The Era
Illustration: Ansellia Kulikku. “Suck one and die,” says Scotty, a tall, mostly-true, kid. “I’m aggressive ’cause I think you don’t know shit.”
We’re in HowItWas class.
“Well,” Mr. Harper says, twisting his ugly body toward us, “you should shut your mouth because you’re a youth-teen who doesn’t know shit about shit, and I’m a full-middler who’s been teaching this stuff for more years than I’m proud of.”
“Understood,” says Scotty.
Then Mr. Harper went back to talking about the time before the Turn, which came after the Big Quick War, which came after the Long Big War. I was thinking about going to the nurse for some pre-lunch Good. I do bad at school because sometimes I think when I should be learning.
“So after the Big Quick,” Mr. Harper continues in his bored voice, “science and philosopher guys realized that people had been living wrong the whole time before. Sacrificing themselves, their efficiency, and their wants. This made a world of distrust and misfortune, which led to both Big Wars.”
“Back then, everyone was a liar. It was so bad that it would not have been uncommon for people to tell Samantha,” Mr. Harper points a finger at Samantha, who sits next to me, “that she was beautiful, even though, obviously, she is hideous.” Samantha nods her ugly head showing she understands. Her face is squished so bad she’s always looking in two different directions. Sometimes, kids who get pre-birth opti-selected come out all messed up. Samantha is “unoptimal.” That’s the official name for people like her, whose optimization screwed up and made their bodies horrible. I don’t have any gene corrections. I wasn’t optimized at all. I am not optimal or ideal. But I’m also not unoptimal, so I wasn’t going to look like Samantha, which is good. It’s not all good though, since no opti-select means no chance of being perfect either. I don’t care. I’m true. I’m proud, still. Looking over, being nosy ’cause sometimes I do that, I see Samantha log into her class pad: I would have been pretty/beautiful.
“Or,” and now Mr. Harper is looking at me. I can feel him thinking me into an example. “Back then a teacher might’ve told Ben, who we know is a dummy, that he was smart or that if he would just apply himself, he’d do better.” The class laughs ’cause they think a world where I’m smart is hee-haw. In my head, I think, Mr. Harper, do you think that back then students would think you were something other than a fat, ugly skin sack? Then I say, “Mr. Harper, do you think back then students would think you were something other than a fat, ugly skin sack?”
“I don’t know what they’d say about me,” Mr. Harper says. “Probably that it was a great thing that I was a teacher and that my life didn’t suck. Anything else, Ben?” I start to say something else about how they must have really, really liked lying to say Mr. Harper was a good teacher, but I don’t say that out loud because even though I’m being true, they’d say I was being emotional and it was clouding my truth.
“I understand,” I say.
Being emotional isn’t prideful, and being truthful, prideful, and intelligent are the best things. I’m truthful and prideful as best as I can be. Emotional truth-clouding was the main thing that led to the Long Big War and the Big Quick War.
Together they’re called the Water Wars because of how the Federation Forces lied to its own people about the how the Amalgamation had poisoned the water reservoirs. The result was catastrophic/horrific. Then, since the people of the old Federation were mad because of their own truth-clouding, they kept on warring for years and years, and the old Federation became the New Federation that stands proudly today. Later on, when the Amalgamation of Allies suspected a key reservoir had been poisoned, they asked the New Federation if they’d done it. In a stunning act of graciousness and honesty, my New Federation ancestors told the truth, said, “Yeah, we did poison that reservoir,” and in doing so, saved many, many lives, which were later more honorably destroyed via nuclear.
