Coming to America by Stephen M

December, 1903, New York City
We arrived at the port early in the morning. It was a long, treacherous sea voyage to this new land called America. On the way into the port of New York, my mother and I saw large buildings that seemed to touch the sky and a multitude of people that seemed to never end. The air smelt of smoke, as all around us there were factories unloading smoke stacks through their chimneys. This land of opportunity is nothing like Italy, from which we hail. Here, it seems to be over crowded and no real beauty in this society. Mother had said it would be beneficial for us to come here to work, and I do hope she is right in her judgment.
My mother and I, after registering with American customs, travelled to the borough of Brooklyn, where my Mother had relatives that we would live with for a short time. I had learned that New York City is composed of five smaller cities or boroughs. A man on the ship had explained this fact to me. I could not understand how such an already large city like New York incorporated five other cities. This journey to America was more of a culture shock than I had expected.
Our relatives in Brooklyn were extremely polite and courteous, and even spoke in our native o\dialect of Italian as we could not yet understand one word of English. Our rooms were extremely cramped, as I had to share a bed with my mother. While walking around this unexplored area, it came of great shock to me the variation in faces I saw around me. This was truly a melting pot, people descending from all lands for an opportunity to make a living. This type of urban living was also new to me, but I had heard on the ship that there were areas of America that were just like the Italian countryside.
My mother had finally found work!! The relatives we were staying with owned a florist shop a few blocks away and my mother had earned a position as an assistant there. This was joyous news for us two, as this was a new step towards our American dream. She was making very little, but it was a start. Things in America were not starting to turn our way. My mother was ecstatic, as her idea to come to America seemed successful. By the end of the month, she will have saved enough for us to move out and for me to attend a public school! New friends and adventures await me.
Horrible news as struck my mother and I. Our relative was forced to close the florist shop, and my mother has not been able to find other work. The florist shop was forced to close because of slow and lagging business. The owner had said that not enough business was being generated and costs were too high. This was heartbreaking news to my mother and I. we are still staying with our relatives in Brooklyn, but they said they do not know how much longer they can keep us. With little money to our names, my mother and I might be forced to poverty in the new world if she does not find a job soon. I have faith, however, in the land of opportunity and soon we will be out of our predicament.

Future by Mike M

The year was 2010 and I volunteered to participate in a government funded program that studied the effects of sleep on the human body. I was placed in a coffin like box with tubes, lights, and unfamiliar technology lining the sides of the box. I was told the plan of the program was to put individuals to sleep using anesthesia, and then monitor their sleep habits while in the box. What happened next was what I least expected.
When I arose from the sleep monitoring coffin, I thought at first I was being fooled. I was in a glass bottomed aircraft and was looking down at a sea of lights and skyscrapers. I was no longer in the original testing room, but was in a science fiction like environment. I quickly rushed over to the electronic calendar on the wall and checked the date; the year said 2200! Had I really been asleep for almost 200 years!
After checking the date on the calendar I knew I must find a person on the aircraft to verify the truth of the calendar. I hurried out the doorway and into the corridor. All along the sides of the hallway were flashing buttons and pulleys that seemed to farfetched to even be real. When I finally reached the end of the hallway I came across a door that was like no other I have ever seen before; the door itself rose up into the frame and the portal opened. There was a sign in the room that said hovercrafts to the right; so I followed the sign. When I finally got there, sure enough there was a room full of bizarre looking machines that were like nothing I have ever seen before. I hopped onto the hover craft and flew down into the sea of lights and tremendous skyscrapers. As I descended lower towards the ground I noticed there was a vast amount of similar hovercrafts whizzing through the sky. I followed these hovercrafts to the top of a large building which seemed to be a parking lot for these advanced crafts. I landed my craft and began my journey to discover what was going on.
As I entered the building I saw thousands of floating steps that lead towards the bottom of the building. I hopped my way down to the bottom of the building and busted out the door and into the street. Only to be consumed by a herd of people traveling on segways. I noticed that my clothing must have been hundreds of years out of date because everyone was looking at me with confused faces as if they were xenophobic of my appearance. I forced my way through the segway traffic and walked towards a group of people waiting along the side of the road. I approached the group with a friendly demeanor, and politely asked what year it was. An older man patronizingly responded, and confirmed that it was indeed 2200.
I couldn’t believe it was really true. My heart dropped and I felt as if I was lost at sea. I was 200 years away from my life, and everything I once had was now gone. I could barely recognize my old home in NYC.

