"Smithtown In The Year 3000" Short Story Winning Entries

“Smithtown In The Year 3000” Smithtown Matters/ Smithtown Youth Bureau’s creative writing contest - Short Story Winning Entry and Honorable Mention Entry.

The Coming Times of Smithtown

By Eric David

I’ve spent my years always trying to figure out how to change the world, how to leave a mark on history, how to die on my death bed with no regrets. I’ve spent my whole life as a scientist to invent the one thing that has never been attempted before in history, many scientists talk about how it’s impossible, or that our technology isn’t advanced enough yet. But if we were to invent this device, the time machine, it could change the world and bring about new possibilities. And I want to be the one to bring that change into this world, and leave my mark on history so that I may never be forgotten, because that is my one and only fear. Not to be scared of death, or pain, or being endanger, but to be forgotten. Which is why I spent my whole life dedicated to building this machine and I assure you that all those years of my life that have been spent on researching did not go to waste because I have finally done it, I have invented the time machine. The only thing left for me to do now, is to test it.

I brought the device to an old ballet school, long deserted, a good radius outside of Smithtown, it was the best location for me to remain from being found. So I carry the time machine over inside the school and into one of the ballet dance rooms. It is surprisingly light for a time machine, it weighs about the same as a car battery and it is able to fit an averaged size human being inside it. As I set the machine down in the middle of the dance room I looked around and saw these pictures of little girls dancing on the wall. I began to ponder the thought of what could change in the future. As I glare at the pictures on the wall, I wondered if there would be a brand new type of dance, or cures for diseases, or even a more successful and advanced society. A society that that focuses on improving, it choses quality over quantity, a society in where we can all grasp each other’s hands and unite as one, our society, our town, Smithtown would be unstoppable, the possibilities are endless with this machine. And the only way I could find out was to step inside the machine, set the year to 1000 years into the future, and press the go switch. So that’s what I did.

I woke up and stepped out of the machine, quickly ran outside and my legs fell like stones. My eyes were in a daze, I was in awe, I saw flying cars, there were these buildings that seemed to levitate off the ground, and robots walking the streets, everything had changed. I got up and began to walk around; I tried to see if the Commack public library was still around, sure enough it was. I wanted to see what has changed in Smithtown throughout the years. I logged onto a computer and typed in the search engine “Changes in Smithtown”. I looked at the results and there were tears running down my face, my town that I was born and raised in, was responsible for these incredible achievements like “research center in Smithtown found cure for tumors”, “Smithtown criminal activity decreased by 80%”, “Mayor increases school education by introducing new curriculums!” As I read these news articles that seemed to go on endlessly. But there’s something I expected to be invented by this time period but doesn’t seem to have been created yet, a time machine. That’s when I then realized that I left my device at the ballet school, so I quickly returned to it to ensure that it was still there. It was, and I stared at my creation and realized that it is the only one of its kind. And it seems that the world is finally ready for it, my creation, my mark on history will be remembered throughout the ages. But not just mine; my home, Smithtown will also be remembered.

Honorable Mention - Morgan Schare

Smithtown in the Year 3000 My feet slam down on the pavement of the cracked sidewalk carrying me farther and farther away from my home, away form my old life. Sirens are sounding all around me and I hear gunshots in the distance. Goosebumps crawl up my skin and my teeth are chattering from the cold. Wrapping my arms around myself I make my way to the edge of town and to the electric gate. The gate is much taller than me; it stretches ten feet high and it surrounds Smithtown on all sides. The government says that the gate is there to protect us from the outside world, but my parents thought otherwise and now they’ve been punished for their thoughts. I shudder as the memory of my parents’ lifeless bodies enter my mind.

My father said that it wasn’t always this way. He used to tell me stories of communities just like Smithtown; people would leave and enter other towns as they pleased. In these communities people actually had a say in the government and they had freedom. Well at least that was how it was before the eighth World War struck our country. This war was like a plague. People began to turn on their families in the middle of the night. The war has been going on for a little over 100 years now; I don’t think it will ever end. I finally reach the edge of the gate and I pick up a stick next to my ratty sneaker and toss it at the gate to check if the electricity is on. The stick bounces back off of the gate and I sigh with relief.

I bend down and grab the edge of the gate and pull it upwards creating a small enough hole for me to slide under it and out into the world beyond. As soon as I’m on the other side of the gate I run as fast as I can towards the woods. I know that as soon as the sun rises and the government realizes that I’m gone, they’ll come looking for me and everyone that I’ve left behind will be in danger.

Jet, Kiza, and Leigh, their lives are now in jeopardy because I have escaped. But they know this because their families are also a part of the Beginning, the beginning of a revolution in Smithtown. My breath is labored and my legs are aching by the time I reach a rundown shack at the edge of the woods. All of the windows are broken and a thick coating of moss is hugging the outside walls. I carefully make my way up the raggedy, old steps and into what would now be my safe house. A layer of dust coats the scratched floors and moldy sheets cover what is left of the furniture. This house must not have fit the qualifications of the homes inside the gate.

My eyes travel around the room. The room seems sad, yet full of life at the same time; many memories were made here. The Beginning has one major project to complete. They want to find out as much information as they can about what life was like in Smithtown before the war. Our government did everything in its power to keep us shielded from the past; they say it’s for our own safety. If you ask me or any other member of the Beginning, they’ll say that our government is hiding things from us and it’s our duty to uncover the truth. I strongly believe that this house holds secrets of the past and I am going to tear it apart from top to bottom to find answers. I walk to the back of the house and enter a room off the kitchen.

As soon as I open the door a fouls smell almost knocks me off my feet. My hand holds my nose as the smell registers in my brain: dead bodies. Sure enough there is a pile in the middle of the room with a bloody sheet hiding what horrid thing lay beneath it. A pale, rotting hand sticks out from under the sheet and I shudder. I run back to the front of the house to gather my thoughts. I should’ve expected this, as there were consequences for the people whose homes were not chosen to be included inside of the Smithtown Gate.

I never realized that those consequences included murdering innocent people. Anger and determination pound through my veins. I turn towards the door nearest me and find it to be completely empty, but it doesn’t fool me. These old houses had many different secret openings in walls and floors, which were used to store artifacts that the government tried to collect way before the gate was put up. The government wanted these artifacts so we would not be able to look back on the past; they burned everything they collected. Paintings, poems, textbooks, anything they thought would provoke a memory was turned to ash. I walk to the center of the room and drop to my knees. I feel around the floor for any loose floorboards that could be lifted; there are none.

I then make my way to one of the walls and knock on it to see if it is hollow. I do this to each wall until I finally hear a hollow sound. The fourth wall is definitely hollow and my curiosity soars. In order to break through the wall I need a sharp object so I make my way back to the front of the house in search of a tool. I open what looks to be a closet and I am in luck. Inside the closet is a crowbar, probably put there by the family in case they were ever robbed of the rest of their lives. I shake off these feelings and snatch the crowbar up from the ground. I drag it into the room I was in before and begin to smash it at the hollow wall. I create a large enough hole to stick my arm through and run it across the floor on the other side of the wall searching for something. I am not quite sure what that something is just yet. I am about to give up when my hand hits something hard. My heart stops. Then speeds up like a racecar. I pull the object out and stared at it in disbelief. It is a tiny box with pictures of different works of art scattered across the front. I have never seen anything like it before. I open the box carefully and gasp. What rested inside the box was going to change everything. My name is Enno Amorette and I am a part of the Revolution.