Here's a Story for the kids!

Words










Todge would say that words had power, that I shouldn’t fight with the other kids at the child garden. Todge would also say that there wasn’t enough time left in Area 1 for us children to still be bitter. Why recreate what destroyed our planet within our tiny persecuted community. The community, the leaders said, was only self-sustainable for a few more years. Years, Todge said, was a generous term. At the ripe age of 14, I realized that I had been born into a world doomed from the beginning. Sundays, we would not pray but rather would remember the world as it had once been. The time at which it all started was unclear and hazy in the memories in even the eldest of men. The irony of our current situation is that we are refugees on our own planet, we are trapped by our own means and have neither the resources nor the technology (anymore) to change our situation. Knowledge, we realize, isn’t everything because without the means knowing it can be done isn’t enough. The average life-span on our stranded rock is of about 40 years.
Life isn’t all that bad though the number of births is at an all time high and the increase in temperature in the earth’s atmosphere makes for a planetary tropical climate. Bringing Barbados to Canada is a miracle some would say. The deserters left us stranded approximately thirty years ago bringing with them every alpha pod they could and most of the perpetual energy pods also. Living like the 20th century in the 23rd is a bit of a let down. Half of the World’s population died in the 22nd century due to the drying out of the bread baskets of the world. The survival of the fittest was the only rule until the beginning of the 23rd century when 10 million deserters left Earth. Following their leave, the Earth was left still over-populated and slowly the populations died out being unable to survive in the barren waste that Earth was left in. Then, there’s us, a solitary band of 10 000 trapped and protected in our bubble with its regulated climate and in the most plentiful part of the world in natural resources. We are the last people on Earth, although the elders talk of one day meeting with the rest of the civilization on Tracon 1, we still are buying our time and living plentifully for the moment.
“Thank you god for helping us survive”, is the prayer we utter every morning instead of the pledge of allegiance. Religion has also been affected by the planetary change, religious fervor was growing exponentially when the “end of the world” was apparently upon us, the pastors and religious leaders preached hellfire to the infidels and said that the world was ending because of our inability to truly respect and love God. Bill 401 passed and banished all religions because of the increasing suicide rate. The prayer we say when waking up is only a reminder of religion, a sterile approach to faith. The prayer is neutral and all former religious groups agree that it is the way to end any conflicts within the human race.
The funny thing about our micro-society is that all major problems are resolved without discussion and difference set aside because we have a bigger problem on our hands. It is as if the end of the world was planned by our common sensitized God to bring us together. Actually, things have never been better on planet Earth; no one hates each other and the media is only used to bring us together rather than turn us against each other. If art and personal expression was less looked down upon then maybe our little bubble of land would be a Utopia.
“Hey Sav, what are you doing here?” says Barb as I walk through the A.I.C. doors and head towards room 401. “I forgot my books in 401, I’ll be out in a few seconds”, I responded. The Advanced Instruction Center (A.I.C) was the central building of our super-habitat as it was said that education should be a central part of life and of the community. The odd shaped building rose 40 stories above the rest of the buildings, and statistically most of the suicides in Area 1 occur off this building. The policy of the building is that anyone is allowed in at any time to symbolize the openness of the education system in Area 1. I guess by making education accessible they did the same for death.
While I was retrieving my Arithmetic 616 book from 401, I came across a sorry site: Mr. Avarus, a poor old man with no convictions in life and a dead personality, was lying face down on the floor. A scarlet colored liquid running from where his face was through to the floor’s drain. My immediate reaction was the irony of a janitor dirtying the floor instead of cleaning it, but soon I realized that I should probably press the panic button. “Help” came at once with their screaming alarms and their white suits, I therefore wasn’t able to collect my books and went home disappointed.
The curious scarlet trickle that came from his visage haunted my thoughts all the way home and I asked Todge about it. “What is Death” I inquired, then her face became very long as it did when she was surprised. She took a moment before answering and looked into my eyes and said: “I don’t know”. It is understandable to not have a conceptual idea of death as no one except the Is (Irvings, pronounced Aye’) and their footmen have ever seen what it is. The truth behind our society is that our lives and minds are caged, not literally, but because all the great truths are held behind closed doors. How can anyone enjoy life without the notion of death the truth is that we are all just surviving.
Mr. Avarus lived in a housing compound similar to everyone else’s he lived a modest life and his only child took his life by venturing outside of the bubble. Avarus’ wife only stayed home and watched the programed entertainment on the television, while he worked and worked just to live. Avarus had a part-time job at the local newspaper as a critic, he wrote to relieve take the edge off life. Avarus’ goal in life was to make a good living and live a lavish life, his dream was not to work.
On my way to school the next day, I crossed a man’s path. This particular man had not shaved in over week, his eyes bloodshot with fatigue he looked right through me and smiled. Deeply frightening was the way in which he reacted to having been cut off by someone in the street. Although courtesy was mandatory, smiles were not and rarely anyone smiled at our miserable state of being or at life in general. I got to class in time for the prayer and took my seat near Joseiah and we started learning about writing. Writing (or written tradition) the teacher said was one of the greatest things we’d ever invented. I always had thought that the greatest thing ever invented was speech but apparently ideas are better spread on paper than by any other medium including the tongue.
On my way out of class for lunch, I saw the man I had seen that same morning and he had a different type of spark in his eyes. Pain could be read in his eyes, whereas this morning their predominant emotion was happiness. Maybe his gaze never changed maybe he was painfully happy or happily painful. Maybe to me happiness is sorrow and I’ve been sorrowful my whole life. The Irvings were ruthless in their ability to kill dreams and to make you feel small. Although propaganda was strictly forbidden by the government they themselves curbed dreams to what they would like them to be often times.
As I lay in bed that night I realized that the world is infinitesimally smaller then we could imagine. The world to me is the bubble, I know of nothing outside of it. The real world could be anything I think up of, reality to me could be what I make of it. The next day I woke up as Sav went to school as Sav wrote a text about life called Words and went to sleep.
Sav died strangled at the hands of the Irvings, and the world he created for himself in the bubble ended. As he slowly was asphyxiated by the white gloves his last thought was: “Words have power only to the broad-minded”. Sav died fulfilled and happy although maybe happiness is sorrow to us and maybe sorrow was his happiness. Todge his th erapist later commented that he never needed therapy, just an outlet for emotion.


-Tophe