Folyosó Winter 2020–2021 - Page 4

Bernadett Sági

Our world is way different from the world my grandparents lived in. The Big Change happened in those years when my parents were born. They don’t really remember what life was like before. The children born after them don’t even know as much as they do. The whole world changed, and everybody’s life turned to its opposite. It was a new technological invention that caused it. It looks like a contact lens, but you can’t just take it out or put it in. We got it when we were born, and everybody has one in their left eye. It’s invisible if you look at someone; people can see only their own lenses. My grandfather says that it looks like when you play a video game and you are the character in it. You have a tab or whatever floating on your side. In this tab a lot of ‘buttons’ appear with different names on them, and you can choose where you want to go. For example, if you select the one with the word ‘plaza’ on it, you can go to the biggest plaza you’ve ever seen. It’s not real, so we are not teleporting or anything like that. It’s more like a virtual world. We are in our body, doing everything we want. We are not controlled. There’s no difference between reality and these worlds, but you can tell which is the ‘original’ one; you can feel it, but it is really hard to decide. The tab does not disturb your eyesight, because you can swipe it away by only thinking of it. You control it with your brain and your thoughts. How cool is that!

I don’t really understand how anybody could live without the lens. It makes our life easier, and that’s what the State wanted too: to make our lives more comfortable. There are worlds for having fun and worlds with different landscapes. You can go from one to another easily and fast. Of course, you can also go to these places without using your lens, but who would do that? It takes more time and effort; because of this, people don’t travel anymore. With my friends Ryan and Beth we always meet in these virtual places when we are not at school. Ryan is more outgoing than Beth and me. He enjoys jumping between worlds very much and always invites us too. People who are older rarely use it and say that it’s useless and stupid. They think it’s pointless, and they rebelled many times when the lenses were invented. They said that it controls and brainwashes us. I didn’t believe them. I also heard that a lot of people went crazy at the beginning. They didn’t know which was the real world and which was the virtual. I always thought that these were just made-up tales that my grandpa told me, because he was against the lenses and the State because it invented it. You can’t die in virtual worlds, so when you jump off of a cliff or even drive into a wall with a car, you don’t have to worry about what will happen to you. But luckily you’re not doing it in your original world.

The days went on, and I didn’t see either Ryan or Beth for a long time because we were on school break. A lot of new worlds were created, and I tried a few of them and found a new favorite. I was there with my mom. This is a world where it is always summer; there are festivals and beaches, swimming pools and aquaparks everywhere you go. There are booths where you can buy ice cream, snacks and anything you want. There are colorful beach umbrellas standing in the sand. I enjoyed being there, especially because it was fall and I don’t really like that time of year.

Soon the break was over, and we went back to school. Everything was ordinary. One day I was talking with Beth in front of the school when Ryan came along. He stopped next to us, said hello. He was a bit strange, constantly looking around. He said that he was busy, so he went toward the school.  We didn’t worry about his being different. Maybe he had just had a very strange school break. We didn’t see him for the rest of the day. The next morning when I went to school, I saw something strange on the roof. I didn’t recognize it at first, but it was a person standing there. It wasn’t just a random person; it was Ryan. I ran to the door and opened it as fast as I could. I ran upstairs, went up to the roof. Ryan was in front of me. He noticed me and turned around. He was smiling, but I didn’t know why. I couldn’t think of anything but to stop him from what he was going to do.

“Ryan, what are you doing here?” I asked. He was still smiling when he answered.

“Just trying something new. I have always wanted to know how crazy it feels,” he said and turned back.

“Ryan, don’t! It’s a really bad idea. What are you thinking?” I asked him. I was really confused. I didn’t know why he was doing that. He didn’t seem sad or anything.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be okay,” he said and jumped into the nothing. I was standing there and didn’t really know what I saw. I was shocked and probably not moving for minutes, just looking at the point where Ryan had been standing a few moments ago. The next minutes or hours—I don’t know how much time passed—were very hazy. My next clear memory is of sitting on my bed. So here I am, staring at the wall and thinking about what was happening. Ryan. He jumped off the roof. But why? He had no reason to do it. Then I realized why he was weird and why he did what he did. He thought that he was still in a virtual world. Everything my grandpa told me was true. Everything. And I didn’t believe him. But now … now I do. I believe everything. The lenses are not for us; they are against us. They control us even if we don’t feel it. The State is lying to us. They say that they want us to live an easy life. But it’s not the truth; they don’t want us to live a normal life. They did this to Ryan. My train of thoughts was interrupted by the pain I felt when I ripped my contact lens out.

Lilla Kassai

Have you ever wanted to own a dragon? Are you a fan of Eragon, Game of Thrones, or How To Train Your Dragon? Do you like magical fantasy books, or fantasy worlds with all types of mythical creatures? Now, it’s possible even to own them, because now, dragons are real.

