Beauty School

Callysta awoke with a start and sighed heavily. Today was her eighteenth birthday, which was exciting. Her excitement, however, was harshly dulled by the fact that today was the day she left for Beauty School.

"Callysta, honey, I've made you breakfast!"

At the sound of her mother's voice, Callysta swung her long, thin legs over the bed and slipped her feet into her favorite pair of vintage Ugs. After making marginal efforts to tame her cropped, blonde bed-head, she slipped on her leggings and a band t-shirt and took a final look around her room. Things would change after today; she knew that. The posters covering the walls of her room – Marvel, Pentatonix, Taylor Swift – would all be gone, replaced by mirrors and artsy paintings. The band T's and merchandise that littered the floor of her room would be gone as well, replaced by eyeshadow pallettes, lipsticks, and nailpolish remover. No longer would she dance around the hallway wearing the old-fashioned ear buds she'd found in her Grandma's attic, she'd be doing yoga and occasionally a cardio workout, instead. No more pizza, no more chocolate; these things would make way for the salads and grilled chicken of a grown woman. She knew these things would happen because she had watched them happen, slowly but definitively, to nearly every one of her friends after they left for Beauty School. And she wouldn't have minded so terribly if she simply chose to like new things, if she somehow "grew up" and stopped being so "moody" and "stuck in the past." No, if it was her own decision, she wouldn't mind one bit. The issue was that this transformation would not be her decision, but the government's. She knew; She'd figured it out. It wasn't that hard, really. How else could it be that all of her friends, whom she had known practically since infancy, had changed from their beautiful, interesting, diverse selves into plastic supermodels, just over the course of one day? It has to be a conspiracy.

Every boy and girl, like clockwork, attended beauty school on his or her eighteenth birthday. And every boy and girl returned home that night completely changed. They were beautiful, yes, and completely up-to-date with all the latest trends, but changed and somehow fake. Always smiling bright red smiles, their hair now long, now short, now curled, now straight, now blonde, now blue. Trends changed almost weekly, and Callysta hardly bothered to try and keep up, although her friends now did.

"Ooohh, big day!" her mother sang, passing her a plate piled high with french toast.

"Yeah."

"Aren't you excited?"

"Not really."

"Well you should be, because this is the biggest day of your life! You'll finally shed your girlish awkwardness and grow into a beautiful woman."

"But I like the way I look."

"Ah," Her mother gave her a knowing look. "That's what they all say. It's normal to be nervous – good, even! But don't worry, you'll love it. You'll be so beautiful! The boys will be all over you."

"I guess." Callysta had to admit that it might be nice to be noticed, sometimes. Maybe. She'd watched as her friends came home from Beauty School with perfect hourglass figures and long, dark hair, and they immediately had men falling at their feet – gorgeous, post-Beauty School men with broad shoulders and dagger-sharp jawlines. That would be one pro, she supposed. "Just don't get rid of my stuff, okay? I might still want it."

Her mother smiled patronizingly. "I promise. I won't touch a thing. But I would be very surprised if you still wanted all of that dated junk after your transformation."

"It's not junk, mom, and it isn't dated. It's vintage. They're collectible."

"You need to stop being stuck in the past, honey; this is the 23rd century."