Zenith

Society

20th August, 2029

Azalea Scriven hit her head on the bed rest and it spoke up, "Get up! You're sleeping," sending her flying off the bed and onto the ground. She looked around through the curtain of hair that was covering her face. She swept herself off the ground in a graceful movement equivalent to that of a dancer. She resumed her seat on her bed and propped her books in front of her eyes that lay teetering at the edge.

'The New World', she wrote on the paper in front of her. [Yes, they still had to write themselves and that too for school!] The 15-year old Azalea had enquired about the old world from her mother. The world had become so different, was all she could think. It made her proud to think that they had saved the earth but, on the other hand, it made her sad that they had lost the world given to them.

She gazed around her room for inspiration for her English assignment. Her room was elaborately decorated with posters staring around at each other, covering the pearly colored walls that changed colors according to her mood. Right now, the color was pink revealing health and happiness. The shelves around the room were full of little boxes like the icons on the computer screen displaying different names of books. The floor was carpeted with a flowery purple. There was nothing else in the room except for her songs, which like the books looked like icons, took a corner of the room and a hover bed in the centre.

Getting no inspiration from her room, she went over to the window to look out. She heard a plane take off. Every ten floors had their very own highway and their own airplanes. The airplane for their ten floors was right over their floor. She looked down only to get vertigo as she always did. Well, 259th floor was really up high! The ground was nowhere to be seen. A good idea struck her as she continued to stare down but now her look was fazed and she was really not looking.

She stared writing her assignment, as soon as she had taken her place with all her things.

The new world is obviously different from the old one. In the first place, it gives us a reason to name it a 'new world'. Secondly, we have evidence to prove it. My mother has told me about her life and, comparing it to my life; I have figured that we live in a completely different world. It is more like an alternate universe.

But, one thing, that is completely similar to the old ways is the society. Our buildings are one-mile long and a city lives as a single unit in one such building. But this does not have any effect on our social thinking. Why should my city, Zion be bereft of this? The cities are still divided on the basis of status.

My building has 300 floors. The lower status people live in small apartments in the lower 100 floors; middle status people in little bigger apartments in the middle 200 floors and high status people, including me, live in the upper floors in huge apartments. The top floor is reserved for the Mayor, Mr. Bolard Gifjack (present). The second floor is for the respective company of the city and the third floor is for the school. The people are also inter-divided.

The people living on upper floors still continue the old tradition of high-class parties. The gossip among women, the show-off and the quality of food still persists. But the parties come with one change, the food is served by robots and the waiters are robots. Another minor change is that the food is packed into little capsules to be drunk with water.

Robots serve people in their homes too. But this facility is only limited to the upper floors and a little of the middle floors.

Now coming from society to school, another thing that has remained concrete to its base from the old times, it continues to affect the lives of children all over. The best thing about school is that it houses the children from all over the building no matter what their status is. Everyone sits together.

Another thing good about the school is that the exam papers are corrected by robots with no scope of partiality.

Not only this, even jobs are not much affected by society even though they do decide the stature of the person. Actually the labor you are given for your job decides on which floor you buy the apartment.

Therefore, all things just add up to affect society though society may not affect them.

And, well, the inspiration ended. She shook her head, assessing if the assignment was exactly 440 words or not. She thought so, but she had to check. She put the Word Count Tool to the paper to check. It read 418 words. Just 22 words… What had she missed?

She reflected on all possibilities of what she could write. She brought the pen down to the paper and thought whatever she wrote next would be the last thing she inked on the paper, no matter how many words they were, she'd just submit the paper through the paper tube that came to each house at 9 at night for submission of assignments.

The world has changed so much that what all should I tell you, I just can't decide…

437 words.

Three words to go.

Thank You!

439 words.

Just one more!

Everyone!