I'm Ready To Be New Again

Everyday is the same here. Everything, everyone is the same. Nothing ever changes. I wish it was different, but we're all stuck in a rut. There is no such thing as individuality, everyone wears the same clothes depending on where they are going and their gender. All the houses are the same size and color and materials. The skyscrapers all have fifty floors. All the schools have three floors. All the hospitals have eight floors. There are no hotels, since no one in their right mind would ever want to come here. No museums, no such thing as music except for the humming in my head or the noise of the busy city. Although our town is of pretty good size, everyone knows everyone, so we can never make mistakes, or we will look foolish. Women don't work, and girls don't go to school. Why cant we all be equal? Julie, my next door neighbor who is three years younger than me is also way smarter, she says her mother has been teaching her on the side. Where her mother got her information, I don't know. But she must be a good teacher. My family moved here twelve years ago, when I was four. Sophie, my little sister, who is only nine, will probably never know what it is to live outside of this city. Mom said it would be a good idea, and I couldn't protest, I was too young. Dad left when Sophie was six, he said he couldn't take the difference. He always felt that something was missing when we came here. He said that he felt like he lost something. I know what he means, I just don't know what it is that's missing.

"Ben? Is that you?" my mom asks from the kitchen.

"Of course mom, who else is it supposed to be?" she doesn't answer. Oh joy, after school. All that means is dinner, homework, then go to sleep. "Is dinner almost ready?" I change the subject.

"Another twenty minutes." I practically run up the stairs. Once in my room, I go to my closet where my stolen machine lies. The computer I stole four months ago from my school, its only a laptop so it didn't take much effort. I had figured it out the first month, but soon after that I had to do more with it. I knew it could do so much more. There was all these outlets in the back of it, empty ones, they had to connect to something. I also figured out how to get rid of the tracking system that the school had installed, that was the easy part. The hardest was trying to figure out what the rest of it could do. I wanted so much to ask Julie, but she was so little, she would snitch in a second if she ever knew, and plus even if I spoke one thought about it, it would travel across this town in about thirty seconds. Then everyone would know, and who knows what would happen to me then, no one knows what happens to the ones who disobeyed.

"Ben! Ben? Dinner is ready!"

I sigh, shut off my beautiful machine, and head down the stairs to the dinning room. "Looks great mom." I say, no enthusiasm added. I sit down, looking at the stream of steam coming off of my plate.