History Lesson

Nia and Lidia were passing notes in class while the teacher’s back was turned. This was a common practice and while the teacher was fully aware that it was going on, unless it was a major disruption to his teaching efforts, he let it slide. While Lidia never had any trouble absorbing the material while it seemed like her mind was elsewhere, Nia was always having trouble staying focused. Learning about facts and events were not as interesting to her as the social pecking order and the day’s gossip.

“Life had become increasing more complex” The teacher was lecturing.

Nia was reading a note that Lidia had passed to her beneath her desk. Lidia had been receiving attention from several boys simultaneously and was having a hard time choosing which one she should give her attention back to. Nia smiled when she read it. This was just the kind of advice she liked to give. She rated the potential love interests based on appearance and personality and passed the note back.

“As it became harder and harder to keep up with the amount of information” The teacher continued.

Lidia looked over Nia’s recommendations. While Nia made some good points, the overall effort failed to help her make up her mind. The truth was that her emotions were just all over the place. It was like trying to decide between Chocolate with peanuts or Chocolate without peanuts. Sometimes you felt like having peanuts in your chocolate and sometimes you didn’t.

“So people had to create machines to keep track of the fast pace that life had become.” The teacher droned on.

Lidia passed back a note that had a simple sad face drawn on it. Nia understood and passed back a note that said maybe she didn’t have to pick one. Maybe she should try all of them first to see which one she liked.

“It got to the point where a person couldn’t do anything without consulting a machine first.” The teacher continued.

Lidia frowned again. She knew that wasn’t allowed. The boys wouldn’t put up with her test driving them like that. If she tried it they would all leave her alone and she wouldn’t have their attention anymore and it would be a long time before she got it back. She just had to make a decision and pick one.

“They finally developed a machine that had the mental capacity of the entire human race and they put this machine in charge of organizing the human race.”

The boy at the top of the list was Tom. He was cute and he seemed to have a good personality. None of the girls he had been out with had anything bad to say about him and so Lidia decided that he was the one who would have the privilege of her attention.

“As this freed humanity from the stresses and strains of life, it failed to instill an alternate purpose for living” the teacher went on

Nia smiled with approval. Tom and Lidia would make a wonderful looking couple. Lidia was an amazing best friend and Nia didn’t doubt for one second that she would be an amazing girlfriend. Tom was one lucky guy even though he didn’t know it yet.

“Society became stagnant as the focus turned inward and the population started to decline. An extinction level event was occuring and nobody was really aware of it. Humanity was about to go out with a whimper rather than a bang. Can anybody tell me what saved it?” the teacher asked.

The teacher looked around the room. He focused his gaze on Nia. “Nia, can you tell us why humanity isn’t extinct?”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” Nia confessed.

“Well, that’s not a surprise, Liddia, can you explain to Nia why humanity is not extinct?”

“Of course” Lidia started, “The really smart machine thought of a way to give people back their purpose. It figured out a way to get people to become involved with life again and to work. It got rid of all the things that made life so fast and slowed it down so people could think again.” Lidia smiled at Nia. Nia smiled back.

“Very good Lidia, Did everybody get that? The machine made life simpler because it figured out that simple is better.”

After the teacher said this the bell rang. All the students got up to go to their next class. Nia playfully said under her breath to Liddia that she was a show off and smiled. Lidia had a smug look on her face.

That evening Lidia’s mother asked Lidia to go to the store to pick up some milk. The stores normally closed around 7pm but Lidia had time to get there and back. As she was walking toward the store, she saw two teenagers near the Assembly Hall. The boy she recognized as the boy that Nia and Lidia saw in the woods many years prior. The thing that was strange is that he seemed to be the same age now as he was then. Although she couldn’t be sure, the girl he was with looked a lot like Nia. The boy retrieved a key that was hidden under a rock and the two of them went inside.

Lidia was sure that it really couldn’t have been Nia though. Nia was horrible at keeping secrets and if there was something wrong with Nia she would have sensed it. There had to be another explanation for it. Lidia proceeded to the grocery store and purchased a bottle of milk. She informed the store keeper about the boy going into the Assembly Hall but intentionally kept out the information regarding the teenage girl. The shop keeper told her that she did the right thing by telling him and that he would take care of it from there.

Lidia left the grocery store and went by Nia house. She wanted to make sure that Nia wasn’t the girl that she saw break into the Assembly Hall. Nia mother answered the door and when Lidia asked if Nia was home, Nia’s mother called her and she came to the door. Lidia was relieved to see her friend. She must have been mistaken about the identity of the girl. She went home feeling a lot better about everything.