This is a short story I wrote today. It’s based on stuff that I think has some kind of good theme for society. Enjoy the read!

I was at school. Actually, I might not have been. I wasn’t really sure where I was. What I did know, however, what that everyone around me in this empty rectangular room was talking around their desks about the field trip. It wasn’t a field trip, per se. It was more like an activity, or something larger perhaps. Everyone was going to participate in Congress; the whole deal with a big congressional session and everything. But what stuck me about it was that it would actually be deciding laws for our country.

It cost one dollar to go. I looked around; the desks had vanished, and people began handing in their dollars to the various teachers around the room. I looked at the light blue floor, and out the towering glass windows that only stood on one side of the room. You couldn’t see out the windows, though, because of how dark their tint was. The opposite side was brick; cinder block. The kind of cinder block found on a school bathroom wall or in a hallway in front of an old gymnasium. Without a desk sat Mrs. Bednar, on the floor holding a sheet of paper and looking at students. Mrs. Bednar was an old woman of values and morals with a triangular-shaped face. She wasn’t a cone-head, though. She was like the opposite, because the point of the triangle was at her neck. The rest of her head seemed to sag on top of it in layers until it reached the fluffy grey hair on top of her head, which curled ‘round and ‘round her hawk eyes.

People were talking about the trip. Everyone was excited. I reached into my pocket to get my own dollar, but I found nothing. It seemed I was the only person who had not been informed about this trip. That’s just like me.

I went around asking for a dollar, from anyone, anything, that could possible have a dollar or part of a dollar. Nobody had one, or nobody wanted to offer one. Will Plaut, a boy in my grade who also had the triangle-shaped head, held out a wad of money folded in half. There he openly displayed various hundred dollar bills and an enormous amount of singles, which no doubt made up most of the wad. I looked at him and asked him if he, perhaps, could lend me the money.

He said that he couldn’t. He didn’t give a reason.

I kept scrambling around the room. I received money somehow; maybe I’d found it, the old quarter. That’s what I wandered with. My little quarter and me; maybe I could go and participate in one-fourth of the trip. I went up to Mrs. Bednar and begged for her to let me go, but she wouldn’t budge. By now, people were beginning to grab their Congressional uniforms and empty out of the room into the next room.

Before Bednar left to go to that room also, I said I’d find a way to get a dollar. Just then, Julian Bonano entered the scene, laughing and acting stupidly as he usually does. He said with the biggest smile, “I’ll give you a dollar, Jason! Here!” And he handed it to me – three quarters. Two were gold, one was silver.

The golden ones were obviously counterfeit and made of plastic. It took me a few seconds longer to realize the silver one was also a fake, because it had a much greater sheen than any normal quarter I’d ever seen. It, too, was made of plastic. I looked at Julian and said, very bluntly, “Julian, these are fake.”

“I know!” he said, with a hardy laugh thereafter. I knew he didn’t mean it in a harsh way. Julian always pulls silly jokes like that to be funny due to some mental disability he has. It’s not confirmed or anything, but everyone knows he has a mental disability that goes far beyond ADHD. He’s the guidance counselor’s pet.

Having failed to retrieve a dollar properly, I begged Mrs. Bednar one last time and offered everything I had: The three fake quarters and the one real one. Being annoyed, she decided to let me go on the trip.

We emptied out with everyone else into the other room, which was a much larger room with benches lined up one in front of the other. It looked like a makeshift sanctuary in a multipurpose room.

It was then that I knew where we were. We were in the old firehouse, where my Synagogue used to set up important services, such as High Holiday services, before we had a temple of our own. I wondered what kind of trip I was really going on now. What organization was I with? I saw friends from my trip to Europe in the room, though most had left for the Congress building by now. The uniform for the trip, I saw, strikingly resembled my Europe tour uniform. Black dress pants, a red tie, and a navy blue jacket with a large circular patch on the chest pocket. Instead of reading, “American Music Abroad” like I thought it should, it read “CONGRESS”.

Since I was so late, I barely had the chance to finish getting my jacket on before I was sent to the Congress building. There were no cars involved, or any mode of transportation, unless you count teleportation. I found myself instantly and magically seated in a small, crappy wooden chair in the second or third row of about ten or fifteen rows of these chairs, all arranged in a very large semicircle in an equally large room. In the center of the semicircle was a table, where Congress sat and discussed their congressional things. I looked around the room, because nobody seemed to be here doing congressional things as I expected.

