parallel lines

beginning

The year is 2187.

One hundred years ago, flying cars were invented. Thirty years ago, space travel was free to anyone who wants to explore the space. Twenty-one years ago, scientists have developed the cure to any disease.

Seven years ago...

... they marked us with bar codes like we were items on the racks in grocery stores.

Eli was busy typing on her laptop. Their thesis has been plaguing her for the past two weeks. Eli sighs. Oh, how she missed her 8-hour long sleep before this hell of a fortnight. She sipped on her cup of coffee, put it down, and massaged her temples. She glanced at the clock at the lower corner of her computer screen and winced as she realized that she has spent six hours doing this goddamned thesis paper. Oh, how she wished she was born to a wealthy family. Maybe, she would not need to study and attain a job to make a living for herself.

But of course, it was just one of her long list of wishes. Eli has been living alone since she was young. Her life is a sob story she does not want to share to anyone. Her mom has died of leukemia when she was only 3-months old. Her mom's death took a toll in her father's life. He became a drunkard, a gambler. Eli was only 1 year and 4 months old when his father remarried a woman he met from some bar that he frequented to. She was only 5 years old when his father and his whore of a wife had a child. She was only 9  years old when her step mom deemed that she was independent enough to live on her own and suggested to her husband to move in to another house, in which her idiot of a father agreed to, leaving a 9-year old Eli to live alone by herself, her father stopping by every weekend to make sure that Eli has budget and food to survive.

Eli wished his father just left her to die from hunger. But he did not.