A Journey to the Land of Fire and Ice

Chapter Three

When I wake up I check my watch, six o'clock. I hurry to get dressed in more suitable clothes for the ceremony which we hold every year when the new adults get their jobs. I pick a long sleeved blue shirt with a jean jacket, some dark blue jeans, and white sneakers. I am ready to go in about five minutes, I have twenty minutes before the ceremony, where they will tell me what job I got, that is, if I got one. I myself, am skeptical.

  It's really a lot of pressure with the jobs. If you don't get one your first year, you have to work in the dirtiest, worst jobs. You are considered lower than others, and get the apartments further down, closer to the poison, where it's not enough to really hurt you, but you feel constantly nauseous. The next year you go to the ceremony, and they tell you if you got a job. If you do, you're treated the same as everyone else. If not, you repeat the last year. My mother told me that my father didn't get a job at first, and lived like this for two years. I shudder and head for my door. 

  I get to the ceremony five  minutes early, along with all of the other new adults. I wait, until it starts, and then wait for my name to be called. Since my name starts with an A, it's one of the first called. I step forward to take the envelope, and step back with it in my hand. I'm not supposed to open it until everyone had their envelopes. Each envelope has a number, one to one hundred, they will call number, and the person with that number will step up, open it, and tell what job they got. My number is thirty six, and I am nervous to the point of breaking, I want to open my envelope so badly that I think I might burst. 

  By the time they reach my number, I have chewed my nails so short that they don't even go higher than my finger tip. My hands shake as i tear open my envelope and read the single word in side:

              "Hospital."