Science-Fiction

Oswald awoke, as he did every day, to the grating sounds of his alarm clock buzzing insistently, until he swatted the off button with his hand. He really would have rather slept in, and, as he frequently found himself doing, he wished he could whack his ten-hours-younger self for setting the infernal alarm the previous night. But he knew that today he couldn’t sleep in, no matter how much he wanted to. Today was The Day of Waters, the annual festival within his isolated Community. It was repeated each year as celebration of all that they had accomplished since the founding of the Community six years ago, although why their current state was worth celebrating was too difficult for Oswald to fathom. Although he didn’t feel like attending, the festival was a city-wide holiday, and attendance at the big ceremony was mandatory for all citizens. So what choice did he have, really? Plus, there was free, quality food, a rare luxury in modern society. He kicked off the thin sheet he had lain under, sweating voluminously. He sat up, and walked to the bathroom to get a towel. He despised the weather, which had grown increasingly hotter since the ice caps had melted and started this whole nightmare. He glowered, remembering a vacation he had once taken, travelling to Hawaii for a week. Nobody could ever do that again, though, since all of the islands were underwater. He pulled on a pair of light grey shorts and a thin short sleeve shirt. Even how people dressed had changed. Although the seasons’ names didn’t change, not for any reason other than nostalgia, they became fundamentally different from how they used to be. As the atmosphere trapped more heat, the hotter it became, no matter what season. Snow doesn’t fall on the vast majority of the world, and in some places it is too hot for all but those with nowhere else to go, barely clinging to humanity, and their life. Tapping his thumb against the pad to the left of the doorframe, Oswald trudged outside into the austere hallways of the Community. Many factors lent themselves to the feeling of cold emptiness that seemingly clung to the walls of the Community. There was the lack of plants, due to how inhospitable the hot environment had become to most plants. There were also very few windows showing outside the Community, but this was because there was nothing to look at. The extreme heat had dried out all of the plants in the vicinity, and the only source of water, a landlocked lake, was isolated from the terrain by the technology of the Community, which periodically siphoned some of the lake’s pure water. The lack of plant life had severe effects on the ecosystem. Much of the flora died due to lack of things to eat, and without plants to hold it down, dust swirled around the barren landscape like the souls of the dead plants and animals. Not that it mattered—after all, because the Community was located in rural Nevada, crisis or no, there would still be nothing but dirt and sand to look at. Oswald reached the end of the stark hallway and pressed a button, signaling for an elevator. This wasn’t actually the worst it could get, he begrudgingly accepted. The Community, a safe house for people displaced by the disaster that had gripped the Earth in its hand, was one of the most well-equipped communities in the world. It housed over 10,000 refugees inside its shining walls and had stockpiles of food to last for ten years. Not that it needed it, though; the Community was self-sustaining. It grew crops beneath the compound, and collected rain water as well as purified the water from the nearby lake. And besides, it would all be over in about five years anyways. The elevator beeped, and the doors slid open, letting Oswald step inside. The elevator was already full of members of the Community, most of whom were dressed more elegantly than Oswald. The stainless steel doors slid closed, and the elevator rocketed up, fast approaching the Parlor. With another resolute ding, the elevator stopped, and the elegantly dressed party-goers disembarked. The Parlor was the fanciest section of the Community, which is to say that there was no stainless steel in sight. Today it was filled with cushy red folding chairs, each facing the stage, where a classical orchestra was playing. Later in the day, the High Chancellor of the Nevada Community would be giving his Day of Waters address there. For the time being, though, the seats were empty, and all of the guests were bustling around, talking and eating. Oswald waded his way through the crowd of people, grabbing a cheesy potato gratin from a passing server as he walked. Or rather, it was a substitute for potato, since most of the potatoes had been submerged when the ice caps melted, raising the water level more than 200 feet over what it had been previously. Oswald’s stomach growled hungrily as he neared the food table. The table was covered with an assortment of foods, as exotic as they came these days. Although the Community couldn’t serve any fish, sushi, or shrimp, as a result of the toxicity of the water, they made up for it by training skilled chefs to create top of the line pastries and elegant meals. But that didn’t stop Oswald from craving sushi. He swiped a bear claw from the table and contemplated all the foods he couldn’t eat anymore. Seafood was an impossibility, more trouble than it was worth; when the climate grew warmer, the permafrost in Alaska melted, revealing a nasty surprise for the people of Earth: there were about 800 million kilograms of mercury hiding there. That, coupled with rising waters, proved to be a disaster. Countries scrambled to contain the mercury, but they were too late, and it leached into the water, killing almost all ocean life in a span of

