A Day in the Life – Curtis Wiggins

Chad was running late this morning. He hoped it wouldn’t take much longer to get through security. It had been an hour already, and he was only halfway through the line. If he didn’t make it inside by 4 AM he would miss his first period class.

Still, Chad was glad he went to one of the smaller schools. Matthew Gaetz High only had twenty thousand students. He preferred the smaller class sizes, anything over a thousand students and he felt like the personal touch got lost. He had heard the off-world high schools routinely had over half a million students. Hell, Elon Musk High he heard just topped two million. He couldn’t imagine.

Chad’s phone beeped, another gunfight broke out this morning in the west sector, near the Quantum Mechanics lab. Great, that would slow down the security checkpoint even more. He hated Quantum Mechanics, why’d he have to study that, it’s not like he would ever use it. God, he hoped he could get a better job than quantum mechanic.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. He would be inside in another hour. He was looking forward to heading up to the automat on the twelfth floor for breakfast. Twelve always had the best maple bacon honey sriracha pancakes, and at two hundred dollars was quite the bargain.

Chad was a junior this year, and it had its perks. He could commandeer a seat from a lowly freshman on the cross-high tube. This was no small thing, since he had screwed up and scheduled back to back classes, Intelligent Design Biology and Early American Sitcoms, in opposite wings of the school. It was 20 kilometers (12 miles) by tube, and if he had a seat he could finish up last night’s homework before fourth period.

He hated that all measurements had to be in two units. Why was that. Why did God’s America have to be the last holdout, even Liberia and Myanmar had gone metric. Of course, Liberia had no choice. Once they joined the African Union, the rest of the Goldies in the AU forced them to convert. He remembered studying the Three Day ANSI/SI War in the World History. And of course Myanmar no longer existed, having long since been annexed by Indo-Pakistan.

Chad wondered if he would have time to visit the shopping mall on six after breakfast. Probably, since he would definitely miss the beginning of first period, might as well skip the rest of it and go shopping. He pulled out his phone for a quick Buddy-Hack-It® of the attendance database, and he was all set. A nice leisurely morning jostling with five thousand other students for the last pair of ultra-violet tactical shorts. Should be fun.

Chad thought he should check the tube schedule, the transfer from twelve to six was always tricky. Heh, “tube”, he remembered reading it was named after the old underground subway in London, back before London was nuked by the terrorists. He’d like to visit one day, thought it would be interesting to see, if he could afford the rad-suit rental.

It’s not like he would really miss anything in first period. His first period God in Government class was so boring. He only took it because it was mandatory by Junior year, along with God in Medicine and God in Human Reproduction. Yeah, the “holy trinity” classes, super boring each one. It sucked too, if only he could drop one class, he could make it home before 10 PM, but no, without the three “God in” classes he could never become Senior. He had heard about some students doing that on purpose, staying in high school for six or seven years, even longer. There was a legend about one kid who stayed in twelve years, but Chad didn’t believe it. Still, not a bad idea if one wanted to avoid the pressures of college.

Chad was lucky, he would qualify for financial aid. For the kids that didn’t, going to college was damn near impossible. I mean who can come up with eight hundred thousand dollars a year, plus room and board. Nope, if you didn’t make it to college it was either live on the streets, or take a job in one of those 2 billion square foot (185 million square meter) Amazon fulfillment cubes.

He’d take life on the street any day, once you entered one of those giant cubes, you never came out again. They all now required you to live in on-site housing and attend on-site church services. Of course, you could use your three vacation days a year to leave the cube and go somewhere, but most people just stayed and slept in for the three days.

Nah, life on the streets would be just fine. I mean, that’s probably where he would end up after college anyway. It was pretty easy, just get a tent and a shopping cart and you’ve got it made, all you had to do was keep track of which shelters had food when, and the No Place Like Homeless® app made that easy to track. Sure, his parents still felt there was a stigma to being homeless, but they were from a different generation. They, with their easy 21.9% mortgages and first time homebuyer assistance, they didn’t get the fact that kids out of school these days just didn’t have access to those kinds of easy living resources.

That reminded him. Matthew Gaetz High was hosting an Urban Survival Workshop next year. He hoped it wasn’t too late to sign up. MG High was the only high school in the state progressive enough to offer it, and it only came around once every four years. The overnight parking lot camping session even simulated life in a real homeless camp. He couldn’t wait, it was going to be awesome.

The gunfire off in the distance snapped Chad out of his urban survival daydream. It seemed lighter than usual today. Sounded like it was coming from the Creationist Chemistry lab this time, that was different. He wondered if the student factions had changed. He would need to check his Gangz® app before entering, just in case he needed to change his route.

It seemed like forever, but he was getting closer. The line was moving faster now. Looked like just another twenty minutes until he reached security. It might turn out to be a good day after all.

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