Tenth Annual Spartan Jubilee

Today is exactly the twentieth year after the last animal died. We had extra meat patties and a bubbly orange soda for breakfast before the real Spartan Jubilee began. That's what the parade is called.

Father finds our cardboard storage box and fluffs up the horsehair hats. Everyone at school has red mohawks too. There's an assembly this morning and we see pictures of tubed-flesh generators, picklified-stem-cell boxes, and modular double-osmosis de-urea pumps. Then we see pictures of animals—which are wholly uninspired. I would have at least made one of them purple.

In class, we go over all subjects briefly: Science, English, Responsible Consumption, and then we talk about the Spartan Jubilee, which is the part I love the most. The Spartans, Ms. Harrison says, didn't give up on their nation for anything. We are descendants of Spartans she says. We don't give up on anything either—no matter how tough it is.

Lunchtime comes and we don't get anything special, so that's when I say grace: frugality, fraternity, liberty, or whatever. I trade most of my plate for half-serving bags of aspartame sweets.

Then school's over and traffic is congested again so Father tells me to walk home. I walk through a sandstorm like a true Spartan, arriving in time for the parade.

I am in the front of a triangle war formation thrusting my spear like I practiced. I am stabbing imaginary pigs. They convulse and shriek loudly and blood pours out. We are all celebrating humanity's complete success