The Learning Curve

A society resembling a dystopia, called 'Childavia,' and one child who feels the need to reach outside of his boundaries and ask the fundamental question, 'Why?'

 

           The Teacher-Screen was talking again. It spoke in a low, listless voice of past wars and the disturbing inhumanity of the methods used to gain information. The Teacher-Screen was merely a flat screen that stretched across the wall across from us, displaying images related to the topic and relaying the voice of our teacher. I had never before seen this teacher, whether on Teacher-Screen or physically, but I knew him to be a boring man that went by the name of Mr. Strenton.

            “And so, children, on April fourteenth, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a play.”

            A quick, furtive glance around told me that my fellow students were as uninterested as I was. It was all well and good to give dates, names, and places of these supposed battles, but one could not imagine it. How could I even attempt to imagine a society built on the blood of enemies; even worse, how could I imagine pain? If I am supposed to empathize with these savages of many years past, I needed to know why.

            Why should I empathize? I cannot envision a battlefield, I cannot taste tears, I cannot feel pain. Pain is a foreign concept, so how am I to care? I have never felt the injustice of a wrongfully made law, the sting of a surprise fall to the pavement.

             The Teacher-Screen blanked to a black screen with a dutiful, ‘Good day, students,’ and there was an audible sigh within the Teaching-Area. The age group 10-12 prepared for our next class; math.

            The walk home was quiet, as usual. A person of the Old Ages might find it strange that not one child spoke to each other after classes, not one child played in the street after school, not one child had ever stood and asked, ‘Why is this so?’

            We know what the world was like before Childavia. We know the facts of the war, we know that the world was once populated with people called ‘adults;’ those who would tower over us and speak in a pitch not unlike Mr. Strenton. They were the rulers, and we know this. But we, of the New Age, do not realize that, perhaps, something is missing.

            I leave school everyday and arrive at my house mere minutes later. Childavia is small; only three miles each way by Old Age measurements. As far as I know, nobody has dared to go the three miles. I question if, perhaps, my classmates do not wonder the way I do. Do they fear, or do they just not care?

            It marvels me that one would not want to the way I do. I sit in those classes day after day with the same questions; do my classmates feel the same? Or are they, as I have seen, simply blank slates? Those immovable faces, uncaring visages, still bodies.

            The concept of ‘protest’ was once explained to my classmates and I. Simply, if one believes their world is not to their liking, they rally. They fight to make it right again; so perhaps this is what I should do? If I stand up, will others join me, or will I be alone? Reasoning implies that a lone protester quickly falls quiet.

            But without knowledge of what I was missing, I can’t rightfully protest. Why ask for a better life if you have no knowledge of what that life could be? A taste is all I ask. I need to know why I should care, why I am being protected from pain and feeling. If they are so bad, why not give me a taste, so I know. Just so I can know and not have all of these questions swimming in my head!

            I wish there were some higher knowledge, somebody I could ask. All I have are questions without answers.

            In history class, we were once told of a man named Albert Einstein, who invented the ‘Theory of Relativity.’ Another man, Isaac Newton, discovered the law of motion.

            If people from such a simple time could figure these things out, what was stopping us?

            I have decided I want to discover. I am standing on the walkway outside of my home, and the pavement has never looked so daunting. Suddenly I am noticing each ragged, jutting detail of the ground beneath me, and I am hesitating. And just that hesitation makes it worse; the pavement rapidly sweeps away from me, and it seems I am a hundred feet above it looking down a mountain edge.

            If Mr. Strenton is correct, and the Old Ages were a desolate, despair-ridden time, why would I want to try to be like them? Why discover pain, when it is described to me so terribly?

            But now is not a time to be afraid. Now is the time to act, to discover, to find that missing piece! That missing piece that, though I don’t know many things, I know will breathe life into the empty space in my heart. I will know, and I will not forget.

            I take a deep breath, placing a hand over my heart to feel it slow to an even pace. I have faith that this will help me.

