The Parched Lands

By N.A. Ratnayake

Amanthi is a teenage student in a not-so-distant future school system of hyper-testing and top-down control. In this world, creativity is a liability — but Amanthi is not deterred from dreaming. THE PARCHED LANDS delves into the tangled issues of race, tracking, high-stakes testing, and creativity starvation that run through America’s public school systems. This short story was published as a part of Crossed Genres Magazine 2.0, Issue 7: Expectations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: N.A. Ratnayake
• Release date: May 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463841600

N.A. Ratnayake

Prior to feeling the call to become an educator, Nalin A Ratnayake was a aerospace propulsion research engineer. He holds a B.S.E. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering and has published 11 peer-reviewed technical papers on supersonic air-breathing propulsion, environmentally responsible aviation technologies, and advanced access-to-space systems. After changing careers, Nalin completed an M.Ed. through the Boston Teacher Residency, focusing his studies on the connections between scientific literacy and social justice, particularly in the context of urban schools and communities. After five years of teaching Physics and Engineering at an urban public high school in Boston, Nalin recently returned to research engineering, at a research center near Norfolk, Virgina. Nalin writes fiction under the name N.A. Ratnayake. His speculative fiction has appeared in Crossed Genres Magazine as well as the post-colonial SF anthology We See A Different Frontier. His short story Remembering Turinam received an honorable mention in Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Thirty-First Edition. As an engineer, writer, and educator, Nalin is strongly committed to exploring ideas for creating a more positive and sustainable future for all people. You can find Nalin on Twitter as @quantumcowboy, and on the web at www.naratnayake.com.

Book preview

The Parched Lands

by N.A. Ratnayake

Copyright 2013 by Nalin A Ratnayake

Smashwords Edition

This short story first appeared in Crossed Genres Magazine, Issue 7.

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When the bell rang at the end of class, Amanthi was crashing from a dopamine high. She raised her slight, brown hand as her thin body shook, and when her arm brushed against her long, black hair she felt the slick dampness of sweat.

Mr. Daveys was moving around the classroom helping students disconnect from their desks, congratulating or reprimanding as appropriate based on measured performance for the day. Amanthi could feel that something was wrong, but found herself unable to articulate any words though the shaking of her body. Kassidi, sitting next to her, looked over and noticed her wan trembling, and spoke up.

Mr. Daveys Kassidi said sharply. Something’s wrong with Amanthi! The teacher glanced up from his IV work and in a moment rushed over, fussing over Amanthi and checking her forehead. He held up a datapad