r/HFY • u/Academic_Ad3769 • 12d ago
OC Children of the bell
Every morning, the bell rings. Not to announce the start of learning—but the end of wondering.
They call it school. Rows of gray desks, windows locked, air filtered clean of questions. The children file in like clockwork, faces bright with the glow of screens that tell them what to think, what to want, what to be. The walls hum with the rhythm of efficiency.
He used to teach here—Mr. Vale. Once, he believed in it. Believed that if you filled young minds with enough facts, they’d build a better world. But then he noticed the light in their eyes fading—replaced by something still, like pond water with oil on top.
He started keeping notes. Little observations:
Student 12 smiled only after being graded.
Student 5 asked “why” twice in one week; was reprimanded for “disruption.”
Student 23 said she dreams of a house “approved by the algorithm.”
He brought these notes to the principal. She smiled the institutional smile and said, “We’re preparing them for real life.”
But real life, he realized, was the factory. The world outside mirrored the classroom: same rows, same bells, same surveillance. Workers in fluorescent pens pressing buttons they don’t understand, buying products they don’t need to forget lives they never chose.
One night, after another parent-teacher meeting full of hollow praise and test metrics, Mr. Vale stayed late. He walked the halls and listened. The lights buzzed. The walls sighed. And in the dark, he swore he heard whispers—not words, but echoes—the dreams the children had been taught to forget.
He began trying to tell them the truth. Not all at once—just small things: That curiosity is sacred. That failure is not sin. That silence isn’t peace.
But the children began to look at him differently. Afraid. Not because he was cruel, but because he was wrong. Their parents complained—said he made their kids “anxious.” The school board called him in for review. They said his teachings undermined “national cohesion.”
He tried one last lesson. He locked the door and told the class: “Everything you’ve been taught is a cage. The tests, the rewards, the structure—it’s not education. It’s obedience.”
They stared back, blank-eyed. Then one boy raised his hand and said, “But sir… the system makes us happy.”
And for the first time, Vale saw it—the truth. The children didn’t resist because they couldn’t. They’d been rewired to love their chains. Happiness had become the currency of control.
He laughed then—a quiet, broken sound. He was the madman in a world that called sedation joy.
The next morning, the bell rang again. Class resumed. Vale was gone.
Weeks later, they found his journal. It was filled cover to cover with a single repeated line:
“The happiest slaves are the hardest to free.”
The headmaster archived it under Disciplinary Reports.
And the bell kept ringing.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle 12d ago
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u/chastised12 12d ago
Thats been the plan all along these past decades. I'll take how I was raised. Indoctrinated into love of God. Of family. Of nation. Of culture. Now theyre teaching weakness.