Mariam Zihiri, Period 2, 5/30/2023

Creativity & Fiction

Staten Island, New York

[Straight out of the recent closing of the Covid Pandemic, citizens find themselves quickly back in isolation right as they begin to settle back into regular lifestyles. A wave of brain killing viruses breaks out and immediately everyone is killed when affected. The waves of society soon broke off from the outside world and all separated in hopes that they would eventually wipe out the virus by isolation. Every island soon became their own worlds for civilizations that vary across 300,000 islands, each with their own sets of rules and lifestyles that differ from ever other. They are considered different planets, and it's strictly forbidden to jump from island to island.]

My parents liked to tell me that they saw the great creation of our island, and that they were involved in the making but I think they just say that to have cool stories to tell. Not many left alive remember what civilization was like when all the islands were whole. Those that actually did survive the big virus that caused all of this destruction have almost little to no memory of what happened, and have completely lost the ability to speak. People speculate that the reason for this is just one of the side effects of the infected but no one can say for sure. Our island was never given a proper name or proper rules or a proper leader. And this lifestyle has worked for us in the last 30 years that we have lived. All the elders that had never been infected by the virus on our island call themselves the free group and say that they don't want to rule like it was in the old world. At my learning camp, many spread rumors of what life was like before the split, some saying there was some group called the government that ruled with an iron fist, and others saying creatures roamed the streets. The elders never liked to indulge in these rumors and quickly shut them down, but that never stopped the rest of the kids at camp from making horror stories to tell before learning.


What are these learning camps?


The elders of our island are a group of 22 survivors from before the split, and they all share a common ideology about education. They believed that one of the main issues with our old society was the lack of education and understanding which caused humanity to be wiped out so quickly. So they set up a series of learning camps for all the children of our island to attend to grow up with what they claim to be a proper education. They don’t have any books or “textbooks” they called them, but they claimed that they were educated enough to teach and create a new curriculum. There are only 14 kids in my learning camp session, and there are four different sessions that happen throughout the day. The sessions get separated by age groups of 0-6, 6-10, 10-15, 15-20. After the age of 20, our elders believed that there was nothing more useful that would be needed to be taught in order for our civilization to survive, and started putting these kids out to work to help build our island.


How much do you know about the other islands around you?


Oh absolutely nothing. There are not many strictly enforced rules in our civilization, but the only strictly enforced rule is to never ever ask or inquire about the other islands. It’s believed that once people begin to branch out, they risk wiping out our entire civilization again to the same virus that wiped them out to begin with. At camp, some of the kids liked to spread rumors that there are pirates that terrorize the seas around islands and if anyone attempted to branch out, they would not even make it to the other islands without first interacting with the deadly pirates that are people who never made it to an island and got stuck at sea. The elders don’t even attempt to dismiss these rumors hoping that it would scare anyone who got curious about what the outside life is like.


Have you ever thought about going to another island yourself?


I can’t lie, the idea has been in my mind for quite some time. The issue is that expressing this interest out loud is enough to get you sent to the elders, and no one really knows what happens after that point. But possibly…