Imagine
an excerpt

Mitch sighed. “You’re just afraid of being called a nerd.” was still ringing in his ears. Of course he was afraid. Everyone was. Being called a nerd meant you were a target for the drop outs and bullies that roamed the school once it let out. They took out their frustration of not being smart enough on the people that had supposedly ‘stolen’ their intelligence.
Mitch was a freshman in high school. Already he liked it much more than his previous years of school. There were more people to talk to, more teachers to get to know and either like or hate, and more knowledge to learn.
Most of the other students in Mitch’s algebra class were juniors and seniors, having failed it several times already. Mitch couldn’t blame them. His mind was boggled at some of the problems he had solved in this class. He was almost nervous to move on in math after algebra.
But he had to. People that didn’t know anything these days either wound up working on the farms in the country of Tanar, located in the southern area of the West Continent, or became part of a gang or roaming terrorist, shooting everyone and everything they came across. “The world,” some world leader had said. “Has no need for uneducated people these days. If you have no knowledge, you have no life.”
Some years after that was said, the world had improved slightly, but there were still drop outs and uneducated people. There were opportunities everywhere for a place to learn, but they never chose to. “People that have no desire to learn, have no desire to live.” the same leader had said. “With all of our technological advances, being uneducated is just not cutting it. Every country in the world is allowing opportunities everywhere for anyone to be uneducated. If you skip that chance, than life will be very, very harsh.”
Mitch sighed. His uncle was like that. His uncle had no desire to learn much of anything. And life was harsh for him. No work would accept him, the government only supported people that were in school. So, eventually, he moved out of the city, and went to go work on the Farms. In a recent letter, his uncle had described what the Farms was like.
“It’s so damn horrible in this hellish place. Thousands and thousands of people living everywhere, going out to the fields day in and day out. Weeding, watering, killing pests, harvesting. They have no lives. Only farming from sunrise to sunset, and sleeping the instant they get home. Some forget about their families. All they care about is getting their three meals a day, and a few dollars wage for an extra snack or two. I’m thinking I’m going to be saving my wages so I can move back to the city and get myself better educated. I sure hope you can read my penmanship, Mitch. If it wasn’t for Dewy here, writing for my, I wouldn’t even be able to talk to you. Just know that if you don’t get educated, it’s true, you have no life.”
The tardy bell rang, and Mitch was called back from his thoughts about his uncle’s letter. His teacher stood up and began class, Mitch taking notes furiously after everything she said.