When You Go to the 21st Century
A school party goes back in time to the 21st century. Here is a child's account of the field trip.
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When you go to the 21st Century, you have to take MONEY with you. If you don't take money with you, you will die. You get money from BANKS who give out the money so that people won't starve or be unhappy.
But in the 21st century, the people were sometimes silly with the money the banks had given them and they had to take it back, and sometimes they had to take back their HOUSES because they were not proper people.
House
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When we got to the 21st Century, we had a house. A house is where you leave your stuff and you can also sleep there. In the 21st century, you can only have one or two or maybe a bit more in a house, because people were not supposed to live with each other. They would just do work with each other, but they did not live with each other and they did not like each other I think.
You are only allowed to have your family in your house, but we had a big house, so it was more like home, because everyone was there. It was called an hotel in the old days.
You can only be in a house or a hotel if you have money, and you are not really a proper person if you don't have it, like the man in the bin we saw. He had to have a bin instead of a house, because he did not have any money, and so he wasn't allowed to have a house because he was not a proper person.
Shopping
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When you are in the 21st century, you have to give your money to people, because if you don't they won't give you anything, not even to eat or even to drink. This is called shopping. There are no machines. You don't need to get oxygen in the 21st century but you still need food and stuff to drink, so we had to give our money to people if we wanted anything. Penny started crying when she had to give hers away because she wanted to keep it, but she couldn't. I bought a HAMBURGER, which tasted ok but I was sick when Black told me it was made out of dead pets and things. It tasted like sausages with cake and sugar.
Work
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When you have given your money away you have to go and get more, but you have to do things for the bank so that they can give it to you. You have to go to your PLACE OF WORK, which not like a job at home, it is like being a machine. You have to do everything you are told, otherwise nothing will work and you have to go to a place to do it so that they know you are doing it properly. Even machines don't have to do that! To make up for this the bank gives you money.
Third World
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The world is in bits where you can't always go, but you wouldn't want to go to some of the bits. Black says they're in bits already so that's why they stay there. This was a joke.
You don't have to go to these places only when you have to, to kill people or to give them food or get things off them. You can give them money as well, but they don't give you anything, so not much people do it. There are no machines to do it.
You might get killed, like if you have an accident, but this is on purpose, but usually it’s the others that you kill Black says. You get money for this.
Transport
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CARS are like houses, you can only have your family in them. We had a BUS—it is like a big car, and we had a TRAIN, which is like a corridor with chairs. The bus was like a very thin house, but it only had one upstairs.
Street
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In your place of work, there is sometimes a LIFT, and there was one in our hotel. It puts you up and puts you down like the velo, but you notice it and it looks like the building is moving. We went into a house for one family, and it was tiny! The houses are all lined up, but you can't get from one to another, only by going out and making a noise on their door. And they don't let you in. It's like the train, but you can go up and down the train.
Books
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They still have books here, which is good, but they are made out of paper, which is like wood only thin. You have to buy the books, but you can borrow them, from the library. They still have LIBRARIES.
TV
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At night, if you don't have a book, or a job, you have to watch TV. You can go out and take drugs or you can go dancing and other stuff, but mostly you have to watch TV. Black says TV is like SHOPPING—its like work but you don't have to do it at your place of work. You have to watch for stuff to buy and then you go and buy it to keep the bank going so it can give you money. I don't really know what the bank does, but it is the most important thing. Everyone else has to do it what it says, really, but they don't say that. They have PROGRAMMES on, this is to help you watch it. Some of them were good.
There was a programme called THE NEWS where you can find out everything that has gone wrong. Everything goes wrong, all the time, but they have boring news as well to calm you down if you get nervous. One was about the Queen's birthday.
The biggest things that go wrong are peace, money, and your body. You still go to doctors for your body but you can't go anywhere about money or peace. You just have to die or live in a bin.
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