Surreal Places

[plumtreeblossom]

Imagine if you had to go to high school for your entire life. Say you're caught in some freak alternate reality in which everyone must live permanently in the life phase they were in when the glitch happened, and you were unlucky enough to have been in high school at that moment.

You grow older physically, but you can never escape high school life. You go through 10th, 11th, 12th grade, but then it just continues... 13th, 14th, 15th...

Physically and mentally, you and your classmates age, but you are forced to live as high schoolers. Years go by and you're in 29th grade, but your life is not allowed evolve into adulthood. You have to live with your parents and obey them. You can date, but you can't marry or live with a romantic partner. Your brothers and sisters are stuck there, too. If one of them was an infant at the time of the glitch, well, they're in an even worse pickle than you are.

You're in 36th grade and your aging mother still has to drive you to soccer practice because you can't get a license. If you have a job, it can only be after school and a teen job, like fast food or cashiering. You can never go to college. You have a curfew.

This needs to be a surrealist one-act play, and I should write it.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Would make a great Twilight Zone episode.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

This needs to be a surrealist one-act play, and I should write it.

No, you need to take a pill and go lie down -- that's a scary, scary idea!

[minkrose]

It would be difficult to make the characters sympathetic, I think. I know plenty of people who moved in with their significant other during high school - my friend Dave had a g/f who moved in with his family for a couple years. I think if you had that much time to deal with being in that situation, everyone would mature enough that it wouldn't stay the same. I don't think that would be POSSIBLE - everyone would either have to be hypnotized so that they never treated each other differently (which would not be a good plot at all) or they'd have to change on some level, which means they can't really be trapped in one method of acting towards each other.

It's an interesting idea, I just have no clue how you would make it work. I read your post and think that I would watch it and hope that everyone committed suicide by the end.

[thesynergizer.livejournal.com]

i will be blaming you for the horrid nightmares i'm going to have. (get it? night MARES?!?!!? ha ha ha ha!) this is a great answer to all those who believe that high school was their "glory days" and nothing will ever be as good again. its a lesson in appreciating each stage of life as it is, without wishing for the past or future.

PS: your logic has a few holes it seems. if you and your mother are aging, wouldn't your infant sibling age too? are you just inferring that they will still be getting their diaper changed at age 12?

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Let me know if you want to brainstorm that. I have an idea for another one-act play about a "date" between a Jedi Knight and a Sith Lord.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

o_0

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

After reading just the first two paragraphs, I thought you were talking about my life.

I can never ever escape high school life. Not until they fire me. :-)

[beowabbit]

That’s a creepily awesome idea!

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Creepy idea.

But, when I was in high school, high school kids could get a license. And I didn't have a curfew. Living with my parents would be pretty hideous though. My parents weren't too awful, but, gawds! The mess. My mother alone can manage to create more mess and clutter than her four daughters could keep up with, even if they did feel motivated too (which, when I was in high-school, wasn't very.)

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

I was wondering the same things. Is the driving age different now than it used to be? I know I was driving junior and senior year of high school; I just wasn't one of the cool kids who drove to school. And I never had a curfew, either; in high school, very few of my classmates did.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Re curfew: For me and my sibs it was more like we were expected to let my parents know where we'd be and how late we'd be out. If things turned out that we'd be later than anticipated we were to call to give an update as to why (brief explanation would suffice) and what the new anticipated return-home time would be.

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how it worked for my sister and me, too.

My girlfriend in high school had a soft curfew. If she was going to be out any later than 1 a.m., she had to call her parents. That was the only restriction she had.

I think this (lack of or "soft" curfew) encourages more responsibility and openness and minimizes potential resentment. It works far better than arbitrarily choosing a time.

[oneagain.livejournal.com]

Indeed sounds like some of my nightmares...

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Last year I read a book called Replay that reminds me a lot of this concept. The main character kept "replaying" from age 18 on, but his girlfriend started at 14 or so and had to keep replaying high school over and over.

[mistergoat.livejournal.com]

Write it!

[dpolicar]

Maybe this is what the Rapture is like.

[mindflankr.livejournal.com]

OMG! Yes you should!