persisted throughout pandemics, wars, dark ages and an apocalypse. The invisible string that weaves around the globe. The connection that isn’t wrought by satellites or antennas but by a smile, a greeting, a hug.

At the Smiths’ dinner table, Allison frowns, looking from her lap to her creased apron. Her family’s daily dinner noises are missing. Her eyes travel to her empty plate, examining the scars left by her lonely silverware. The button clicking from Charlie’s Switch is silent. Allison glances from her plate to the lasagne on the table. She doesn’t hear Lucy sighing about her phone. Raising her eyes from the lasagne, Allison gasps at the four eyes glinting back at her. No screen in sight, Charlie and Lucy both smile at their mother and begin to tell her about their day. Through the window, any passersby glancing in would smile at the warm family within, smiling, talking with gentle gestures. From the window, no one would spy the tears brimming in the mother’s eyes.