The process of bringing them to reality was extremely long, and criticized by  GreenPeace activists. It was a mutation between lizards, iguanas, geckos and various sizes of bats. Since only bats have wings made out of leather that could possibly look good on a dragon, scientists made a fetus out of a regular bat’s and a Armadillo lizard’s genes.  

The results weren’t the same, as we originally expected: the first few fetuses weren’t capable of living, but later on, they became stronger and stronger. The first dragons that could use their wings for flying were approximately the 20th experimental fetuses. As they grew older, a few more problems occurred: they weren’t capable of reproduction, so their offspring were still made in incubators.

The thirtieth generation of the experimental dragons was the first that finally became fertile and could use their wings for flying. The first dragons that could be kept in a household were finally circulating on the common market, as pets. But the dragon fans wanted more: bigger dragons that could be ridden.

The scientists accepted their challenge: they took a few hundred of the dragon prototypes and brought them into the laboratory again, where the new mixing of the genes began: the genes of a dragon mixed with the genes of varanus and crocodile, to make them grow bigger with stronger and thicker skin.

The first experimental fetuses weren’t the best ones: their wings were too small to bear the weight of the bigger dragons, so they tried again with the bats, but even the biggest species didn’t have wings big enough to enable the new mutant to fly. The final solution seemed to be the genes of a dinosaur, more specifically a Pteranodon. The result was better than the expectation. The new prototypes of dragons were bigger and could fly and reproduce, so their offspring could give better genes for the next mutation with the smaller species of dragons. After mixing their genes, and adding some pigments to them, they started to form different subspecies. To make the evolutionary process faster, the scientists started to make artificial dragon babies, because the mutants, who were now finished, weren’t as prolific as desired.

As soon as the dragons were ready, they were out on the market, but the big ones were extremely expensive and required lots of space, so they were given to farmers, who started breeding them in open air, where the animals were a lot happier than in a science lab.

A few of them still escaped. They mainly flew to mountain forests in the North, where their thick skin protected them from the cold. They lived in the mountains of Siberia, where you can rarely find a human. Just the raw savage and endless forest.

Deniz Pala

Dear Mum and Dad,

I need money.

I’m sorry for the lack of communication ever since my arrival at this fancy boarding school. The honest truth is I haven’t been adjusting well and was embarrassed to tell you all about it, especially my academic performance, considering how much you value it. The classwork is very difficult here and I felt like despite being the hardest working person I saw, I always ended up with the lowest grades. Well, I’m writing to you now because I figured out how that happened.

Thanks to my drawing skills and a group project in arts class, I ended up being invited to the dorm room of a girl in my class named Alyssa. Her roommate Becca was also there, studying by reading her textbook aloud while were drawing on Alyssa’s side of the room. About half an hour in, I spotted Becca pulling out a diffuser. I didn’t see what she put in it, but was excited for the room to smell a bit nicer, if I’m being honest. 

Skip forward half an hour, the room smelled worse, when Becca suddenly called out my name to ask me… to describe the relationship between appearance and reality as described by Pluto, Russell and Descartes. And I started answering.

As you know, I don’t take philosophy. I don’t like philosophy. I could’ve sworn I had never heard those names before, let alone their ideas. And yet there I was going on about them with all the details, like I was… reading from a textbook.

After having a good long laugh, thanks to whatever facial expressions I was pulling, they explained it all to me.

What Becca put in wasn’t an essential oil, it was the voice recording she made while reading her textbook. The “diffuser” converted the sound into a smell. The sense with the weakest link to memory to the one with the strongest. That’s why they simply called it a “converter.” Two men made it for their son who had a condition that made it especially difficult for him to memorize things for school. When he started at this school, the other parents tracked the diffusers down and pushed until they began mass-producing them. Although knowledge of this product stayed within a very elite group of people, the two men became rich, and the school the hardest in the country, as the students just kept getting good grades no matter how much more material the school put in the curriculum.

And that is why I need money, and lots of it, if you insist on keeping me at this school.

With sincere appreciation,

Your lovely daughter Max

Ahmet Yavuz Kaya

It’s a story about a crazy scientist grandfather and Jimmy, his grandchild.

Jimmy: Grandpa! Please do my science homework!

Grandpa: Jimmy, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t enter my workshop without my permission. I almost broke my new invention.

Jimmy: What is that helmet, Grandpa? It looks like a coke box on a helmet.

Grandpa: Well, I call It Muter3000. In a simple way, it’s something like a real-life mute, like you young people do on social media, but if I have to explain in a more scientific way—

Jimmy: No, I don’t need to know any more.

Grandpa: Aaa! You younglings’ impatience has made me a misanthrope! At least listen to what you asked for.

