Rachel hadn’t noticed the changes in the neighbourhood. As she rode to school her thoughts were still focussed on what had happened twenty minutes ago in the kitchen. She’d been sitting in her seat at the table while her mom dealt with her little brother. Danny had gotten ‘dressed’ by then, wearing a simple red t-shirt with white stripes and a big pull-up with yellow stars and all. It looked ridiculous on the grown teenager as he squatted on his seat, toes wrapped over the edge while mom tried to clean off his milk moustache. It was then that Rachel had looked over at the cereal box on the table. She wondered what strange foreign brand it was. She looked closer, noticing it was clearly a box of Rice Krispies. Rachel’s eyes went back to the label; it was indecipherable. That was the moment when she realised she couldn’t read.
Even as the car rumbled along the suburban streets Rachel couldn’t get over the loss of her reading ability. She always had taken such great pride in her intelligence, her superiority as a student. Now she couldn’t even read! Changes to the rest of the world were inconsequential when something so horrible had happened to her.
Her mother dropped Danny off at daycare first, lifting him out of his big car seat and setting him down on the pavement outside. Rachel only glanced over at the daycare building. She could see other teens playing in the front yard but she wasn’t interested in that. Mom was telling Danny to say goodbye to his big sister. He waved a silly little kid wave at her, flexing his fingers up and down and yelling “Bye-bye!” to her.
Rachel gave him a slight nod, noting that Mom had at least slipped a pair of shorts over his silly pull-ups, even if she hadn’t bothered to put shoes on his feet. The door slammed shut and Mom hopped back in the driver seat after handing off Danny to an attendant. Then they were back on their way to kindergarten.
With a glossy Barbie backpack swung over her shoulder Rachel edged her way across the playground in front of the elementary school. Her simple plastic and rubber flip-flops scraped across the blacktop and she tried to keep her eyes focussed on them and not on the swarming hordes of oversized children. Most of them were older than her, the oldest appearing to be close to thirty but dressed like pre-teens. She spotted a group of kids who appeared to be college-aged playing on a jungle-gym amidst the wood-chip covered playground area. One girl was hanging upside down from the metal bars, her skirt flopping down to reveal her pink panties to everyone, though she didn’t seem at all bothered. A handsome young man beside her was dressed in corduroy overalls, picking his nose and making no attempt to conceal it.