Just a day is the first chapter of Ilan Shalif's 2007 book Glimpses into the Year 2100, outlining the life of a delegate aiming to modify the fictional cities education system and take care of their cohousing project.
Just a day
Ri got his morning beeper signal in his ear. As a fast riser, he just enjoyed the melody for a short while before turning it off. Quietly, so as not to wake up his mate Ti, he paid a short visit to the service room, put on his clothes and walked towards the community centre.
It was still the grey light of dawn on the third DD (Direct democracy) day of Spring. Partly because it was a bit cold, partly by way of morning gymnastics, Ri walked fast — nearly running the few minutes till he arrived at the entrance to the dining facility.
He was delegated to a season of auxiliary work at that facility, and this DD morning, it was his turn to ensure the system was ready for the new day. He checked the temperature of the various drinks and porridges, and took from the cold room the vegetables, fruit and various salads for the breakfast diners.
Then he poured himself his morning mug of tea, took a nice slice of the cake he so liked and sat down at the early risers table.
He had just sipped the first few drops of his tea when Dana sat down at the other side of the table — giving him the warm, intimate smile that was so common between the near-sisters and brothers of the same age group that had grown up together. Dana was mandated this year to the work organizer team, and it was her turn today to ensure all the essential tasks were taken care of — either to call replacements for people who were sick and could not tend to their tasks, or for emergency tasks in the community or the district that could not be put off.
Just before Ri finished his last sip of tea, a noisy group entered. They were people destined for a community in the countryside that needed help picking vegetables, as the warm weather had caused a lot of tomatoes to ripen too early.
Ri’s usual work at the facility was to prepare the products for the “chef” responsible for the special foods for people with specific needs — part of it for people who used the dining facility, part of it for people who were taken care of elsewhere: the seniors’ facility, the local clinic, or just people who were too sick to come to the dining facility.
While he was busy working away, Gal, who helped the “chef” who did the regular dishes, came in to start his shift, and asked him how the educational committee had been yesterday. They were both on it but he had missed it because of some family happening.
Breakfast time passed, as did the preparations for the midday meal and Ri finished his work tasks for the day and went home to sit near the communication facility. There, he was joined by his mate and together they browsed the texts that were relevant to the evening meeting of grassroots community members.
Together they went to the midday dining facility to eat and chat with friends and together they returned home. As Ri had missed out on his sweet morning sleep and, consequently, on some of the intimacy they should have shared during the week, they decided to dedicate the afternoon to mutual indulgence...
DD-day tea time was the usual kind of family meeting. Accompanied by their two siblings, today was their turn to visit Ti’s parents. Also present were some of Ti’s other family members, including her brother and his family, who were from a far-off community — on the other side of the city.
All together, they went to the dining facility to enjoy the family “reunion” some more. After the meal, they went each their own way — the kids to their age-mates, the grown-ups to their various recreations, and Ri returned to the communication corner in his home, browsing the texts of the district assembly delegates. This year he was the delegate to the district assembly which grouped members of each of the 200 grassroots communities in the district. In the chat room of the district educational committee, he chatted with some of the other members about the decisions the committee had proposed for the DD-day assemblies of grassroots communities in the district.
The proposals were about some changes to the district educational system. After long discussions in the educational committee and approval by the district assembly, it was decided to bring to the grassroots communities themselves the suggestion to try to get more involvement from the older kids in the education of the younger ones. In fact, it was some of these older kids, who were involved in an informal aid project with the younger ones, who had originally made the proposal. It was proposed that the changes be systematically assessed and, if successful and satisfying, the changes would be put to the assembly of delegates of the whole city.
After the evening meal in the community dining hall, the members of the community started to converge on the DD-day general meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting, chaired by one of members of the interpersonal relations committee, various committee members and individual members proposed subjects for discussion and decision. The first round was on the subjects to be included and the ones to be put to further discussion by the specific committees or at the end of the list, to be deferred to the next meeting if the time allocated to the assembly was insufficient. As usual, the final agenda was agreed without anyone calling to vote on specific items, and deliberations on the various items began. First, the proposals from the various committees that no-one in the committees had objected to were put to a formal vote. Then, proposals involving some minor disagreements or requests for change were put up for discussion and vote — some involved changes in the efforts to reach a consensus, others were decided on by an overwhelming majority, and one was decided by a marginal majority, at which stage the assembly decided to send it back to the specific committee in order to seek consensus in some way.
As the more pressing subjects were cleared quickly, there was plenty of time for the last matter. Ri was invited to report on the discussions and proposals for a decision of the district assembly. Most of the items were rapidly approved, but a proposal from the educational committee of the district committee brought about heated polemics. As time passed and it started to get late, one of the more involved proposed to defer decision and if there were no clear majority of support for the decision among other grassroots communities in the district, to continue the discussion at the next DD meeting.