Editing Ministry of Reformation's Eleanor Halewood

     In the future world, where every action is scrutinized and every mistake is costly, I find myself in a position of unimaginable responsibility. I am a government official, tasked with managing a new and troubling category of citizens; those we’ve come to label as "the unforgivables." In the wake of the Keanu Reeves incident, society fractured, and it is my job to decide what becomes of those who make irreversible mistakes. The world we now live in is driven by perfectionism. It’s no longer enough to merely live your life; you must live it without flaw, without blemish, and without the slightest hint of imperfection. The repercussions for even the smallest misstep are immense. We monitor every word, every gesture, every decision that can be tracked or recorded. Our digital surveillance system has evolved to such a degree that everything is analyzed and assigned a score, a reflection of your worth and trustworthiness in the eyes of the state.

     It wasn’t always this way. I remember a time when making mistakes was part of life, a way to learn and grow. But that was before Keanu. After his fall from grace, the floodgates opened. People no longer trusted each other, and the cracks in our society widened. The Keanu Reeves incident, so trivial in the grand scheme of things, became the catalyst for a nationwide obsession with perfection. If even a beloved figure like Keanu couldn’t avoid condemnation for his actions, who was safe? The only way forward, it seemed, was to root out imperfections, to ensure that mistakes were never tolerated again. As the government introduced the social credit system, everything changed. We set up mechanisms to ensure that people who deviated from the ideal were isolated, branded with their errors for all to see. Those who fell below a certain threshold in the scoring system faced severe consequences: reduced access to education, healthcare, job opportunities, and housing. The idea was that everyone should be incentivized to live in a way that maximized societal good, that minimized risk to the collective ideal of perfection.

	It sounds almost utopian, doesn’t it? At least on the surface. