Love this quote
“Right now, we act like the people this 13 year old described in her 500 words. With 24/7 news and the ubiquity of social media, we have become expert spectators, collectively passive and stumbling into the new longevity. If we cling to old definitions of a future no one can pretend to predict, we are still going to age. But we will have been complicit and ultimately powerless by refusing to choose how we will age in the 21st Century. It’s time we all thought about that.”
She’s waiting for her envelope, in which sits a letter, telling her how many years she has left to live. The policy was created in response to overpopulation. So, age is no longer an increasing number, it’s a decreasing one.
And her time left has been determined by a slew of tests. Her countdown is predicated on exam results and the duration of her life will be decided on what “the rulers” deem to be her: merits, intelligence, looks and charisma. So far, so contemporary.
This disturbing, dystopian look at society was the basis of a 500 word short story written by a 13 year old girl, Susannah Ames and it was the winning entry for last year’s competition. The contest is now in its fifth year and championed by Chris Evans, it’s BBC Radio 2’s 500 word– short-story-contest. Last year there were over 117,000 entries in…
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