The holographic wheat fields shimmered under the artificial sun, their pixels occasionally glitching to reveal the barren earth beneath. Old Chen sat on his creaking wooden porch, his weathered hands contrasting sharply with the sleek neural interface wrapped around his wrist.

“Another beautiful morning in Silicon Valley Farm District 7,” the interface chirped in a cheerful voice. Chen grunted, his rheumy eyes scanning the horizon where reality blurred with digital overlay.

“Beautiful ain’t the word I’d use,” he muttered. “Ain’t nothing real beautiful anymore.”

His grandson Tommy bounded out of the house, his youthful face illuminated by the augmented reality contact lenses that were mandatory for all children now.

“Grandpa, look! The harvest drones are coming!” Tommy pointed excitedly at the sky where black shapes moved in perfect formation.

“Back in my day, we used our hands,” Chen said softly. “Could feel the earth, the grain, the life in it all.”

“But why would anyone want to do that?” Tommy’s nose wrinkled in confusion. “The AgriCorp system is so much more efficient. Zero waste, perfect yield every time.”

Chen reached out to ruffle Tommy’s hair, but the boy ducked away, distracted by a notification flashing in his field of vision. “Got to go, Grandpa! Virtual farming class is starting!”

Left alone, Chen pulled up his own interface display. The farm’s productivity metrics scrolled past his eyes - all in the green, all perfect, all hollow. His finger hovered over the “Relax Mode” option, a feature meant to ease the transition for the older generation. One click and the holographic overlay would show the farm as it used to be - real crops, real dirt, real life.

“You’re brooding again, old man,” came a familiar voice. Sarah, his daughter, stepped onto the porch, her corporate AgriCorp uniform pristine despite the dusty wind.

“Just thinking about your mother,” Chen replied. “She would’ve hated all this.”

Sarah’s expression softened momentarily before her corporate training reasserted itself. “Mom didn’t understand progress, Dad. The old ways weren’t sustainable.”

“Maybe not. But they were real.”

“Reality is what we make it now.” Sarah checked her interface. “Speaking of which, your neural compliance scores are dropping. They’ll cut your connection if you keep resisting the integration.”

Chen stood slowly, his joints creaking like the porch boards. “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

“Dad, please. Don’t talk like that. Without connection, you’d be…”

“Human?” He smiled sadly. “Might be worth remembering what that feels like.”

That night, as the artificial sun set with perfect timing, Chen made his choice. His gnarled fingers found the small gap in his neural interface where the emergency release caught the light. One click, and it would all go dark.

Tommy found him the next morning, still on the porch, smiling peacefully at a world only he could see - a world without pixels, without perfection, without pretense. The interface lay broken at his feet, and around him, for just a moment, the holographic wheat flickered to show the truth of their hollow paradise.