skonen_blades

The voting age was lowered to five years old.

Politicians started literally dressing like clowns.

Along with lowered taxes, they promised:
Later bedtimes.
A cookie in every jar.
No child going without a story.
A massive elementary school restructuring campaign.
Ball pits and slides, fire poles and pillowed halls.
Colours so neon that the 80s felt drab.
Mandatory art classes twice a day.
A bigger say in the curriculum of their school.
(Which is why ‘dragon’ is a language elective now.)

Debates raged:
Harsher punishments for bullies versus stronger emotional outreach for them.
More autonomy for children versus extra support for quality guidance and stewardship
‘Listen to my no’ versus reasons for doing difficult tasks
Math vs forget math

Politicians would talk to the adults
Take a pause
And then talk to the children

Children felt like they mattered
Some of them for the very first time

Overnight, childcare support bloomed
Daycares popped up like mushrooms in offices, neighborhoods, and companies
With the names of politicians across the front awning.
The low-quality ones quickly spelling doom for that name.

Children were brought to deeper troughs of education
So they could make better decisions about the issues

Toy companies became some of the biggest lobbiers
Hugs and ginger ale were classified as medical supplies

Politicians put on puppet shows to explain the issues.
Adults pretended
(condescendingly)
to watch the performances with their kids for fun.
(but actually)
Some of those adults were understanding the issues for the first time

And the kids
Pumped so full of care for the earth and animals
Voted in droves
for the greener candidates
for robotics and space travel
for atmospheric renewal and waste treatment

Of course the politicians lied
Of course they did
But no one hates like a child
The raw purity of a double cross
(No takebacks)
Was the loss of a vote

The only problem was that
The memory of a child
The distractability of a child
Was still no different than most adults

The world was improved
A little
Made sillier
A lot

Made snugglier
Made more colourful
Made safer
Made weirder

Of course it was too little too late
And we died out anyway
But it took longer
And it was way more fun



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The strike hadn’t been effective. They didn’t care about us.

The geothermal shafts went down and down into the earth’s core. Machines took the bulk of the drilling but humans were always needed for cheap grunt work. We were expendable but we dealt with surprises better than the machines.

There’s a feeling that heat-miner gets, for instance, just before a pocket is going to catch. It’s intuition that can’t be matched by a computer.

We’ve been bioengineered to withstand the heat at these depths. Our skin is made of overlapping shingles, heat baffles to dissipate the scalding temperatures. Our bodies are dry inside like sponges and our blood is like molasses. We’re still basically human but we are a breed apart.

It makes it easier to demonize us and treat us badly. We all entered into this nightmare with the idea of high pay.

It turns out that geothermal energy isn’t as cost effective as they led us to believe.

Right now, me and a few of the workers that have been on strike for three weeks are crammed into an elevator.

Curled into a ball on the floor of the elevator is a human supervisor. He’s bleeding and groaning, regaining consciousness. There’s a sock in his mouth and he’s tied up. All of our shoes are pointed towards him. We’re looking down at him with a mixture of fear and anger.

The strike hasn’t been effective. We’ve taken a hostage.

We’ve crossed the line. There’s no doubt that we’ll be fired if not killed for this but hopefully it will bring our plight to the news.

The elevator descends to subsection 126. This is as far as we can legally take a baseline human. We don’t find the heat here very hot but for the human, it’s like being in a pizza oven set to warm, survivable but highly uncomfortable.

At this depth, he can survive for two days. He'll need some supervised re-hydration in a hospital afterwards and probably a new pair of lungs.

We don't feel the heat but we're worried. Our red eyes meet each other’s nervously and our shingles shift and flutter, waffling away the heat. Our slowly beating hearts feel sympathy with the moaning creature on the hot floor of the elevator but we can’t stop now.

We left a note upstairs that for every hour that goes by that our demands are ignored, we will descend another level.

I estimate that we can probably go eight or nine levels before the human’s clothes combust. We have a fire extinguisher here for that.

Another six levels after that, and he’ll be ash.

The radio in our elevator is working but so far, nothing.

I hope they get in touch with us soon.



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