The Great Man's Plan - Robert Murphy

I wake up in a fog, I have no idea where I am or what I’m doing here. These clothes are strange, lacking any personality whatsoever. My head is throbbing and the pain is like nothing I’ve felt before. I have no idea what’s going on, but what I do know is that I have to find out what to do with myself. I find the light switch in this cold dark room and turn on the light.

The room is covered in capsules it seems with what appears to be people inside, all labeled with numbers on their clothing. This is so confusing, am I some kind of experiment? I need to get out of this place and find out where I am. I check my watch, but the hands are not moving. There appears to be no way out of this room besides this one strange looking door, like one I’ve never seen before.

A dim white glow emanated through the creases of the strange door, finally I can find out what is going on. As the glow became much brighter I got an eerie feeling of discontent. The door slid open and 3 large men approached in pure white attire that appeared to be out of a bad sci-fi movie. They motioned me forward, asking me to state my name and number. I complied and told them my name and number that had been printed on my suit.

They told me to come with them, but I was hesitant. I was taken through long winding hallways that were of nothing I have ever seen before; this place was of no ordinary place. It had an almost angelic and godlike feel to it, but that can’t be possible. I tried to remember the date, I believe it was January 1^st, 2012 and I had attended a new year’s party the night before. Finally we had reached a door and behind the door was an enormous room with a man of great stature on the other end.

The man said, “James, you were in a terrible accident tonight, please do not panic I will explain”. I was in utter shock and awe, how could this be. The man proceeded to tell me I had been in an accident the night of January 1^st, 2012 and had been put in a coma. He said it was not my time, saying that I was part of his plan. I was in complete dismay. Upon hearing this I freaked out and made a mad dash for the huge white door. It slammed shut with no other exits in site.

One of the guards came at me with a tazer, a very large one at that. I dodged, but ran into the other two guards. A sharp jolt of pain and electricity pulsated through my body. Everything was slowing down and I heard the voice of a man whisper softly, “Were losing him”. It was getting dark and images turned into dark shadows. I felt another jolt pulsate through my body and in one swift motion I awoke in a white room surrounded by doctors and nurses. “We got him, he’s alive”, said one of the doctors. Was I in heaven? Why did that man, or God, let me live? I must find out what my part in this “plan” is.

The Troubles: Thomas Lahey

Twas many years ago that this event occurred. I had been out at the local shop in Belfast buying groceries for the family when it happened. It happened unexpectedly and rather quickly; quickly enough for me to be unable to stop it. At first it seemed as if it was an attack of sorts. Not necessarily of a foreign power but of an internal threat. For centuries, The Troubles had become steadily more troublesome and as a member of the Scotland Yard, I had no choice but to anticipate the escalation of violence. Twas about ten to nine in the early hours of the Sixteenth of March and a peaceful day it was.

            I was on my way to work after picking up some supper for the evening when the bomb went off. A coach had stopped at a stop by the City Centre and killed twelve and injured seven. I dropped the groceries and ran towards the scene. Three masked men, presumably IRA terrorists, jumped into a car with one holding an AK-47. I fired several rounds into the back windshield of the vehicle and tended to the wounded until other Armed Met Police arrived at the scene. There were broken glass windows and the wounded were bleeding horribly (they had been standing behind the glass of the coach stop). It was a terrible scene, and it was only the beginning of my day.

            Several hours later, at the Scotland Yard station in Belfast, we received a report that another attack had taken place in Londonderry and we had to respond immediately. This one was different. The report was that three masked and armed gunmen walked into a crowded park around noon time and opened fire on the crowd, killing one and a half dozen. Local police had responded quickly and managed to shoot and detain one of the men. He was being interrogated at the Londonderry Metropolitan Police depot. We rushed over there as quickly as we could. When we arrived, there were ambulances and other emergency vehicles taking the wounded to hospital. This scene was many times worse than the scene that morning.

            About thirty or so minutes later, a black Mercedes four-door drove slowly by the scene of the shooting and two men in suits stepped out. They walked along the park on Queen Anne’s Way and looked rather suspicious. I took several officers and went to approach them. As we got within about fifty yards of them, they both turned to look at us. The taller of the two leaned over and said something to the other and then they looked again. Moments later as we were within about thirty yards they both turned and drew their pistols. We responded quickly with ours and opened fire on the men. There was a shootout for about three minutes when we confirmed that both men had been taken down. We approached the bodies with pistols drawn and confirmed that they had been terminated. As we removed their masks, I felt sick. The taller one was my neighbour. I knew he was an Irish Republican but I hadn’t a clue he was a radical. I had let him watch my children and tend to my mail when away on holiday. All I thought about was my family. What could lead a man who lived such a peaceful and calm life who helped people and lived for a useful purpose to become an IRA terrorist? My answer: being a crazed maniac.

            Where do we go from here? Do we crack down more on these people, or find out the root of their evil and try to rehabilitate them? I say to just keep at them, but the government wants to help them become normal citizens again. They can’t. They’re incapable of being normal. As I was thinking this my radio sounded. It was another attack, and I had to leave. Hearing its location, I recognized the address. It was my wife’s office. 

Harrison S- A 20th Century Mindset in a 22nd Century World

The future is so exciting because of the unexpected things that can arise from the present. As people move through their life their mindset and outlook evolve with their surroundings as they move, prepare and change for a more futuristic world. The following are excerpts from Harrison Shih’s autobiography Living in Two Dimensions about living life in the 20^th century and 22^nd century.

A 20^th Century Mindset in a 22^nd Century World

Day something many, many years later from the present time…

I woke up in a daze, eyes groggy, and stiff from the sleep. As I looked around I didn’t recognize my surroundings. Where was I? Is this a dream? I was instantly scared. As I became more and more fearful, I heard beeps all around me and suddenly a man appeared in front of me as if he came out of the floor. I was already pretty scared and seeing a man rise from the floor didn’t help my fears any. As I was trying to back-crawl away from him, not knowing who he was, he assured me he was in safe place, stating that he was a doctor. This calmed me a little, however I was still apprehensive and wasn’t sure whether to trust him fully or not. He explained that I had passed out one day in school and fell into a deep coma.

Day 2

Shell shock took over last night and when I woke up the next morning I came to my senses and grasped the fact that I wasn’t living in the same world. It obviously wasn’t 2010 and things obviously weren’t the same. As I walked about the hospital everything seemed so futuristic compared to the last thing I remembered. The doctor sat down with me and explained everything. At school way back in the year 2010 I passed out and fell into a deep coma. Here back at the hospital, the doctors had never seen a coma patient so responsive yet so deep in the coma. About a year later, researchers found a way to preserve my body and memory so that I wouldn’t age. This is why I still look like a 16 year old, even in the year 2138. After hearing all of this, I was first nervous as to how I was going to adjust to 128 years of change. But then as I thought about it, I was still young and could adjust pretty easily, I guessed. Still though, it was going to be an uphill battle.

Day 5

After showing signs of understanding my surroundings and a myriad amount of tests, the doctors cleared me to go home and enter reenter the world. It was the year 2138 and everything was different from what I remembered. As I stepped out of the hospital doors everything was enormous. The hospital building, like all of the surrounding buildings was over 1000 stories tall! I didn’t see any cars around me but when I looked up I saw these objects flying around. I asked a passerby what those were and he said they were flysracs. Simultaneously, he recognized me as the coma guy and asked for my autograph. I followed up by asking how he knew who I was. The man followed up by saying I was an international superstar because I was such a medical miracle. He pointed me in the direction of the apartment the hospital had given me. As I found my way back home, this was the highest apartment in Central, the centermost building of the entire East Coast. I expected a long ride up the lavator-e but within seconds, literally, I was at the door of my apartment. I assumed that in all the years, technology had advanced to the point where they could make what I knew as an elevator travel thousands of floors in just seconds.

Day 5 (Later that night)

When I finished exploring my enormous new pad, I saw what looked like a TV mounted on the wall next to this floating box object. This area I assumed to be my room. While I was playing around with this TV like object I learned two things: it was called a VirtEv, which stood for Virtual Everything, and this was an all in one machine. Browsing through the VirtEv I noticed I had messages waiting for me. At least something stayed the same… or so I thought. Next, when I clicked the first message, a face projected from the screen and it began to talk. This along with the 22 other messages were all requests for interviews and book offers highlighting my experience. I finished going through all of them and began to feel quite hungry. I went to the fridge and noticed everything was smaller. Food now was in pill form and it was even healthier than previously cooked meals. This to me was astonishing. Finally, I headed off to bed, concluding that the world was truly different; living quarters were improved, and everything seemed faster, bigger and easier.

One year later

And so here I sit giving my first interview of two for the day. All in all, the past year has been a whirlwind adjusting to this new life in the year 2139. I think that after a year, I’ve adjusted pretty well. Everything is just harder, faster, and bigger. I decided to donate all of the money I received from all the media spotlights to the research department at Central Hospital. This was probably the single hardest thing to adjust too: no more paper money. Everything these days was done in credit and electronically. I guess this really is the new world we live in. Accepting the fact that there was no more paper money was hard enough. I guess if I'm to live in this world my next task will have to be learning how to fly a flysrac. Maybe I can start to learn once all this media attention and chauffeuring slows down. I'll commit myself to learn next week and share my experience soon.

troublemakers-jared dublin

It’s the year 2999, late June the sun was scorching onto my face through my bedroom and I just woke up not knowing what happened the night before. There was a great pain on my forehead so I went to the bathroom too see what it was, it appeared to be a normal bump but I felt it and it seemed that something was moving rapidly up, down and side to side in the center of it. I was very concerned about this so I rushed myself to San Francisco Hospital. But on the way there I was stopped by cops because they were doing a regular patrol to see who had a gold chain around their neck. In San Francisco it is always necessary to have a gold chain on or else you will get abolished from the city walls. There is a trend here in San Francisco where whoever wears longer gold chains is higher ranker or of higher economical class in society, me of course I had the longest chain in the city.

