We Are All Equal

• Amber Harper, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2017

Dear Diary

Times have changed since my great great great grandfather was around. The systems have changed. The law has changed. People are no long equal. The rich and the poor have been separated. The government controls everything. Including death. Technology has gotten stronger more detailed and defined. Everyone fits into this world. Everyone has their own place in the system. Each side have their own rules. The poor can never look at the rich, or talk to the rich, or pretend to be rich and the rich, even though they never would, can never help the poor.

The rich have a different phones to the poor, although they look the same. The phone controls our health. It will send us alerts when something is wrong. I got one a few years ago saying I was going to get a cold and that I need to stay indoors and two days later, I became sick. The poor don’t get notified when they will become infected with some kind of decease. They will get told they are dying, but that is may not always really be true. Its seems the poor only ever get notified when it comes to death. The government is the reason behind that.

No one knows when the separation happened, it’s like we woke up one day and it had happened. My mother and father grew up just like I did and so did my grandparents and their parents. For generations we have lived in fear of the unknown. We all breathe the same air so therefore, the poor cannot be the reason we are getting sick.

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While I walk to school I can’t help but visit the border. The only thing blocking us from them. I don’t come here often but when I do come here I can’t help but think about what life would be like if I was poor. How different could it be? I have thought about crossing, just to see, just to feel the orange dirt on my feet, to feel the rocks and dead grass. To experience what life would be like if I was poor. I know that if I cross, I will not be allowed back. I will never see my friends or family again and id have to adapt to the life of having nothing.

Many poor people have tried to cross over into our side of the world but due to their phones and microchip in their arm, if they cross, they will die. They are never given the same opportunities as us, they are never given the chance of a long and beautiful life. I never understood why the rules are different. We are all human, we all have a heart, being rich or poor, Christion or not, different coloured skin, it shouldn’t matter, we are all human and we all belong.