Katie’s Story:
My name is Katie Larsen Beasley Jones, and the following story is true, though you may find it hard, if not impossible to believe. Sometimes, I have a hard time believing it myself, and I lived through most of it.
I was born on June 13th, 1959 and though it is presently the year 2062, I am only sixty-three years old. I know that sounds confusing, so let me try to explain.
As I said, I was born in 1959, in San Diego, California. I never knew my birth parents. For whatever reason, they didn’t want me. I was adopted by a couple in their mid thirties, when I was just one day old. As far back as I can remember; my adoptive parents were abusive, not only physically abusive, but mentally and emotionally as well. I was never allowed to invite friends to our home, which as fine with me, because I was ashamed of my parents.
As I got older, I began writing down my thoughts in a secret journal. I wrote down my wishes as well. The last entry I made in my journal was on June 13th, 1972. It was my thirteenth birthday. Unlike my friends, I didn’t have a party. I didn’t get a cake, presents, or even a card. The fact is that my so-called parents hadn’t remembered my birthday since I was eight years old.
That night, as I cried in my bedroom, I wrote a birthday wish in my journal. I wished that I had a family who loved me, and one whom I could love as well. When I finished my journal entry, I hid my journal under my mattress, sat down on my bed and cried some more. In an instant, my life got one thousand times better.
In my mind, I saw a flash of light, and suddenly, I found myself in a strange house with weird looking furniture, and some strange looking devices. I also saw a woman, who appeared to be around fifty years old. She told me that her name was Elizabeth Beasley, but said that I could call her Beth.
Beth told me not to be afraid. She told me that my wish had been granted and that I was in St. Charles, Ill; in the year 2012. At first, I didn’t believe her, but then she showed me that day’s newspaper, which was dated June 13, 2012. I was a thirteen year old girl, but by the date, I should have been fifty-three. Katie told me, that if I gave her a chance, she would like to raise me as her daughter.
I didn’t know what it was, but I felt a connection to the woman, and I told her that I was willing to give it a try. I figured that any family would be better than the horrible people who had adopted me and abused me.
Beth told me, that she had just moved to St. Charles, so nobody would know that I was not her daughter. Since it was summer, she told me that I would have two and a half months to adapt to the year 2012, forty years into my future.
As I walked around the house, I became fascinated by all of the new fangled gadgets of the future. I had seen computers on television shows, but they filled an entire room. Beth had two computers that sat on desks, and two portable computers that she called laptops. I was flabbergasted when she told me that one of them was mine.
Back in 1972, we had one television, with six channels. In 2012, Beth had four TVs with over one hundred channels, and remote controls. Also, in the year 2012, they had handheld computers called blackberries, CD players, cell phones, and some people read books on a hand held computer, that held hundreds of books.
I know that a lot of you people reading this, in the present, think of all those gadgets as being obsolete, but remember, this was fifty years ago, and forty years in the future for me. I had never seen a microwave oven, a Wii® entertainment system or the new videogames of the twenty-first century.
The cars in the twenty-first century were similar to those in 1972, in that most of them still used gasoline for fuel, but the designs were much more sleek and stylish, with lots of futuristic features.