After the cops stopped me and inspected my chain everything I saw began to get blurry, my sense of smell began to go faint and everything began to spin. The McDonalds icon which was spinning in the air seemed to whirl around my head in circles, everyone’s faces were doubled as I peered into the car. Maybe other people were thinking that I was going insane as well? Even everyone’s clothing which is usually uniform and the same here in San Francisco; one piece black leather jump suit was appearing to me as neon green. I knew something was wrong so I drove even faster to the hospital, petal to the metal, trying not to crash my car into any pedestrians or electronic billboards along the way.

As I arrived to the hospital the first things that I could see with my dazed view was a robot that came up to me and asked me specific questions like my name etc. I told him my name was Jared Dublin and that I lived on 64 Bighouse Lane, right next to Mariah Carey. Without even noticing it three robots scooped me out of the car and put me in a bed made out of rays of light, I’ve never seen one of these before. Doctors dressed in plastic suits with oxygen tanks on their backs examined my forehead and told me that it was just a marking from when the intruders from Los Angeles break in through our city walls and harass our citizens. The foreigners will chase you down and tackle you until they bite your forehead and steal all your belongings, making you forget everything about what happened. Also that it was a normal extravaganza to see double and have disorientation and that everything would be alright in about three hours and slowly but surely I fell asleep….

I woke up in the hospital bed feeling completely fine to my friend Brutus repeating my name over and over again. He helped me up and told me that I had to perform a show for the MTV Music Awards. I had no idea what he was talking about and he told me to look to my left where a picture of me was on the wall. Then everything started coming back to me, it turned out that I was the richest man in the city and a R&B music superstar. I guess these intruders biting my forehead really did make me forget everything after all.

As quick as I could I jumped out of bed and hopped into Brutus’s Lamborghini and we cruised down the highway towards the stadium where I had to perform. Everything was going fine until the intruders made a roadblock of men, woman, children, trees, and inflamed vehicles filled the center of the highway which blocked our path…

Monster Island

6 June, 20??
It's been one full week since I escaped the holding cell in that mad laboratory, God knows how long I would have been there if Greg hadn't distracted Dr. Nutjob. I wish he had escaped with me but, alas, he fell victim to the doctor's experimental laser weapon. My new surroundings seem strange to me as I have no idea how long I have been in captivity. I will explore tomorrow and give a full report on my findings.

7 June, 20??
I spent much of the day exploring the area yesterday and it seems to me that I have arrived in a dark time; I encountered not a single human and the only sounds were those of the crows cawing. I came upon what appeared to be a military base of some kind, with infantry barracks, the rusted shells of tanks, spent ammunition, but not a trace of human life. I seem to have fallen into another planet, one that isn't the Earth I once knew.

15 June, 20??
I explored a wider berth in the past week and discovered that I am actually on an island, this island was once the research and development sector of a private security company. The idea of the project was to develop a new type of warrior, one that was neither man, nor machine. I have been unable to comprehend from the lab reports what this supposed creature is, but I know that if I encounter it on the island, I'm in for hell.

17 June, 20??
As I was climbing a tree on a ridge over the valley today I spotted the creature. It was at least seven feet tall with green, scaly skin, and a head the size of my torso; although it had 6 limbs it seemed to walk upright on only two of them. It was clear that the thing hadn't eaten in ages, he was upturning anything he came into contact with looking for food that wasn't there. I knew from the moment that I saw him that, given the chance, it would kill me in an instant. I must now make a choice- fight or flight.

18 June, 20??
I just heard a noise coming from the bushes nearby. I was awoken by a wailing sound that pierced through the jungle, and since then I have heard a heavy crashing of vegetation slowly getting louder and louder. I am writing this because I have not weapons, and if anyone should arrive on this accursed island, whether it be by fate or by choice, there is a documented proof of my life and survival. God knows what my family must think, I have no idea how long it has been. Wait, what's that s-..... (Journal ends with final words written in obvious haste and blood smeared on the pages).