Extinct But Not Forgotten: A Senior Surreal Photo by Michael Francisco (2012)

Most of the city is digitized now. Silhouetted buildings, glaring lights, and blaring cars decorate the terraformed landscape over a pixel-perfect sky. Except it isn't perfect. It's frequently patrolled by modern monsters—robots in the form of game controllers and iPhones. They round up each and every one of us so-called notions of the past. I feel a USB cable tighten around my throat, scratching against the scales of my vocal cords. I watch as Napoleon is assimilated, forever relegated to a Wikipedia article. A medieval knight is captured and confined to a video game. Chivalry is dead, and so is communication. Face time replaced by FaceTime, as traditions vanish. Not me. I still have claws, a full set of teeth, and a reputation as the greatest predator of all time. Escape is my birth right. Extinct, but not forgotten, T.Rex