And the mountain beneath me shrinks back to what it once was; my feet are once more toeing the curb, waiting to feel the pavement’s wicked teeth. I pace back and take a running start and leap, taking special care to not land on my feet. I feel as if I pause in midair, the Sun-Lamp catching on my face. The pavement grins closer and closer, and my heart starts beating wildly again. Suddenly this is not a victory, but an outcome I don’t want to meet. I curl into myself and fall. My hands catch the pavement, my knees not far behind; and instead of seeing those nasty little grooves, I feel them. I feel them slicing into my skin, meeting my body and taking away from it just as easily, like little teeth. I roll onto my back, stunned, and look at my hands.

            They are streaked with red and black. Unnatural vertical red lines dirtied with the black of the street, and as I look at the Sun-Lamp high above me, I understand. And I cradle my hands to my stomach and cry.

            Every time I touch the red marks, a sharp, stinging feeling disturbs my peace. I know now why I should empathize with the Old-Age people. It is because their lives were often affected by this pain. And if this pain is so horrible, what must a knife feel like, or a bullet?

            “Mr. Carrow, stop that incessant fidgeting!”

            My hands drop to my knees, where the stinging feeling returns. My face contorts unpleasantly, and my understanding leaps to new levels. If pain is so unpleasant, then it is a weapon. A weapon used in war to gain the upper hand. War is just another form of protest taken to the highest levels of thought; if you cannot make your enemy bow through words then make him bow through pain. It is just another means to an end; a favorable end. One just needs to know what will bring the enemy to his knees. Mr. Strenton barks at me again.

            “Do not make a face at me, Mr. Carrow! You are here to learn!” The Teacher-Screen has gone blank, the lesson at a stand-still. My classmates are looking at me vacantly, and I wonder if there had ever been such an event as this. Their faces contain nothing, their bodies void of any fidget except for the natural need for air. And those questions rush back to me: why is it this way? Why do I learn when I do not understand? Why have I never felt pain before? If pain exists, are there different levels of pain? Is this emptiness inside of me, is it this stinging feeling on a whole other level? I need answers!

            “Mr. Strenton,” I stand up in my seat, and I lift my hands palm-up to the screen, knowing the blank screen would somehow see my marks. “Why.”

            There is a pause as if of consideration. “Why what, Mr. Carrow?” Mr. Strenton seems hesitant, almost cowed to see a student making waves in his classroom.

            “Why,” I repeat, “Why do I have to care about those soldiers that died over a thousand years ago? Why do you not call me by my first name? Why have I never felt pain before? Why do you not stand here in this classroom to teach? Why can I not ask questions of you? Why-“

            “Mr. Carrow, that is ENOUGH.” Mr. Strenton seems alarmed, and there is shuffling filtering through the speakers, and a quiet conversation between Mr. Strenton and another man.

            “Mr. Carrow,” a new voice speaks, calm and collected. It is the voice of an old man, world-weary and tired. “I need to see you in my office.”

            “Where?” I whisper, and though I cannot muster up the courage to speak properly to this new voice, I enjoy the feel of these fresh words coming from me.

            “You will be escorted. Jennifer, please take Mr. Carrow to my office.”

            A small girl stood up from the desk next to mine, and I noticed that her face was not blank anymore. Beneath the prominent freckles dotting her entire face, she wore a mad grin, as if she found something funny that I had not yet grasped.

            “Come with me.” she said, and her voice was strangely deep for a girl so young. She took hold of my arm and led me to the door, my arm stretched over the desks between us. The children in the row ducked beneath it, similar smirks on their faces.

            The door shut mutely behind us and I was dragged down the hall. “Where are we going?” I questioned, my heart palpitating faster than it had when I had fallen.

            “You’ll figure it out soon.” she replied, laughing. Again, her voice seemed too deep to belong to her person.

            At the other end of the hall, a door loomed. A dark mahogany with a black plaque resting in the center; it read in simple bold lettering, ‘Joseph Carroll.’

            Jennifer opened the door and pushed me through it. I turned toward her in an attempt to plead for my life (for, at this point, I feared for it), but she snapped the door shut in my face. I rubbed my arm sorrowfully, feeling an ache where she had gripped my arm, and turned around.

