How a Passionate Longing for Knowledge Led to the Creation of Super Librarian
By Kristin Koefoed

     A yawn escaped her lungs as she grew more aware of her physical surroundings and her mind withdrew from Eighteenth Century England.  It wasn’t unusual for Emily to spend hours in that dank library, her only company being decomposing shelves that held decomposing books.  There was a certain appeal to this lonely unkempt room; it had unique character, Emily felt, in the way that it was falling apart.  This was, most likely, because ever since 2076, libraries had remained unused, nearly all of them being viewed as so unimportant that they didn’t even warrant a cleaning out.  So throughout the nation, schools and community centers held extra rooms of no value, collecting dust, cobwebs, and storage boxes.  Emily however, had never been content with the phlegmatic mannerisms of her environment.  She did not agree with the decision to stop funding libraries, nor the decision to remove History, Science, and Math from the school curriculum, in preference of teaching pupils only what they needed to properly function and serve.

     Daily, she bore witness to the effects of these changes.  Each of her fellow students, the rising generation, the world of tomorrow... was totally void of sympathy and concern.  The ignorance she saw was potent in, yet not limited to, the ways of the student body.  It also had its special place within the hearts of authoritative adult figures that administered the conditioning of her peers’ minds.  It was depressing that the people whom were supposed to help children grow, had never shed the stubborn behaviors of their own childhoods. 
     This world was a war for Emily, who had battled endlessly to bring cessation to the dismal trend of uneducation.  For the first three years of her high school experience, she had been unsuccessful in achieving her goal; but when senior year came around, for the first time in her life, she received a response.  It appeared there were several others like her, in the refusal to be a subordinate sheep and surrender individual thinking to the programming of the masses.  They saw it necessary for people to become familiar with historical events and the experiences of others, so as to prevent all the wrong and suffering that had transpired in the past from reoccurring; and to form a logical understanding of the basic principals of science and existence so they could develop strong rational thinking and a comprehension of why things were.  As of that time, few understood anything other than their primal urges and basic duties to their government.  Emily and her new acquaintances united to salvage what remained of human intellect by presenting information to the public in hopes of sparking a realization of the necessity of knowledge.
     All seemed to be on the way to success, and though this was victory for Emily, it presented a strong threat to those who had worked so hard to keep the public numb for the purpose of maintaining complete control and tyrannical power.  Therefore, they decided something must be done to prevent  further spread of this infectious desire to become educated. One night after a meeting with her coalition had concluded, Emily walked homeward along a quiet road.  A car had approached her from behind, and without enough time to even turn around, her head was struck blunt object, knocking her unconscious. 

     Though her attackers had not wanted her to, Emily woke several hours later to darkness.  She struggled to make her way out of what she soon discovered to be a burlaps sack, and opened her eyes to see she lay covered in the muddy water, glowing from the waste dispelled by the thirty-three nuclear power plants that lined the edge of the river.  Her hand found its way to the pulsation on the back of her head.  All at once, she felt a complete awareness of what had occurred up to this point... not only in her lifetime, but in the entire existence of mankind.  From the Neanderthals, to the French Revolution, to the Third World War, she had what seemed like a boundless knowledge of everything ever recorded.  And with her unlimited knowledge, came the realization of what she had to do with her newfound abilities.  It was now her duty to take what she had acquired and reinstate, in the whole of society, a longing to learn and a way to do so.