YOU’RE EITHER IN OR YOU’RE OUT

I woke up to the sound of my alarm jamming in my ear. It was time to go to back to school I’ve been video chatting with Adam, my best friend. Adam has nice brown hair  and even though he wears glasses, you can still see how nice his hazel eyes are. Even after the hours we’d spent talking, I still had more I wanted to say about the live show that had aired the previous night. This time, it was named, “Night of good laughs.” This live show goes on every day and we all have to watch it. It comes on at 5 pm. If we missed even a smidgen of one of the live shows, we were sent to prison. That’s it, no ifs, ands or buts. We were just recently forced to watch this show last year.The show has some funny characters like a fat man with his gut hanging out and a mole on his chin that really stands out. There is also a woman named Mildred that wears glasses and braces and wears a long skirt as her signature look. I got dressed then headed down to the kitchen. Grabbing a piece of toast, I headed out the door to see Adam; he always takes me to school. On our way there, our conversation was solely about, “Night of Good Laughs.”
We arrived at school and took the elevator up to first period, something that had become a routine. In English class we had to describe what are mom and dad’s reactions were to the web show. “My mom and I couldn’t get enough of that fat guy,” Sarah hooted and everyone agreed. My mom watches every single episode with me, which is odd being as that we rarely spend any time together. What was even more weird was that she knew exactly what was going to happen and when it was going to happen, down to the minute. On the other hand, I couldn’t talk about my dad because he left my mother and I on a Sunday morning when I was only four years old. The best memory I have of him is when he took me to this one pizza place, which is a pretty sucky memory if you ask me. I got home and headed straight to the chat room, something everyone does before the actual live chat begins. We were talking about Mr. Moler and how his shirt wasn’t big enough to cover his gut. All that talk about Mr. Moler made me wonder if I had a gut. I looked down at my stomach and put a hand over it self-consciously. My mom called me fifteen minutes later, telling me the live show was about to start. We always eat dinner while watching it. This time I didn’t want any because I didn’t want my gut it grow like Mr. Moler. “I’m not very hungry tonight,” I told my mom as she was walking over with my plate. She just shrugged, not asking for an explanation. The live show was great that day, my mom and I both agreed. There was a new girl named Tiffany, who was really thin and wore a yellow schoolgirl outfit. After it ended it headed to my bedroom and started talking to Adam.
“That new girl, Tiffany, was way too skinny. I was confused on whether she was a schoolgirl or a pencil,” Adam said, roaring with laughter.
I didn’t want to be mean so I just said, “Mmmm,” and changed the subject. I fell asleep next to my phone and once again, the alarm rattled my eardrum, making me jump .When I got in the car with Adam the first I noticed was that he didn’t have his nicely black framed glasses. Weird. “Adam where are your glasses?”
“I convinced my parents to get me contact lenses. Now I don’t have to look like Mildred,” he beamed, proudly. I didn’t know how to respond, was this a good thing or a bad thing?
I didn’t want Adam to change; but I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t happy for him either, so I just faked a smile and said, “That’s great!” After 3rd period I headed to the girls restroom and found Rebecca on the floor, her mouth full of blood.
“What’s wrong, what were you trying to do, should I call the nurse?” I said.
“NO! I don’t want you to do anything its fine! She said.
“Then what were you trying to do, and why is there blood all over your mouth?” I said.
“Be-because...” She mumbled.
“Because what?” I said.
“Because I didn’t want to look like Mildred! Okay! Are you happy now?” She said.
“So were you trying to take off your braces?” I said.
“Yes” she responded.
“Come on let’s get you cleaned up”, I said. I got home like usual. I explained to my mom right away what happened with Rebecca and I in the restroom today and her only response was “She’ll be fine that’s okay if she wants to change something.” I was just so surprise by my mom not reacting to everyone wanting to change because of these characters. Even my best friend is changing himself. I needed to find someone that noticed the same things. I started to eat again I was hungry I couldn’t handle not eating. As I was walking through the halls the next morning someone came up to me and it took me a while to figure out who it was until I saw her up close it was Adrian. She looked so different she wasn’t wearing her usual sweat pants she was wearing a button up collared shirt and a pair of slacks. As she came up I asked “Adrian why do you look so fancy today?”
“Because it makes me look smarter doesn’t it?” she said.
“Why do you need to look smarter?” I responded.
“I don’t want to be called dumb in the chat room anymore they brought me up after they brought that other character in the live show they said I look and act just like her.”
“But you’re not like her” I said.
“Whatever.” She responded.The next day of course everyone was talking about the live show. More and more of the live shows and more and more people are changing and feeling insecure. I had to get to the bottom of this before it gets out of hand. Since my mom was not affected or the teachers and my mom was perfectly fine with how things were going. So I decided to go follow my mom instead of going to school. I never really knew where my mom worked she barely mentions it. She stopped at some weird old building that I have never seen. I waited a couple minutes to go in. once I entered all I saw was screens of different showings of the live show. There were even some screens of the live chat. Everyone in that room was smiling. As I got deeper in this building I saw all the cases of people. They were crying and some were even trying to kill themselves? Were they feeling bad about themselves? I didn’t even know what was going on. I even got to see when where they filmed “Night of good laughs.” These people didn’t care about anything. All they cared about was making us feel bad and them feel good. I wondered who created this was it my mom? Was it the police? Who was it? It was now 3:30 pm. I had to get home before my mom did but before I did. I took picture of one of the posters they had on the wall. When I got home I just stayed up studying the picture of the poster. The poster read GBST. I thought if this was about the live show then it might have something to do with it. Many words ran through my mind then I thought of screen there is the letter s so that might work. Then I thought about how the show doesn’t start till 5pm sharp no later or earlier and it ends at a certain time. Then I came up with screen time. I told Adam about it and he came up with the government have something to do about and I realized that it could work then I came up with government based screen time. It made total sense. I told Adam if he wanted to come with me to put a stop to it. Once we got there I showed Adam everything I had saw the other day. Then I saw a man that I did not see the other day. He turned around and fortunately he did not see me but I knew who he was.
“THAT’S MY DAD!” I said.
I think I said it pretty loud because everyone in that building looked at me.
“Dad?” I said.
“Madeline? What are you doing here?” my mother replied.
“I followed you here. I wanted to know what was going on.” I said.
“You need to leave now!” she said.
“Zara leave her alone.” My father said.
“Dad when did you get here I thought you didn’t want anything to do with us.” I said.
“I had to leave in order to help out with everyone here.” He said.
“Then why was it a secret.” I said.
“Because it’s a part of the government” he said.”
“Yeah I figured that out.” I said.
“You’re really smart you can probably help us out,” One of the workers responded.
“It can be a family thing even?” My mother said.
“So we’re still a family?” I said.
“Of course” my father said.
“You’re either in or you’re out.” My mother said.
“What if I dont want to be in or out?” I said.
“What kind of nonsense is that just pick one.” My father replied.
“ I mean I want to be a family again but I dont want to hurt anymore people.” I said.
“Then what would we do as our jobs.” My Mother responded
“You could still work with the government but at least do something to help us not hurt us.” I said.
“We could actually try that but we still might need your help.” She replied.
“Glad to.” I said with a subtle smile on my face.
“Yeah I can help too!” Adam shouted from behind me.
People slowly realized that they didn’t have to listen by what was being said. The government may still have some tricks up their sleeves but at least that’s over.