Futaria- A Story by Kate
Thomas was in his house. It was the year 2094. He was working on his computer. He pushed the button on his suit to turn the computer off. He heard a knock on the door. The government officials were coming to collect money for fooblets[1]. Thomas felt distressed when he saw their uniforms through the glass because these fooblets were so expensive he would have very little money left after he’d paid for them. He opened the door.
“Your fooblets Sir!” said the official on the right. They both had very pale faces which looked paler because of their dark, black uniforms.
“Thanks you” said Thomas. What Thomas was really thinking was “I really don’t like these foobler[2]s that come around once a month and take money from me”
Thomas was an inventor who had invented flying cars. Now everyone had a flying car. There were no traffic jams anymore. The solar powered cars were faster than light. You could put them on automatic. They were called googonables[3]. Thomas didn’t have much money because inventing didn’t pay well in 2094.
Thomas put on his jumpsuit. He clicked the button on his right side and the suit turned a different colour. He liked the blue. These jumpsuits or buspimp[4] suits as they were called, were made of light metal and were bulletproof. They could change colour with just a click of a button and he loved that they could self-clean.
When he was dressed it was time to go to work. His office was downtown. He was late now because of the delay, so he decided to teleport. His teleporter was a little microchip in his brain which when activated he could get from one place to another fast. He didn’t usually like teleportation because it left him feeling grumpy.
He put in the wrong coordinates and landed in a field of corn no less than 80 miles from his office. He did not know what corn was so he was confused. As he fell he had ended up with a mouthful of corn. I could taste it in his mouth. The taste of the corn made him feel complete. He had never tasted anything like it. He had only ever tasted fooblets before.
He started to look around this place, still tasting the delicious sweetcorn. He realised he was in the private garden of the President Nileea.
President Nileea was a cruel president who had been ruling for 80 years. She had anti-aging cream which was invented in 2024 which meant she never got older looking. She was a hard ruler. There were a lot of laws passed around 2020 which were hard like:
- The was no listening to music. Anyone caught listening to music would be sent to Naascatraz.[5] (Thomas’ cousin was sent there in 2024 for listening to a One Direction CD. But the whole band had already been sent there so Thomas figured his cousin would be having a nice time in prison)
- There was no Laughing! Smiling was allowed, but a laugh could see you having to do service for the president.
- There was only one channel on the TV and you had to watch it whether you liked it or not.
- There was to be no eating food. Only fooblets from the government were allowed. Any one caught eating food would be sent away from their families to live in quackton.[6] ( eventually everyone stared to take the fooblets just so they could stay with their family)
Since 2020 life had been hard. Everyone worked for the president. She was very harsh.
Standing in the field of corn Thomas realised that President Nileea was storing tasty food in her private stores while the people had to buy fooblets which had no taste and were very expensive. Thomas felt disgusted when he realised what she was doing. He started to feel anxious. If he was caught here he might be sent to Naascatraz for breaking and entering. He quickly changed the teleporter co-ordinates and got out of there. But he could never forget the taste of that sweetcorn.
Thomas decided he needed to go back in time to a time where food was allowed and there were no fooblets or foolish laws. He was going to the year 2014 to find the young girl called Nileea and stop her from becoming this harsh Prisident. He went to a military base on the north side of town. There he found some devices with clocks and calenders which he hooked to his teleporter and he created a time machine.
He set the machine for the year 2014. The room went black and all Thomas could see was stars. He landed in a place he had never been before. He heard beeping horns, people laughing and joking as they walked down the street and some nice sounds that seemed to float in a rhythm. Words went along with this rhythm like
“I will walk out of the darkness, and I’ll walk into the light, and I’ll sing the song of ages, and the dawn will end the night”
He felt moved by the sounds. At that time he didn’t realise he was hearing music.