Jimmy: Fine…

Grandpa: Then, it propagates waves in a 10-meter radius to people’s brains in that area and prevents their brain’s communication and pattern recognition areas from making any movement or contact related to the person who wears it. So I don’t have to deal with people when I am not in a good mood.

Jimmy: But if there are some  people whom I want to exclude from the blocking, what will happen?

Grandpa: Did you really think that I never thought of that? Well, Jimmy, as you said before, that part which resembles the “coke box,” it’s a biological filter that you have to put something into, like a few hair strands, etc. For example, if Nietzsche were resurrected somehow with science, and if I put in the filter some piece of his cool mustache that was stolen from his coffin, I would be able to communicate with him even if I were wearing Muter3000.

Jimmy: Who is Nietzsche, anyway? Never mind, drop it. How did this Muter3000 come into your mind?

Grandpa: Oh, you will see. (He wears the Muter3000 and starts walking toward the door.)

Jimmy: Hey! I thought  you would do my ho— (Jimmy is stunned; he can’t move or appeal to his grandpa.)

At the front of the door, Grandpa smiles and says:

See you later Jimmy, Do your homework by yourself.

Kázmér Kaposvári

Our story begins in the twenty-first century: to be exact, in 2044, where we humans have extended our discovery of horizon to the sky. We have built efficient ships capable of bringing people to other planets.

The only planet we have ventured to so far is Planet Mars, as this seemed to be the best one to conquer because of its similarities to Earth. Because of the vast environment, we have only built homes, habitats, and domes underground. This process took an immense amount of money, resources, and energy. Mostly scientists are living there so far and are constantly battling the problems of the unpredictable red planet, such as the sandstorms that can block light, thus preventing it from reaching the solar panels. For this, small nuclear energy generators are used, but they are not for all eternity, as the storm can even stay on the whole planet for months and, very rarely, years.

A new ship was about to land on one of the landing pads: a small team of scientists was to arrive from a nearly six-month journey in space from Earth. This small team included Jackie, Bill, and Robert. During the long trip, they discussed all the problems and difficulties of space travel: loss of muscle mass, their lack of personal belongings from home, homesickness, the awful solution for toilet usage. They also agreed that the journey they were taking was really the future, but here it took such a long time for everything to happen. Even on the Mars base they could only send short messages and videos back to Earth, and depending on the current orbit of Mars and Earth, it could take hours to get a response from the home planet. This small team of three were technicians whose job was mainly to repair electronics. A few weeks later, a disaster struck the Mars base. The dome where the fruits and vegetables were planted and harvested in quite a great number, had an attack by an unknown disease, and most of the greenery died out. The base had only fifty people at that point, yet a mass destruction of plants like this would have an influence on the overall food supply. The reserved food was estimated to be enough for three weeks, and then slowly all that remained would be consumed until it was all gone.

The morale of the society was disturbed deeply, though everyone knew that the moment they set foot on the ship on Earth, there was no guarantee that they would ever return in one piece. Jackie and his friends were here for only a few weeks, and they already felt the death that was just waiting for them. They also knew that the main problem here was: the time of transportation. Unfortunately, they could not wait for another ship with supplies, as it was many months away. Everyone was trying their best to fix the crisis, but as the days went by, the nights got more difficult to sleep through.

One night the three friends were fixing the long-range transponder system, and they suddenly received a strange transmission from an unknown location from space. It seemed this came from the uncharted regions in the universe. This message they accidently received was more like an instruction for a technology yet to be discovered. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, they were able at least to translate and understand what it was about. Jackie immediately realised that this was the key to the problem. The plans they were seeing were for a strange gate: more exactly, two individual gates connected by a strange phenomenon they did not understand. These gates were able to transport matter from one place to the other in no time. They shared the news with the rest of the base, but as expected, not everyone was pleased by this great plan. Some thought this alien tech was here for a reason and maybe to destroy us. As no one had a better idea and time was running out, they started to build it. Luckily, there were many resources for building, as Jackie’s team, when they arrived, brought some supplies. The plans were also sent to Earth, and the construction has begun.

In a few days after the exhausting hard hours were behind them, it was ready; the only step was just to insert the code provided in the plans for connection. The moment of the new era of space travel stood before them, and they were only a press of a button away from unleashing the great changes of the future, as they all knew what this discovery would do. After activation, just as if through a window, they could see their fellow friends on the other side of the gate. It worked like a simple gate, and they could easily hop from Mars to Earth and vice versa. Jackie and his team received a Nobel prize for their discovery for saving the people on the base, but they were never allowed to speak of the signal they received, nor of anything regarding that matter.

The three friends were rich, but they also wondered what they had brought upon humanity: a bright future, or the end of their civilization by another one.