With special thanks to Ed and his bathroom. (Scientific advancement!)

'In March the gypsies returned. This time they brought a telescope and a magnifying glass the size of a drum, which they exhibited as the latest discovery of the Jews of Amsterdam. They placed a gypsy woman at one end of the village and set up the telescope at the entrance to the tent. For the price of five reales, people could look into the telescope and see the gypsy woman an arm's length away. "Science has eliminated distance," Melquíades proclaimed. "In a short time, man will be able to see what is happening in any place in the world without leaving his own house." '

Excerpt from chapter 1 of Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) by Gabriel García Márquez

-translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabussa
-originally published in Argentina in 1967, aka before the internet