ILLUSTRATION: RUMMAN R KALAM

The framed pictures hung from the wall, filled with smiles – all of the faces captured  the mark of happiness. The children stared at the pictures with awe.  These people -  they were smiling, and doing the most outrageous things.  

The children looked wide-eyed at the pictures – people were outside without their oxygen cylinders and cannulas, some were around a fire, sitting in a circle, sitting on the ground at night. 

"Don't they have homes?" a child asked  - the teacher, a grey haired lady all but smiled. 

Leia was staring at a photograph for a long time – the people in it were of her sister's age, she could guess. They were in a large swimming pool, with water splashing around them. She wondered how people could afford so much luxury, after all, she remembered the nights when her dad came home with only a pint of water, and ran out of money to buy food. Those were the nights when dad had to spend all his income on the small bottle and they had no solid food – artificial cereal wasn't much but it rendered you grateful  when you couldn't afford it.  Dad said that the black liquid had to be refined so that we could drink it, and that's why it's so expensive. She kept on wondering about the opulence that these people in the photo were able to devour, whereas they barely made ends meet. 

She moved on, the next picture sparked jealousy in  the five year old, as she heard her stomach grumble at the sight of the apple, the lady in the picture was taking a bite out of. It was red, and looked scrumptiously juicy – like the ones her teacher described in fairytales. Ms. McGonagall mentioned that the weather was too harsh here to grow apples, and they were nothing but a rare delicacy since the trees couldn't survive in the current weather. Leia remembered eating apples a few times – on one of her birthdays, and once when a very rich man visited the school. Ms. McGonagall said he was a multi-trillionaire, and had made a donation of one apple for each student in the school.  They always got the nutrition supplements delivered home at the beginning of each month so that no one got sick, but Leia couldn't remember the last time she had a full meal. 

She was scanning through the photos, in awe, and in astonishment as to how the people in photos lived such lavish, extravagant lives – with water and food in such abundance, they never thought once about people like Leia, did they? Her sister always complained how the world would have been a better place with clear blue skies and happiness only if the others could have salvaged something for them; alas, they didn't. 

"Now, now, children! Put your cannulas on! Our trip here has ended, and you don't want to get sick when you go outside, do you?" Ms. McGonagall announced. 

The children obeyed. It was time they headed back to the school, through the smog. After all, the kids in year 3017 had an assignment to write about what they thought life was like a  thousand years back, after the trip to the museum ended.