Short Fiction
A glimpse at a darker future
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They rode the A train up in silence, glad to have caught it. The out-of-breath-ness left them alone with their thoughts. It was painful to let optimism carry her away just to deposit her back into the reality that was her life now. Still her Dad pounded into her the habit of counting her blessings. The subway was working today, a mild relief to not have to walk the 4 and a half miles home. Her bookbag seemed lighter lately, but it wasn’t as light as when she could simply use the netbook.
Her thoughts dreamed into the past, when a rosy future was all but a guarantee. She remembered surfing the web for High Schools, and future careers and mp3′s, and whatever else was the province of a near teenager. The social networking sites kept her abreast of all the latest trends and what her friends were up to. That was until electricity became unreliable.
The new president came in with such great hope and promise. The fears of global terrorism started to fade, or at least it wasn’t the lead in the nightly news, and it wasn’t plastered all over the net. The recession distracted everyone, but there was a silver lining to it. People started to not take things for granted as much. Family and friends wasn’t just a cell phone slogan – it meant something again. That stimulus bill was going to improve the electrical grid, create jobs, carry us all out of the recession – until that fateful day. It was hard to think about it. Best to think about more pleasant things.
She longed for her little DS and the multitude of games she had on it. It made travel time more bearable. Wait! The kid a few feet over was playing something… She strained to see what it was. In between shuffling passengers, she could almost make out buttons being pressed, little giggles as some high score was attempted. How could this kid be playing a game? All the juice was being rationed. The corner billboards all said that the hospitals needed it to save lives. What was that kid thinking?
As the train car emptied at 72nd steet, she eased over and saw that it was just a cardboard box. That kid was playing the cardboard box from a DS- and having a good time at it. She smiled, and then lost the smile. It was a bittersweet moment. Her fingers nervously twitched, the muscle memory from countless hours of play.
