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

[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.