2152

2152

Elizabeth Mejia

04/19/2023

It was the year 2152 when Lily decided to move into the dorms of the Florida International Univeristy in Miami. She had lived all her life in Miami, Homestead to be more exact. But now, under 6 ½ feet of water, the city of Miami is not the Miami we know know. It is drastically different. Climate change and the rise of sea level has led the whole land portion of the world to be under water, Florida being of the most affected states in the US had already gone “basically under water” there are no cars, no planes. People mostly travel by boat or swim like fish in the ocean, literally!

As a little girl, and even as a young adult, Lily's favorite thing was to listen to the stories that her mother, Liliana, told her. It was just the two of them for as long as Lily could remember. Most of the stories Liliana told Lily were passed on from generation to generation. The oldest one dates to the year 2098 and what they mostly talked about was “the old world, the world with land, the world that had cars, the world in which people could walk on soil instead of swimming” Lily’s favorite story was the one about Liliana’s great grandmother's great grandma. Her name was Maria. The story was about Maria’s journey to becoming a teacher.

Lily also wanted to become an educator and she wanted to teach at AquaTown’s high school, the biggest underwater high school in New York City. It was one of her life dreams. Lily’s parents met at a High School they both attended up in Fort Lauderdale, but that is all she knows about them. How did her mother end up in Homestead and by herself? No idea. All she knew was that she had never needed anybody else in her life but her mom.
Lily was a highly active girl. Since she was little, she played sports. She played underwater rugby, underwater softball, and she even took swimming lessons even though at this time all children are born with the ability to swim and with unique gills that help them stay in water longer and move around faster. These gills are so unique that scientists call them the “new fingerprints.” Lily’s mother wanted her to strengthen her ability to use her gills. This was a relatively new evolutionary feature for humans at this time and that is why she had her practice swimming and gill development.
Lily was a brunette girl with the bluest of eyes, she stood at 6’2 feet tall and had olive skin, very long legs and pink-ish gills which was the favorite part of her body. She was very competent and defiant. She was very expressive and always knew what she wanted, always knew what to say to everyone and anyone. Her dream was to become a teacher and she wanted to attend Florida International University once she graduated high school, it was her dream school. Even though it was not that far from home, FIU was Lily’s dream school because her mom’s great grandmother’s great grandmother, Maria, had attended it in the year 2094-98 and she was a teacher! Just like Lily wanted to be.

Lily worked extremely hard and spent endless nights doing homework and schoolwork, all of this while doing extracurriculars to become an exceptionally suitable candidate so she get accepted into her dream school. Lily was an only child, and her mom had generational wealth that had come from her parents who had a company that collected “old world” artifacts such as cars, smart phones, airplanes and displayed them in their BoatSeum that they founded. She also had made her own way through life as very successful saleswoman for a boat company. She was also in charge of supervising the production rates for this boat company.

For her 16th birthday she got Lily a houseboat! Which was something Lily had aways wanted. It had 3 rooms, and they all came with waterproof furniture covered in a baby pink color (Lily’s favorite) The rest of the houseboat’s furniture was also pink and the walls were painted in a very bright white color, outside it had the finish of a log cabin but painted in baby pink! The boat had a living room with transparent floors, and you could see everything underneath you. From the old concrete to the seaweed growing on top of the concrete to the little that had made their way swimming around. This was Lily’s favorite feature, she was a very visual person, her favorite thing to look at was the land that had once been the place for people to walk on, there was not a lot of walking around this time. The evolution and survival of the fittest or “whatever you want to call it” Like Lily loves to say, had led humans to develop gills which allowed them to swim like fish, literally!

As Lily’s senior year of high school came to an end, she started getting acceptance letters to schools that she had applied to for “just in case.” All the schools replied and sent out acceptance letters, but nothing was heard from FIU. She started to lose hope once March was halfway, and she had heard nothing from them. “When would they freaking reply to me?!” she said to her mother one night when they were doing their daily catch-up talk. “Young lady, the first step is to watch the language, second step is to keep calm and trust the process. FIU has the fame of taking their time with applications I have heard” said Liliana to Lily in order to keep her calm.
Until finally, one Friday night Lily received SeaGram (a telegram that gets transported through water, works like the postal service just underwater) that read “FIU office of admissions” addressed to her. She cried a little before opening it, she was confident and sure she had been accepted. “MOM, I GOT IN!!” she yelled from across the kitchen. “I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!” said Liliana as she shed a few tears. “Why are you crying mom?” said Lily as she herself was crying. “The same reason why you are crying Lily. Oh Lily! My pretty little not so little Lily! You do not know how proud I am of you!” They both looked at each other and cried harder, “Mom!” exclaimed Lily as she cried while laughing. It was a particularly important and heartfelt moment for the two of them.