I was located on the right-hand side of the semicircle of chairs, nearby a large white stone column that came jetting out from the ceiling. These columns were located all over the room, except nearby the congressional table. To my right was a large exit, a door without a door, which led to a very white and sterile looking hallway. To my left, way across the room was another similar exit, but located on the front wall instead of the side wall. Also to my right a few rows back was a rather large-headed and ugly girl who was obviously somehow prohibited from participation, whether it be her retardation or the fact that she might have no been able to walk or something else that could have possibly been “wrong” with her. I noticed a growing number of people popped into chairs without warning, and I also learned that I was in a chair because I’d paid just a quarter. I would only be allowed to be a spectator.

But the people never showed up. I wondered why the room was so empty. I saw people coming in from the side exits, so I assumed they were getting drinks at a vending machine. This was making the day drag on and on, and I slumped down into my tiny chair, which had barely any room to slump down into. My jacket, which was unbuttoned, hung over the edge of the seat and folded over itself when it was on the seat. I saw other people beginning to do the same. Not many, though. I became fed up after a while and decided I’d leave.

However, the room didn’t seem to want me to do that so quickly. Everyone burst out, in unison, singing the Congress song. Words of praise for Congress, and all about Congress. They loved it. And they forced me to join in before trying to sneak out.

“Cooooongresss! Coooooooongreeesssss!”

As they sang, I exited. Memories flooded into me, of childhood, of stories, of adults telling us not to leave the buildings. Why would they not let us leave the buildings? A true curiosity struck me, and I knew that I would have to leave. I stood up and walked out through the large exit on the right side of the room, and viewed the hallway to my left, and the exit to my right.

In front of me, my father. He law a hospital bed with a lightweight blanket, because it was summertime. He looked at me for a moment, and we made a lighthearted joke about his death. It was nothing him and I hadn’t already heard before, and it only lasted a moment before he was gone once again, and I turned to face the exit.

Somehow, it feels like there were windows on that door. There were no windows. I pushed the heavy double-door open on one side and viewed what awaited me.

Outside were the most beautiful green fields that stretched on for miles on end. In the distance I could see the firehouse and its towering glass windows, behind me the congressional building, whose doors now had windows. I ran from the building into the fields and looked back to see what I had tricked my way out of. The Congress building itself rested at the very foot of a mountain that, like the field, seemed to go up a worldly distance. There were no clouds in sight, and no buildings except the fire house and the Congress building.

The mountains were not mountains. I remembered mountains as being cone-shaped, pointy at the top with equal or near equal angles of decent on both sides. These mountains looked like hills, rolling hills that someone piled on top of one another. These hills gradually got steeper and steeper, until they were going up at an angle so steep it was impossible to climb without equipment. The congressional building seemed to be at the edge of all of this, and I noticed that the mountains did not just stay by this one building, but wrapped around what seemed the entire field.

We were in a bowl, a giant bowl of worldly proportions with a flat plane at the bottom. It was the shape of a rectangle with very rounded corners, but not yet an oval. I remembered more as I looked around.

I remembered parents telling their children stories of the edge of the world. These mountains, they were talking about. People were forbidden to try and climb them; the technology to do it was banned. Even if they had the equipment, the mentality of the whole society, nay, the whole world was that they were impossible to climb. But they were the edge of the world, they told us! Our village was the edge of the world! And with that came many superstitions, the widely accepted one being the story of a hellish god…

He carved the world and put us in this bowl for a reason. Nobody could know what lay below, but most assumed that if you were ever able to climb over the mountains of the bowl and fall off, you would face an eternity of hellish fates, and be placed in a pit to fall forever, or until your doom was brought by the god. What did this mean to me? Nobody knew what was outside of it, and everyone was too scared to find out.

I never argued it, though. We were happy living where we were. Only now was I starting to have second thoughts. I thought about the brainwashed children, everyone who heard that story and everyone who would hear that story, and how the society based their laws upon that. It was almost tradition, and everyone was so convinced that there was a hell waiting for everyone who crossed over the mountain.

I wouldn’t stand for it. I had to know what was passed the edge of the world! I would fly over it, I decided. I would fly and find out for myself just why people are so afraid of this mountain. I would fly and find out why nobody was ever able to do it before. I felt like I would be cheating on life, cheating on my own natural abilities to get up the mountain quickly and effortlessly, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do!

I don’t know how, but it must have been the will to escape from this place that fueled my flight. I flew right past the foot of the mountain, and began to fly higher and higher at a steeper angle every moment. I occasionally turned and looked back at the world I had left below. It was always in perfect view, and I went up higher it became even more beautiful to look at than it was standing in front of the Congress building. The land was speckled with red, yellow, and purple flowers. Somehow, the fire house looked larger than everything else. It seemed to grow in size as I flew upward. I could always see its towering windows and brown bricks and curved roof. The building itself was a rounded box.