In his book Meaning, Galer wrote, “God created the human race as an experiment; He wanted to see if life was capable of creating for Him. Ultimately, He wanted us to produce beauty.” I felt that I had failed Him. I had been practicing from a young age, yet my music remained mostly devoid of beauty. And despite that fact, I continued to practice. “It’s for my family,” I would always tell myself when I listened to myself play. I wasn’t referring to my mother or father, but to my mid-family, the Burkes. The Burkes have been famed for their music for the past 60 years (before that, they weren’t really famous for anything). The most well-known singer’s name was John Burke Raymond. The best composer was Sophia Burke Kasparov. Burkes weren’t just everywhere in the music world. They entirely comprised it. Even my music teacher, Ms. Tilson, was a Burke. She was very good at being a Burke. She didn’t just play well; she played with a captivating, eccentric style. She would be famous if only her personality didn’t reflect that to quite the extreme that it did. She was almost crazy. I have never felt like a Burke. My music was bitter to the ears. People sometimes asked me if my viola was broken. The pastor who gave me my middlename at baptism continued to insist that he had given me the correct one. The pastor was a Follower of Galer who had converted from an older religion after being “shown the way” by older Followers. As a result, he had no middlename. He went by Papa Chris, and everyone in town going back two generations loved him. One night, after a particularly bad concert for the town’s Winter Festival, when I was eleven, I asked Papa Chris if he was sure that he hadn’t made a mistake in choosing my middlename. “Of course not! I can see you improving every day!” he said. He was lying. I’m not sure why he lied, but the forced smile on his face made the lie clear. “Even my mom winced!” I said in protest, as if I had a point to prove. He went on to assure me that I would get better over time. Even Burkes weren’t always prodigies, after all. Despite his reassurance, my viola still sounds like its voice is cracking whenever I try to play. The night after the concert I dreamt I was dancing across the surface of a viola dressed in ballet clothes, desperately trying to keep up with the flawless music. It ended with me falling off the edge into the dark abyss. These midnight terrors continue to this day: the most recent example involved me playing music for a party of fiery demons who would cook me alive if I failed. Unreality, Galer’s book on dreams, says that dreams of this sort (dreams in which the subject is forced to do something for a party of festive demons) usually represent a need for flight. Unreality is not his most religious work. My best friend then was Jonah Rosedale Beatty. The Rosedales were known for being aristocratic. They were envied by most, and they had formed a tight alliance among themselves over time. Rosedales often came to resent their status as much as it was envied by others. Jonah, who hardly believed that he would become rich because of his Rosedale name, often joked about his place in society. When I would desperately attempt to play my music, he would cheer me on by saying, “When I become rich, I’ll make you my head musician!” This made us both laugh, but I secretly wished that it would come true. I would daydream about conducting an orchestra in Jonah’s mansion, being applauded by the nation’s most powerful. It was one of the few things motivating me to continue. Jonah had to leave last year. The riots in our city were getting especially bad, and Rosedales were the main target. As a result, Rosedale leaders started paying for their fellow Rosedales, whom they saw as their nieces and nephews, to leave the rioting cities. We lived in one of the safest parts of town, in a very open space where almost everybody was contented, but Jonah’s paranoid parents took the money anyway. A few months ago, I received this letter from Jonah:   Dear Head Musician, The country is very boring. I can’t tell my parents because that would be ungrateful, so I decided to send you a letter. A lot of the kids here are Rosedales like me. It’s the only thing we can really bond over. One of them, Mason, is from our school in the city. Do you remember Mason? I didn’t until he approached me. I never even knew that he was a Rosedale! The people in the countryside are excited to have us all here. They seem to be under the false impression that we’ll draw people out into their towns. They think that wherever Rosedales go, everyone else will follow. Given how much people seem to hate us, I wouldn’t agree. The weather out here is usually very sunny and dry. In the winter, there was no snow. My parents say that I’ll be able to visit them this winter. I guess we’ll be able to see each other again! I’ll be excited to see how much my chief musician has improved! Please write back! Yours truly, Jonah “ When I become rich, I’ll make you my head musician!. It took me a month to write back. I wrote a very short letter because I honestly couldn’t think of much to say. I was especially reluctant because I didn’t want to admit that I had not improved at all. Here is my letter:   Dear Jonah, If you were hoping for improvement, you will probably be disappointed. It will be a while before I’m prepared to be your Head Musician. It is good to hear that you are