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assembly work at the factory he had been assigned to. He tried to block his face from the camera, but he was too slow. The camera paused on a freeze-frame: but where he was once a round-faced boy, he now looked gaunt and thin. The only part of him that resembled the boy of a year ago was his eyes – but now they had a dead, haunted look to them.
    Okay, that definitely wasn’t the show for me to watch today. Even though I knew the photo was a composite of two separate people, I didn’t need to think about people getting demoted right now. I forced myself to take several deep relaxing breaths while telling myself that wouldn’t happen to me. Krystal wasn’t exactly known for being the smartest or sanest actress out there. She probably assumed her son was reading when he was just pretending and making up words. Most likely the kid was as dumb as a rock, but she had been too deluded to realize it.
    Quickly I changed the tablet to another program. It was a detailed account of the history of Rebuilding Day. It was the same film they broadcast every year during the week leading up to Rebuilding Day, but I needed a distraction and it had been a while since I had actually seen the broadcast. So, I watched.
    We all knew the history behind our modern education and society. It was one of the first things we were taught in school. It all started in the mid 1980s, when the United States began a sustained period of economic growth. But with the economic growth the cost of menial labor went up. Savvy business owners realized the increased cost was only cutting into their profits. In order to combat that, they started to ship the work overseas, utilizing the many economic loopholes to avoid the increased tariffs on international manufacturing. Over time, more and more businesses realized the benefit of overseas production and manufacturing and we became a country of primarily white collar workers. Nothing was produced in our country any longer: even the bulk of farming had moved outside of our country.
    Then the country found itself in the middle an economic slowdown, which then progressed to a recession. The government managed to hang onto the title of recession for several decades by continuing to increase the national debt and eroding the value of the dollar. But the efforts only made the impact of the inevitable economic crash that much worse. Almost overnight the American dollar became worthless. Other countries demanded yen or euro or gold for payment. The imports stopped, U.S. stocks and bonds became worthless, and chaos ensued.
    With a valueless dollar, the stores started demanding anything other than U.S. currency – so in turn, the people went to the banks and demanded their savings back in anything but dollars. But the banks didn’t have the money to give. All the banks’ wealth was on paper only. So people started flooding the Mexican and Canadian borders, hoping to sell off their valuables. That led to other countries shutting their borders down. That’s when things really got bad and the riots began. Neighbor fought against neighbor trying to scrounge up and hoard anything of value they could get their hands on – especially food. Most people quickly realized they could get by without – well, just about everything, except food and water.
    Our country would have destroyed itself and then been taken over by other countries if it wasn’t for the quick response of President Touffe . He immediately recalled all of our military troops and closed our borders. Then he declared a countrywide state of emergency and imposed martial law. That same night he made his famous speech, the one that was played to schoolchildren over and over again in preparation for the Rebuilding Day celebration.
    “My fellow Americans: the disaster we have fought so long to avoid is upon us. We have hit the bottom of the economic abyss, and most fear we will never recover from it. They are right. The lives we once knew are now over. Do not torment