My flight took an unstable route up the corner of the bowl, which was rounded, so it felt like the mountains were always hugging close on either side of me, when in fact they were not. However, I couldn’t get the hang of flying, so having the rolling hills along side me to keep me comfortable as well as feeling safe meant something.

The top was near, and I could see that the hills, which was now more like one single hill going nearly straight up but still at an angle, finally slumped over to form the area where they would begin to go down. There seemed to be about a foot wide area where I could stand. I figured that was the “rim” of the bowl, but I did expect the mountains to roll back down at a nice angle, making it safer for me to fly downward.

Before looked over the top of the mountain, I rejoiced and looked once more at what I was leaving behind. The fire house was now gargantuan, and was located near the center of the bowl. I could see the entire corner area, and then miles of the bowl extending on to my left. The field at the bottom looked so flat and boring now, just like the firehouse, whose brown brick and towering dark windows I could still see. The congress building was out of sight. It was as if it never existed, because I was up so high. I felt that I was so high up that I was something special, that I’d found a way to do something dangerous and amazing that nobody else had done and would ever do, and what I found on the other side of this mountain range would be mine to cherish forever, and never theirs. I knew that if I were to find a place that it would be untainted by their crazy superstitions and stories. I also knew that I might find another bowl.

I looked away from my old home town and out over the mountain. I couldn’t see where the mountain went down. I couldn’t see ground below. It was literally as if the world ended there, but I knew the mountain must go down. I followed the hills as they rolled over the edge of the bowl.

To my surprise, the mountain did not descend at all. It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen: I cold not see the bottom, but the hills rolled over to form a cliff, that dropped straight down. I had thought going up was steep, but going down would be the steepest. There was no land that I knew of that I would be able to land on. I became skeptical of my own theories, and almost began believing the adults’ stories. But I knew that this leap of faith would be a milestone, and if not, I would feel good about doing it. For the first time, I could see clouds. I didn’t even know what clouds were, but they ere there, and they covered whatever was below.

If there were clouds, I somehow knew there would be land. I somehow knew that these things couldn’t exist without land below. I backed up and began to fly, rushing myself over the edge of the mountain, with a smile that said just how excited I was to do this, and how proud I was that I made it.

Instantly, the clouds vanished and into view came, far below, a city with a golden center resting on a green plain even more beautiful than our bowl’s extending far beyond anything I could ever see or hope to see. The drop, however, was much higher up than what I had flew. In fact, I was probably four times as high as I had been at the top of the mountain looking down on my “world”. I became scared, not only because I wasn’t totally in control of my flying, but because I wanted to land in that city.

It was a city that shone with golden glory; a building resembling the Taj Majal with a roof made of gold was at its center, the rest circling around it the way Atlantis would be designed. It was truly a wonder and I could not stand to land anywhere else! At my rate of decent, I would have landed hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away.

The city was almost directly below me. I began to notice red speckles across the field, as well as purple and yellow flowers I was used to seeing. It took me a while to notice that the red ones were not flowers, but actually red-roofed houses on the outskirts of the circular village. I would pass over those, too, unless I began descending quickly. I didn’t know how to do a save and stable decent, but I knew I would have to learn.

I would drop and try to regain stability. Several large drops would get me to the ground, but smaller drops would have been safer. I started with a large drop, letting myself not fall to the ground without any instruction from my own flight powers, but with enough freedom that I was going at good speed. I was able to stop with a bit of trouble, and look down once again.

The ground was hardly any closer. Just how high up was I?

I let myself drop once again, each time falling a bit fast, and each time having a bit more trouble regaining stability. After about four large drops, I decided that it would be trouble to do any more. I would limit myself to short drops down, pushing the air up below me to slow me down when need be, and eventually ground came near me.

I was still high up enough to see the entire city, and the Taj Majal with a golden roof, sparkling, was still very small. I felt, though, that I was close enough to finish it up in one large drop and several small ones. I let myself fall one last time.

My feet jangled above the golden roof of the Golden Building, and once I knew I couldn’t fall any more without hurting myself on the roof, I attempted to stop. Things began to look artificial, like a bad quality photo. I couldn’t stop myself from falling; stability was lost. At this point there was nothing I could do, so I did what I had to do before reaching the ground.

Now, I write this story from another world. The same crazy superstitions, the same crazy prejudices, and some of the same people, exist in this new world. While things may not be as beautiful, they seem a little more organized here. People have better ways of doing things, and more are rebels than just one. However, I can still see the bowl – my world, surrounding people. And, if it were a gift from somewhere, or some kind of hellish fate that I’m to suffer just as the adults told us all, I will live here. I will live here until I can free myself, because outside, and everywhere I look, the bowl resurfaces. And I know that one day I’ll probably have to climb out of it again.