He saw a lot of these buildings called restaurants. He had no idea what they were but as he passed he could smell an aroma and the sound of sizzling. In a restaurant called “La Mode” people were sitting down with something in each hand. They were silver in colour. One was sharp looking while the other had three pointy things at the end. They were sticking them into something on a round plate and then putting them into their mouth and they never took it back out. It was like they swallowed it. Thomas was shocked. In 2094 the only thing anyone could actually out in the mouth was fooblets. “What were these people doing? “ Whatever it was, it smelled good and Thomas felt his mouth watering, as a man picked up a piece of corn and chewed on it. Thomas recognised the corn form the corn field. He felt like he was back in the president’s private gardens again.
He went to the area where Nileena lived. She was a young girl of 20. She was a freakishly skinny, tall and red haired girl. Even though she was living off scraps from trash cans of San Francisco, she was a smiley, happy girl who loved to sing. The mayor of the town happened to be passing the same day as Thomas. He fell in love with her exotic red hair. He had to have her. He’d ask her to marry him, he decided.
Thomas knew he had to stop her from falling for this Mayor because he would be the reason she turned into the harsh President who would rule with an iron fist.
Thomas meets Nileena “accidentally” beside a restaurant. He asks her in to have something to eat. As they eat their sweetcorn Thomas asks
“Imagine a world without food, where instead of food we had tablets?”
“Ooooooooooooooh, that’s horrible” said Nileena, “I’d hate that”
“Me too, I love this sweetcorn, I can’t imagine never having tasted it. I like this noise they have on in this restaurant. I hear a lot of it around here. It’s nice” said Thomas.
“It’s called music. I love music. I love to dance. Come on, dance with me” she said as she pulled him out of his chair.
“What’s dancing?” giggled Thomas and they started to move around to “the best song ever”.
They had a lovely night and both headed their separate ways, very happy.
Next morning the mayor shows up at Nileena’s home. He gets down on one knew and proposes. She refuses, still thinking about that nice boy Thomas from dinner yesterday.
The mayor completely offended. He took Nileena by the hand and pushed her into the car. He took her to his Island mansion on Naascatraz. He imprisoned her in a dungeon.
Meanwhile Thomas went to look for Nileena in her home. He was worried when he couldn’t find her.
Back in the dungeon the mayor asked Nilena to marry him everyday and every day it was the same answer. No!
As the weeks went on and on Nileena had stopped singing and dancing and was deprived of food. So finally she gave and said
“Yes, I will marry you”
The wedding was planned. It was to be a massive wedding in the mayor’s mansion. “Hello” magazine were doing the photos, Hall and Oates were the band at the reception. It was going to be the biggest wedding the city had seen.
Nileena was upstairs in her room on the morning of her wedding. She had just put on her magnificent dress. She looked amazingly beautiful.
Thomas knew where she was, he had seen it in the papers about the wedding.
“I’ve been looking for you” he said.
She turned, surprised to see him standing there. She had no idea how he got there.
“You can’t do this” he said anxiously.
“What?” she said. “I have to”
“ No you don’t. If you do it will change you forever.”
“What do you mean?” she asked
Thomas took out some pictures from his pocket. They were pictures of the future. Tablets, buspimp suits, no smiling faces, no laughter and a single TV. Desolation, erosion everywhere. People crying. Nasscatraz turned into a prison for people who dared to listen to music. He told her about the future she would go on to create. A future with no music.
Nileena began to cry. “A world with no music?” I could not bear it” she cried.
So Thomas gets down on one knee.
“Will you marry me? And together we can change the future, literally.”
“Yes” she said vivaciously.
She was so happy, she was elated.
Thomas never went back to the future they got married. Thomas continued to tell her about the alternative future which would have happened if she had married the mayor.
He continued to work on inventing things, including the flying car but he never got to finish them. The cars he did invent included a radio so there was always music in them.
Thoams and Nileena lived long and happy lives and died of old age in the year 2084.
[1] Fooblets: Edible tablets that provide all a humans food and nutrition in one tablet
[2] Fooblers: Government officials who collect money for foobles (see no 1)
[3] Googanables: Cars that went very fast.
[4] Buspimp: Special electric metal fabric which can change colour and self clean
[5] Naascatraz: An island prison in the middle of nowhere with no escape.
[6] Quackton: a town full of lonely people who had to leave their families behind.