            To come face-to-face with another student. Freckles dotted his face, similar to Jennifer’s, and he had a head of fiery red hair which glowed in the light of the only lamp in the room. He was my height, with small pale lines littering his face. I realized with a start that they were scars.

            He turned and walked away from me to the desk and perched himself upon it. His feet dangled in the air and he grinned at me. This grin, however, did not give me hope; it was a grin full of malice and a promise of pain.

            “Hello Mr. Carrow,” he began, and the distinct feeling that something was wrong grew ten-fold, “You were the first one to dissent.” I was struck by the fact that he, also, did not have the voice a child should have.

            My brain could not wrap around the new word. “Dissent?”

            “To disagree.” the boy replied shortly.

            “What do you mean?” I asked, and nothing short of a bullet to my head could stop the pleased feeling that came with another question.

            “Have you not figured it out, yet, boy? I am Mr. Carroll!” he laughed unpleasantly, and still I could not figure out what was so funny. “Still don’t get it? You are the only student in your class.” Mr. Carroll raised a pale red eyebrow at me, as if in the hope that I would laugh with him.

            “But there’s a lot of-“ I began, but Mr. Carroll had jumped off of the desk and strode towards me.

            “No, boy, you don’t get it,” he hissed, and his eyes seemed to gleam maniacally. “You are the only one. People like Jessica and I, and your entire class… they are here to observe you.”

            “They’re… they’re watching me?” I suddenly felt so betrayed. My heart ached with hurt now, my stomach felt a dead weight.

            “They were given specific instructions. ‘Make sure John Carrow does not dissent.’ But this is good, you have proven my little experiment. Now I know what to do.” He snapped his fingers, and two kids of the same age appeared suddenly and grabbed hold of both of my arms. I did not have the mind to struggle. “There is no place for dissent in my world.”

            “Your world?” I cried, finally getting the strength to move. I wrenched my arms around, hoping to dislodge the two kids, but they remained stationary. “I don’t understand! What is going on!”

            “What is going on?” Mr. Carroll yelled back at me, suddenly furious. “You don’t belong here, that is what is going on! We have no place for you here. Take him away.”

            I was pulled out the door before I could protest.

            I could barely breathe. The place I had been taken to had concrete floors and walls, and a door I couldn’t find. I was essentially trapped in a box, and I was panicking.

            The air was stale, my heart beating so hard that my throat was constricting. I vaguely recall this being described to me; I was having a panic attack.

            And so I lay down. I took deep breaths and attempted to think. Sleep claimed me.

            When I awoke, the answer was clear. “They are the adults.” I whispered, awe-struck.

            Some part of me felt that this was impossible, but another part sang a resounding, ‘Yes!’ They were so smart, so calm, so… in control. Their faces contorted into shapes I had never seen before, their voices were deep. Nothing else could explain it.

            And I was their lab rat; their experiment for their world. Nothing more than a piece of trash, used and thrown away.

            And the stinging feeling returned. Except it didn’t resonate from my hands or knees, it resonated from my heart. My heart squeezed and my throat tightened, and I curled up into a ball in an attempt to escape the feeling. It only hurt all the more.

            I was alone and forsaken. Nothing could compare to this pain, and I wished suddenly for a hundred bullets to strike me, rather than having to know.

            I stood up, disturbed by the wetness on my face, the clogged feeling in my nose. I screamed at the top of my lungs, “I DON’T WANT TO KNOW ANYMORE. IT HURTS, TAKE IT AWAY, TAKE IT AWAY, TAKE IT AWAY! I DON’T WANT THIS, I DON’T WANT IT!”

            The door opened.

 

Author's Note

Constructive critique welcome.

Reviews

[G]

Wow, this was diffrent. Good diffrent. Haven't read a story like this one and it was interesting. The whole thing with Mr. Carroll telling John he used him in a experiment kind of blew my mind. I would have never expected for something like that to be said, but it is a pretty cool part. Anyways, good job.

[xGenevaxx]

woow, hella good [x i loved it. i reminded me of the book "The giver" hahaa, verry well done lool. it was really...interesting. i mean, i like how some poeple minds work like that. "what if?" or "why?" always asking questions without knowing they can get a answer.