Randall Park

We begged, we pleaded, they told us they understood, and then they went back into their rooms to build invisible cities.

Their grades plummeted.

All their homework was in the ether, and we watched them moving their hands in the air, looking no different than when they were playing online games.

It sure didn't seem like math, but it was impossible to check.

We petitioned the school.

Could we go back to pen and paper?

Stay with tablets and laptops?

We were patiently listened to by their kindly educators who all nodded with their implanted heads.

They smiled at us with illuminated eyes and shared the good news.

Our school's STEM program had just received a grant for low-income implantation.

Philanthropically-minded tech foundations would be offering free online textbooks.

Soon our district would be completely implanted, the libraries of the world as near to our children's brains as the backsides of their eyes.

But though we wrote letters to the Board of Education and launched minor but vocal resistances at PTA meetings, our newspapers were awash with the future of implanted education.

Why didn't anyone understand?

Our children needed sleep.

Late at night, they lay in the darkness of their bedrooms, wide-eyed and grinning.

Go to sleep, we told them.

They needed rest.

They were children.

And yet, were they?