Kennedy+Woods

Maybe when half of the city drowned in the flood May 16, 2050, we had much greater things to worry about—things far greater than the turnout of our final year in high school, a high school which is now named Hutchison Brothers and Sisters Reformation School of Memphis. Today, August 23, 2051, we seniors are making up for the year that we lost after the flood, working towards our graduation that should’ve taken place in the 2050-2051 school; the only problem with that was that there was no school year starting in August of 2050. In the hallways, I hear “…My family, the Miller’s, and the Chesney’s had to move into Mark’s guest house.” On the second floor bulletin board, where there were once school social events written and decorated on a giant calendar in hot pink and lavish purple dry-erase marker, there are now crumpled, blunt hand-written ‘missing person’ posters overlapping another poster that encourages high school students to drop out of school and volunteer to rebuild the city; we all do our best to ignore the government suggestion which is required to be displayed on every street corner, the back of every stop sign, and as a result, it is graphitized in our dreams. I, myself, will never consider dropping out of school, but quite frankly, there’s no reason to be here. During the most exciting and exhilarating time of my life, the most devastating natural disaster in the history of the country struck the mid-south, and in three weeks’ time, my life had crumbled to pieces. Dreams that once included college and big-time careers have now turned into a desperate hope for the rest of the now heartless American cities to send us some type of aid. With no executive government in the country, no caring citizens, and bank accounts that have been wiped out completely, I wonder why things don’t appear to be more corrupt here. Then again, what is corrupt? In convocation, the new headmaster reads off the weekly attendance requirements. “On the twenty-ninth all students are required to report to the gymnasium for the following memorial services: Elton Marshall, Patricia Harcourt, Marjorie Bradley…” This list continues on for what seems like hours and a list of hundreds of names. The ‘High-Noses’, as we are now called, are required to attend all Saturday memorials because of our decision to attend school. This is a part of everyone’s grief-driven desire to tear us private school kids out of school and into the streets with the rest of the city. We’re hated because we were the only ones with an option to learn. What else was I supposed to do? Should I have given up on my dreams of a bright future for myself? No. I refuse. Maybe //I do// look stuck-up and selfish, and maybe //I do// seem like I’m on my ‘high horse’, but if that’s what it takes to get single drop of what my life used to be, I’ll be as heartless and stuck-up as I need to be.After all, //the world is only a heartless, bottomless, pit filled with grief of destruction and emptiness.//