I recently came across a floppy disc. Yeah, that's right. Something that I used to once think was pretty cool to save files on and take them with you. And now in the world of removable memory something that holds just over 3mb is laughed at.
I thought I would check and see what might be on this discs and so I thought I would pop them in the computer. Oh wait, my computer doesn't even take floppy discs. So I took them to work with me because I knew we had one computer that still read them.
On one I found a folder called creative. It was a half dozen stories I had written for a creative writing class I took at the college while I was a senior in high school. So that means this story is about 13 years old. I read through it and it cracked me up. This is mostly because it takes place in the future - in the year 2025. And some of the technology stuff is already outdated.
So here you go. One of my favorite stories I have ever written.
THE
MOVING SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK CITY
(Because laziness knocks on
your door every so often.)
Written in the year 2000
“Now students, when you
finish typing this assignment, e-mail it to me.
For those of you who have forgotten my e-mail address AGAIN it is: 2025apples@futureshock.com.” Mrs. Webb sounded irritated. Actually, Mrs. Webb didn’t sound like herself
unless she sounded irritated.
My name is Taylor. I go to the HUGE Sixth Street School in New
York City. The big brick building on the corner. You couldn’t miss it. Our teacher, Mrs. Webb, reminds me of my
grandmother. She isn’t as old though.
But she always looks down her nose at us if she sees us playing games or
talking. Yesterday, Mrs. Webb told us about high school in the year 2000. We
couldn’t believe how different it was from our school. Twenty-five years really makes a
difference.
One thing that is so shocking for my
friends and me is how the students bought paper and had to write their work out
on it. We each have a lap top computer
to take home for our homework (like we ever have any), and a ZYX computer to do
our work on at school. When we finish
our work, we just send it on over to our teacher’s computer.
“Students, you were so interested in
the schools in the past, I found a really neat website with pictures and all
sorts of interesting stuff. I have transferred it over to your computers. It
should be on file now.”
“High school students went to seven
different classes a day; one for each subject,” I read to myself.
“Hey Ben?” I called out. “Good thing the teachers come to us now, you
get lost finding our classroom when you come back from lunch.”
“Aahh, shut up, Taylor!” Ben knew it was true. The robo-dog had to bring him back at least
twice a week.
One school mentioned in all the information our
teacher found, was Chester High School.
This school was a little school in a little town where everyone knew
each other. That must have been annoying. The funniest part was that the students in
this high school would try to sneak food and drinks in the classrooms. They weren’t supposed to have them and when
they got caught, they would not get to leave for lunch. I don’t understand why
they were so strict. At my school, each
student has their own area with a desk for our computers, a lamp, a clock, an
electric pencil sharpener and stapler, and a phone. Uhmm, let’s see what else. Oh, all the usual
supplies like: pens and pencils, tape scissors, markers, white out, and a CD
player. Some of this stuff we don’t even
use, like the pens and pencils. The
computers cancel out those things, but the janitorial staff keeps replacing the
ones we throw away. And as for food, on
the side of our desk there is a refrigerator and freezer and a microwave. We can eat or drink whenever we want. At the back of the room there is a bigger
computer where we can order things like pizza, fries, milkshakes, and pretty
much whatever we want. Then what we
order is brought to us in about ten minutes.
“Taylor,”
whispered Madison. “Can you believe they
only had a half-hour for lunch? Hey,
that reminds me, that new movie we wanted to see is out. Do you want to go at
lunch?”
“Sure,” I said. Madison has been my friend longer
than I can remember. Our mothers have
been friends since they were in high school.
We both finished our work early. We went into the game room and played some
video games and watched TV as we watched the minutes on the clock tick by. Finally, it was eleven o’clock and the
dismissal announcement went off over the loudspeaker. We practically ran down the escalators. We
stepped on the sidewalk going in the direction of the mall, which reminds of
another funny thing of the past. Our
sidewalks move. They are like flat
escalators and take you where you want to go.
Those in the past actually had to walk to their destinations. Anyway, we went to the mall and ate some
lunch and then we went to the movie. The
movie ended around 2:00 and we had another half an hour before our lunch break
was over, so we did some quick shopping.
When we got to class, we put our bags in our storage areas and noticed
there was a new assignment on the board.
We were supposed to look up some information from
the past on the Internet. Mrs. Webb
wanted us to do a report comparing the past to the present day. Everyone was complaining. This was the second report we had to do this
year. Mrs. Webb is always overloading us
with too much work. I don’t ever know
how I will get it all done. What does
she expect? Again we were shocked when
we found out that they used to have machines called an automobile. We used to have something like what was
described. Except, the information said
that instead of flying through the air, the automobile drove on a hard pavement
thing called a street. These automobiles
were also very hard to look after. They
required constant check-ups and fluids to make the car run. Not only were these cars five times as
expensive but the fluids they put in their car were expensive too. We call our type of transportation a saucer
and we don’t have to feed the saucer with any special chemicals. Once a month you add water to the steam pipe
and you are set for the next month.
Madison and I were working on this assignment
together. We found out that because the
automobiles had to stay on the street, it caused the streets to be very
crowded. There was even a time they
called “rush hour.” We don’t have that
problem since we can go anywhere in the sky.
Like we would have the time anyway.
We never knew so much about the past. Our parents never
talk about it. They must be trying to
block it out of their memory. I would, if I were them. It’s 3:30 and time to leave school. Tomorrow is Friday, so I don’t have to be
there until 9:30. Maybe I will finally
catch up on my rest. School has been so
exhausting lately. I think they should
extend our lunch break so we have time to take a nap if we want.
The End
I wanted to change and fix a few things in that story but I thought that would ruin the "written a long time ago" factor. Maybe it is time to write another story that takes place in the future and see where technology takes us. I hope I remember to pull this story out in the year 2025 to really compare.
