Burned

short story from the future.

    It was the Dark Ages all over again, but centuries later. It was inevitable to

happen. The United States had sucked up all of its natural resources and all of the

country’s attempts to be “water wise” had failed them. Perhaps though, the worst part of

this crisis was the …opposite of an enlightenment happening. A man from Albany, New

York had started it, and unfortunately, it had spread across America in what seemed like

a blink of an eye.

    This writer, Isaac Jahanskey, hated the education program. Ironically enough, he

was a writer. His thoughts, as told in his book, “World of Labor” reflected that physical

labor was far more important than education for the furthermost success of America. He

sent the educational world into chaos; people everywhere dropped out of school and went

to work to find more natural recourses. Years passed of decreasing educational values.

Isaac Jahanskey became more popular as attending school, reading, and writing became

less popular. Then, Jahanskey began working on his biggest plan yet. He schemed to

demolish education as a whole. To the few scholars left, this was outrageously barbaric,

but most of the population had been conformed to the manual labor based way of life.

Jahanskey’s supporters began to put his plans into action. Blindly brainwashed, they

burnt libraries across the nation. They went on raids into homes and National Archives

destroying books, journals, newspapers, and more. Several were arrested for the

vandalism of private and public properties, but most sentences didn’t last long because

the majority of law enforcers supported Jahanskey. Almost anything scholastic had been

burned, and with no Internet connection due to all the electricity shortages, education had

finally vanished.

    Jahanskey had been diagnosed with old age and passed away, but his disciples

kept his legacy alive. Years passed of absolutely no intellectual communication other

than verbal interactions. Times wore worse and worse as people became more and more

uneducated. The world struggled immensely particularly from lack of understanding of

how things work. No records were kept of anything. Therefore, many trades, labors,

crops, and technologies eventually disappeared. The people, including previous followers

of Jahanskey, began to realize that abandoning education had only caused them more

destruction. Jahanskey and his men started their revolution by burning a single book and

ended up leaving an entire population bending over backwards just to survive.

    People began to work on putting education back into their life, but it was hard to

educate people when the educators where uneducated themselves. People strained to

learn, but the population was too long benighted. The world was utterly doomed.

    As one of the last scholars alive took his final breaths, he cursed Jahanskey,

whispering, “They that start by burning books will end by burning men.” --Heinrich Heine

Reviews

[Gretchen Clarke]

This is amazing! Well-written indeed! I wouldn't be surprised if that were the end of civilization: a lack of proper education. Keep up the great work!