It had taken five long years but the town of Sciville had finally opened its gates to the outside world, and as students of architecture we were more than eager to visit.

With its beautifully landscaped lush green lawns and space-age looking living spaces, it was as if the town had teleported itself into the future. Talk about extreme reinvention. Gone were the quaint cottages and the cheerful town square, in its stead stood perfect marvels of the fusion of art and technology.

“Is life pretty much back to normal?” we asked our gentle guide.

“Sort of,” she replied, “although we still have to spend at least 12 to 14 hours of each day indoors to purge ourselves of the toxins.”

The next question was awkward, but it was too obvious not to be asked. “Where are all the younger people? How come we can see only older people around?”

Her eyes took on a glazed look and I knew we had touched a raw nerve.

“We are the young people,” she said, “Didn’t you realise. This is what the bio-leak did. It aged everyone by decades. We are the young people. The elders didn’t make it.”

 

Written for Sunday Photo Fiction based on photo contributed by Sacha Darlington

16 thoughts on “The reinvention of Sciville”

    1. Not a comforting thought for anybody. Have you noticed how crazy people have become about delaying the “7 signs of aging”!!!
      Ya, my mind took a ‘Yikes’ direction on this one.

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      1. I’m 62 and my wife turns 60 this month, so she’s always searching for holistic methods of maintaining quality of life for the both of us. It’s not aging per se, but trying to maintain as high of physical and mental functioning as we can as we get older.

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      2. I totally get it. My mom’s 76 and still actively volunteers her time. It’s her firm belief that if she stops going out and doing something useful, she might just stop getting off the bed.

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  7. Wow! Interesting twist at the end, it turned them all decades older and the older people didn’t make it. Makes me wonder in this future if they can reproduce or if these older-young people are the end of Sciville. I like how you write it, the main character a guide to these other students who actually look young though.

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  8. Wow. That was an unexpected ending. It actually reminds me of a joke.

    Two young lads are walking through the town and they see a wizened old man sitting on his rocking chair on his porch. They ask him what his answer is to his age. He replies “I smoke 30 cigarettes a day, I drink half a bottle of JD, and a six pack of beer. I also eat nothing but burgers and fatty foods.” The younfg lads are amazed and ask him how old he is. “23” he replies.

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