School’s True Purpose

• Caroline Xie, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Jessie stifles a yawn. Her professor’s monotone voice drones on about quadratics as she mindlessly tosses her eraser up and down in the air.
“School is a waste of time. It’s not going to help me anyway,” she thinks. She starts to doodle on her maths textbook, completely ignoring her professor’s explanations. In a flash, a cloud of blue smoke blocks her vision of her professor and the confusing maths equations that are hastily scrawled onto the whiteboard. She gasps audibly at the sight before her. The classroom disappears and suddenly she’s on the busy streets of New York. A large transparent figure looms above her, dressed in a merry, Christmas ensemble. It’s eyes look like beautiful, polished gold earrings and they almost seemed to flicker like flames.
“Um h-he-hell-o? C-c-an I h-he-help you?” Jessie stammers, not meeting the figure’s flashing gold eyes.
“ Follow me,” it says with ambiguity.
She obliged, fearful of what it might do to her if she doesn’t obey.

They stroll along the exuberant streets filled with bustling people. They round a corner and she stares. Before her is clearly herself, with brown hair and bright blue eyes, but a modified version of herself. The modified (and much older) version of herself is crouching on the side of the street with a sign in her trembling hands: ‘Please help. I am hungry and homeless.’ Her usually luscious brown hair is now dry and twig-like and tears are gleaming on the surface of her eyes. She’s also wearing filthy rags and is covered by a thin brown blanket. Jessie is aghast and confused.
“Wha-?”
“It’s you, but an alternate version of you. This you didn’t get an education sufficient enough to get a job or enough money to support your needs. Now this is your only option; to rely on other people’s kindness.” The figure’s knowing eyes bore into her sapphire blue ones.
The alternate version of herself sits there helplessly, while people with designer bags and clothes ignore her and carry on with their day, not having a second to spare giving the less fortunate a single penny.
Jessie lowers her head and thinks of her abhorrent behaviour in class in the past year. She glances up again at the modified version of her and sighs. She is now determined to be a better version of herself and to study hard to ensure that this doesn’t happen. She turns around to thank the figure for this vision but finds herself alone, sitting at the same white desk in the same maths classroom as before.