text: Today was supposed to be simple, I planned on teaching the exceptions to I before E, and then go home to sit on my couch to just dither. The thing is life seems to always have an ace up it's sleeve ready to throw you for a loop. Quite literally for me, I just remember rolling. Rolling cigars it’s what I’ve been doin since I was round ten. Miser Gershaw is a good employer, much better than the testin labs, where some kids go. I just roll the Misers cigars and fetch things when he asks, as long as I don’t make him real mad he don’t beat me. He always yells when I do my tick, I gotta remember not to do dat. “Boy you stop that muttering, nobody cares about those damn exceptions! If I weren't busy here, so help me god, I’d beat those damn words outta you.” roared Gershaw. “Sorry miser, sorry.” Turning to me, red faced, Gershaw said “speak correctly while you are in my house. I know you failed your aptitude test, but that is no reason to speak like a nitwit” He slapped me so hard that I saw lights, flashing by my head. The ceiling was white, bleached like bone, I was being pushed, rolling, but immobile. The shapes above me faded in and out, dark foreboding figures, speaking indistinctly as they rushed along with me to who knows where. My eyes fluttered open, above me was Gershaw, mouth moving in silent words. My ears ringing I finally heard "Get up" I picked myself up from the floor, "Sorry mister Gershaw, it won't happen again" He looked disdainfully at me, "Jaremy, get the mail." I trudged off, down the metal hall to the mail shoot, where the mail is dropped by the pneumatic tubes. As I walked, my shoes clicking on the marble floor, I contemplated, the exceptions which I failed on my aptitude test. "I before E except after C. Agreeing, ancient, beige, being, caffeine, concierge: concierge, what a funny word, when I get home I need to find it." The arched windows only displayed the beautiful land which Gershaw called the Amazon Rainforest, of course I wouldn't have known either way, it burned down before I was born. All I really know is that the outside wasn't nearly as green, or wet as the picture. Gershaw says if i hadn't scored so poorly I woulda learned bout why that really happened to all those trees. "Ow, shit!" I exclaimed as I stubbed my toe on the package. "Man that hurt" The package was a heavy box, labeled "to be delivered to Mister Gershaw by the 5th of May 2039." Today's date. I lugged the box all the way back up the smooth marble hall, clicking all the way. When I returned with the package, Gershaw opened it to reveal the newest Practice book for the kindergarten standard aptitude test, which Gershaw's little daughter Loiza has been seeing a tutor for since she was just able to speak. I never had no practice books or nothin like that, down in the Burrows we get what we get, nothin fancy like this. The rest of my day went without much event, and I was getting ready to go home. Taking off my black and whites to change into my patchwork pants, and threadbare shirt. I put my mask on, and went down through the airlock into the murky evening of the Burrows, where I was soon swallowed by the thick rolling smog. In the distance I hear the sound of a siren as it screams by, hunting for its next patient. I trudge through the dimming streets, lit only by the lights from the homes high above. First I walk by the factory where I hear machines werring and buzzing away at their tireless work. As I plod on I walk by the testin lab where the bloodcurdling wails of less fortunate children echo from the operating tables, and testin chambers where the children lay. My cracked path led me past the hospital where the hunting siren stops its cry, past the billboard which promises "a bright future for children!" only if they take the "Standard Aptitude Test: measuring student potential since nineteen twenty". Even the board is grimy and run down. After I failed my test when I was ten, all I had to look forward to was reading a new word from the weathered leather bound dictionary, which was our only real book. The test meant that I couldn't keep going to school, and I had to start working for Gershaw to pay off the education which I had received. At home I sat down on my hard mat, in my dingy grey room, and opened my cracked dictionary to see what concierge meant. As I opened the book, my vision became nothing, but a bright white light. Suddenly I awoke with a start, as the alarms on the bed called for a nurse. My room was stark white, and it hurt my eyes to look, but I couldn't help it. Everything was different. The nurse came in bustling. "deery, my god I cannot believe you woke up." she said frantically "why? " I frowned "You've been in a vegitative state for twenty years" "I was just driving to teach my class, but the last thing I remember is the rolling" "Honey, your car rolled, and you where seriously hurt" I stood up shakily on my atrophied muscles. Before my legs gave in, I briefly caught a glimpse outside into the murky air, broken only by a sign which promised "a bright future for children.