Graduation Day came and lily graduated with the highest of honors because of her outstanding academic and athletic performance. She received awards for great attendance, she received the Historian award for having the highest grade kept in her history classes all throughout high school, she received the award for outstanding player in underwater softball and last but not least she had been accepted into her dream school, which was the highest prize of all for her.

Lily had a great summer after graduation. She visited many of Europe’s countries and learned about Europe’s history. She swam around Venice and saw the “old city” that resides under these waters. She even visited one of the highest points on earth, Mount Everest! Despite Mount Everest mountains being 10% covered by water, it still had 90% of the mountain left out. She was very fascinated as she had never seen so much land in her life, she even got to walk on it! But all things come to an end, right? So did summer.

Lily was saying her final goodbyes to her mother who stood at the door watching her leave off to college! “Please stay out of trouble!” said Liliana. “And don’t forget to Clean out your gills every week!” “Okay mom! Will not forget! Love you!” said Lily as she started navigating her houseboat out into the open waters. “BYE MOM!!” she yelled from a distance, “I LOVE YOU LILY!” said Liliana.

Lily had a 40-minute boat ride ahead of her, “but hey! Thank God for houseboats, right?” said Lily. Lily navigated all throughout the city of Homestead, she passed Cutler Bay, Kendall, she took a few breaks to rest and to do a quick little swim. After all she had never navigated her HouseBoat this far all by herself, so she decided to explore and look “swim” around. She saw all kinds of fish, she saw palm trees that are getting covered by all the water that’s coming in from the open waters. She spotted the Spotted Sea trout (one of Florida’s most common fishes) and she also saw some manatees and went out to swim with them and pet them, she loves manatees so much. So much that she even helped a Manatee rescue center to get volunteer hours for her high school graduation requirement. She got to see the area of Kendall, she also saw the now submerged Black Point Marina in Cutler Bay, all this as she sailed up north to get to her destination which was the SeaCampus for FIU.

Until finally she saw what was an old highway sign that read “Florida International University, exit 25”, the sign was a faded green color, had mold growing on it and the letters were falling off. She knew she made it when she saw the bright yellow lights that read “Houseboats parking next left, Aquatic dorms next right, registration and check in: Building 3” She shed a tear and said to herself “I made it.”

As a Freshman she had to take the campus tour. The campus, now built on an elevated concrete surface was bigger than she imagined, it had 8 buildings, 3 gymnasiums, 5 separated buildings just for the dorms, it had 3 lots where students could park their boats, it had an are in which students could, for free, park their houseboats and live in there while they attended the university. You could either take regular classes or you could access the area designated to Submerged classes, which was an area where students could attend classes in boats and/or they could just float around, after all mostly everyone had developed gills and the ability to stay afloat for unimaginable periods of time.

Besides the new campus tour, new students had to also take the “old campus tour” which gave students a glimpse of how the campus life was for the alumni of the “old world.” The old campus tour was taken in a tiny submarine or In a SwimAlong (where students would swim alongside the submarine if they chose to.) Lily was fascinated by the way that the old campus was built. It was built “on the ground” Lily said. She saw a few pf somethings that were called “fast food restaurants” she was “Chik-Fil-A, Mcdonald’s, Wendy’s” but there was this particular one that caught her attention, “Starbucks.” “The logo looks like a siren! How did they knew about sirens?? This is a recently discovered species”

In a seagram, Lily described her first day to her mother as “great and very informative.” She told her about the new things she learned about the campus, the things she learned about the “old campus”, she also told her mother that she wondered if “your great grandma’s great grandma. Ummmmm.... Maria ever had a Starbucks food item. And HOW IN THE HOLY OPEN WATERS did they know about sirens????”

Lily started school on a good note, she even joined the university’s water rugby team, had great grades all throughout her career and became a very active student of the school of education. She took her career very seriously and was very passionate about it. She graduated with the highest of honors and became a very important educator, so important that she became the Florida commissioner of education. She also was the first person to ever build a high school that had both underwater floors for students that wished to take classes underwater and above water floors that allowed students to take classes above water level.