The Assignment

The year was 2251, where technology and space travel was so advanced we could go vast distances. A year where 3/4^th of the humankind were no longer on Earth. The world powers were bored of the old earth, so they gathered a multitude of people and voyaged across space in search for a new and more interesting planet to inhabit. They gathered all their resources and built 5 spaceships for all 5 of the different world powers. Russia, the United States, China, United Kingdom, and Germany gathered all their people in the vast and huge spaceships and left Earth for good. The humans, who were left behind, stayed attached to their old ways and never kept in contact with us, the people who decided to leave Earth. I was told this story when I was 10 years old. It is still some-thing I can’t fathom to this point! We are still living on these ships trying to find a planet that is not so boring. What was so dull about the old world? Why would they want to leave? These questions I always asked myself but never really wanted to expand upon. I was more worried on what was to come when I went to high school.

I was born January 1, 2300 at 12:00 in the morning on The United States spaceship. It was a very special year because it was the new millennium and we believed this could finally be the year we found a planet that is new and not boring and inhabitable. I was 14 years old when I graduated 8^th grade. Middle school came so easy to me. I graduated with straight A’s; the only person in my grade and in school history to do so. It was quite remarkable, many people and teachers would say, and I was flattered. I never knew how though, it seemed so easy.  I was never really worried about high school the week before I graduated, that is until graduation day. We were holding our diplomas and sitting on the stage waiting for the principal to give his farewell speech. He came up with a straight face, looking a bit tense and un-easy. “I would like to congratulate the class of 2314 on making it past middle school, but don’t be foolish, your greatest challenge yet will come the day you enter 9^th grade. It will change your life forever as you know it, therefore you need to take it seriously.” This gave me a chill down my spine. I was freaked for good.

Summer ended and I was about to enter 9^th grade. I never forgot about what was told to me the day I graduated. I wasn’t eager to find out about what was going to change my life forever. When we got there we were all told to sit down in front of a huge monitor. When everyone was seated, we were told to be quite and they turned on a video for us to see. “Whaaaaaat?” This was every one’s reaction when the video finished playing. It wasn’t just a video; it was an assignment that we had to do. It explained to us that this assignment was the only thing we had to do for all of 9^th grade and when we turned it in, if we passed the 80% mark, we could go to 10^th grade. After that, until we graduated, further work would not be graded and it would not affect which college we would be accepted to. Only this 9^th grade assignment would be graded.

 While I was watching, I realized that this could finally be the new change humankind was striving for before we reached our ultimate change of getting to a planet that is not boring. In the old world, 9^th grade would be exactly like middle school but the work only got harder. But in this world, this one project decided what career you would pursue. It was crazy yet so awesome. I thought it was going be easy just like middle school. We were then told what the assignment was. We were told that we would have to take a physical and mental test to determine what our role on the spaceship was.

We took the test but we got our results back a month later. Twenty out of 100 students’ passed the 80% mark including me. They let us go home, while the rest had to stay at school.  “I knew it was easy,” I said out loud. I then found out what happened to the kids that stayed. They received a mark on their forearm signifying that they could never get an upper-class job and that they would have to become farmers for the rest of their lives. I then started to wonder again what were the reasons we left the old world. This is where I ask you, the reader. This piece is to open your minds and help you to decide if change is something that we want or need. You have all seen what happened to the people who didn’t pass. Their lives are forever lived in misery. Please help for the greater good. This is Issac telling you to make the decision. 

BBC America. BBC, n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/files/2012/08/starshipuk.jpg>.