State Fact for the New Age by Amy Sauber

“STATE FACT FOR THE NEW AGE” BY AMY SAUBER

introduction to the text/ Short summary.

“STATE FACT FOR THE NEW AGE” by Amy Sauber portrays a story about how life can hit you with a U-turn and leave you in the midst of a seemingly chaotic situation, where everything appears impossible and grim. Breaking up with your boyfriend unexpectedly can be one of those hard reality checks that may leave you depressed and in pain. In this short story, we follow Bekah, who is a teacher at the Cambridge Academy, and is dealing with a broken heart, because Micah left her after a 6 years relationship. Bekah has a hard time dealing with the breakup, and she goes through different emotional stages through the story: Realizing the breakup is real – Being angry at the world (her job, students and fellow teacher) and of course Micah – Acceptance (accepting the situation she is in) and then moving forward (because her students cheer her up at the end with quotes such as “She flies with her own wings.” Durrell says, “Be a bird, Ms. R (and that wasn’t even my state!)).

ANALYSIS

The short story is told in the first-person narrative, in which we follow Bekah through a fictional world, where she has lost 6 years of close relationship with Micah. Generally, the story starts with bekah being in therapy because she's facing hard times with emotional stress. She is one of those typical anxious women who search for their symptoms online instead of consulting doctors first. This decision has led her to be more depressed because the symptoms she found were "I might be depressed, have fybromaliga or cancer, a brain metastasis”. However, in reality, she was just deeply hurt.  The therapist Dr.hura, which Bekah didn't like, told her to use a biomat in order to distress. She agreed and moved on to the life as a Bridge Academy teacher again. One day she decides to give her class an assignment around states facts. This seems at first as an overwhelming assignment for the children, but they still stick to it. Bekah Gets a flashback of her boyfriend Micah, which apparently brought the idea of state fact to life. Bekah Contentiously gets flashbacks to her time with her boyfriend Micah throughout the story, because everything seems to provoke it.  One day Bekah meets him in a store with a new girl, and she is shocked and not happy about it. This breaks her heart even more to the point where is late for work.

As the story evolves, we realize that the assignment about state facts turns out to be revolving around her life.  In one instant it says in the text ( Page 10 Line 237-239) “North Carolina’s state motto is ‘To be, rather than to seem.’ And you should always be someone you are and never seem like someone that you will never be. Because seeming is lying. It is cheating, plagiarism.”, which she is referring to her ex-boyfriend Micha. He gave her false hopes of their relationship, and in the end left her, because he had to focus on his dream to be a famous painter. Bekah continues referring to her boyfriend (page 11 line 253-257) “South Carolina: the first to secede from the Union. Launch of the Civil War, which wasn’t civil at all, which is good. And if you do have a civil breakup, you’ll get left behind with the cats and the apartment and you don’t want these things, believe me. You might go to a therapist and buy an electrified rock mat that you’ll sleep on to bring you peace of mind.”, where cements her misery and the detrimental effect the breakup has had on her.  She pretty much summed up her life up till now after the breakup.  Whilst speaking to her class she breaks down with the following quote (page 12 lines 283-284) “South Carolina is the amethyst which is used to heal people who hurt, especially in February because it is February.”, where the short story reaches climax and she describes it as the lowest point of her life because she is crying in front of 8th graders. Durrell, a student of hers, then takes control from here on and takes up his presentation about Nebraska and how Edwin Perkins invented Kool-aid. Bekah finds herself a cold place, where she can take a timeout and rest until class ends. At the end of the class, Bekah tells them that she will see them again on Monday. However, she decides to take 2 weeks off to catch up with herself and her emotions. She drives out somewhere where Micah and she used to relax. A place that had a bridge. Bekah wanted to get rid of their memories on that bridge, but she couldn't and went home again. After a few days, she received a letter where the student tried to cheer her up with motivational quotes such as (page 14 line 340) “I have found it, to the stars through adversity, ever upward, it grows as it goes, eureka!”, which he was surprised about. Bekah decided to hang them up as and a reminder that life moves on.