Life in the future

Life in the future by Vicky G.

I was walking down the street, next to a police officer. Well, I wasn’t really sure about that because he was wearing a sky blue uniform, not a dark blue one, but other than that he looked like a policeman. We reached a strange house which was made of cubes with lots of plants at the top. The officer rang the doorbell and a woman opened the door. She was wearing… ,well I didn’t really get that. It looked like a dress, which was upside down. Maybe it was just not my style. The officer said: „Hello, I am Officer Sand. And you must be Mrs. Jonson! This is your father, Kevin Jonson,“ he pointed at me. „missing since 2015. We found him on a little Caribbean island. He should live here for…“ The woman, who was probably my daughter, cut his word: „Excuse me? What is going on here?” The officer answered: “Well, sorry about this, it’s a little complicated.” I said: “I don’t get any of this, please talk more slowly.” The woman replied: “OK, slow down everybody. What about sitting inside and talking with a nice cup of tea?“

Everybody went inside. I saw lots of strange furniture in all kinds of colours and interesting shapes, but it all looked good, in fact. A huge calendar was hanging on the wall: the year 2074 was written on it. My head was running wild.

„I am 25, aren’t I? No, definitely not. When I went missing, I had just married Jane, we made a boat trip. So I’m 84 now! OMG!“ We all sat down and Officer Sand told my daughter everything about me.

Some minutes later the officer left me and my luggage at the cube house and went away. „Mimi come down here!“, my daughter yelled. Who in the world is Mimi? maybe a dog?  Wrong: Mimi, Misty in fact, is my granddaughter. Her mum told her to show me the city and to tell me all about modern life.

Right now we are in a shop where you can buy lots of food. The vegetables have not changed, except for a mixture of tomato and cherry, but lots of other things are different. Many products are made of insects because I think there is not much meat. In the end we bought ham, cheese, insect burgers and a dragon energy drink.

At the moment we are sitting in the park. Everybody is looking at me because of my clothes. I mean, what’s so strange about a shirt and an old pair of jeans? These people are wearing strange things. Who is wearing an orange dress with pink jeggings underneath and hair like a bird’s nest? Stupid question – this woman does. I am looking at her right now. And that man over there is wearing a shirt that goes down to his knees. That’s ugly. Very ugly.

Misty tells me that there is a kid’s party in every town and there are even five children in parliament who can tell their ideas and problems to the politicians. Some jobs have changed too. There are no more nurses, instead there are “easy docs” to help if somethings is wrong with you: health assistants and psychological assistants. Everybody can go to the hospital and talk or play with the people.

At school they have got extra teachers who help the teacher, but often the students are doing their own lessons. The teacher gives every student a topic and he or she has to do a lesson about it. I like that a lot!

The climate has improved because people watch out and help save nature. They use less plastic and more glass than we did. When you go to the supermarket you bring your own bottles, like this there is not so much trash.

Mila is driving an older car with electric power. The latest trend is a water car which works by using water inside the car. The water is pressed through a turbine which gives the power to the car. It works easily and it is great for the environment. The cars look good, there are lots of colours and strange designs.

People get energy by WIWASUs, WInd-WAter-SUns. That are wind turbines which are in the water with water turbines at the “ foot“ and Solar all around. They always produce natural energy and everybody likes it.

Not only my family lives in a strange house. I have seen a huge skyline and one of the houses had a waterfall on one side of the building and little rivers are everywhere in the city. Many things are made of glass, so you can see everything.

In the end Misty showed me her favourite place. It is a beautiful place on an area only for kids. It had already turned dark when we reached it. It was an old tree next to a lake right in the park. On the tree there was a swing and you could see the sky in the lake, it was beautiful. Then her mum called. Misty took her watch, it looked like a folded piece of paper. She unfolded it. It was her phone! Wow that was awesome! I’d love to have one! We went home and had our insect burgers, they were delicious. I slept on the sofa but I didn’t care, I was just too tired to think anymore. I fell asleep within minutes. This day was amazing and I really like the future. Everybody takes care of nature, the world and everyone else. Tomorrow I’m going to ask Mila about Syria and the war, hopefully it stopped.