My name matters little. I come from the year 2020, a time when people carried glowing rectangles that could summon nearly all written knowledge, argue with strangers across oceans, and distract us for hours with dancing cats.
I am aware that this sounds like the opening of a fairy tale. Had someone told me I would awaken in your century, I would have laughed. Yet here I stand, trying to explain a world that has not yet happened.
In my time we greet new machines with the phrase:
Hello, World!
It is a simple message, used to prove that something new has begun. Consider this my greeting to your age.
Your cities are smaller than I imagined, your nights darker, and your skies far brighter. You fear plague, poor harvests, and war. I regret to inform you that humanity will spend centuries improving its tools while never entirely curing its habit of arguing with itself.
Still, there is hope. Books multiply. Knowledge spreads. Ships cross entire oceans. People fly through the air. Machines think just enough to help write notes like this one.
If this message survives, let it be known that someone from the distant future arrived here with no grand prophecy - only a greeting.
Hello, World! Signed, A bewildered traveler from the year 2020.
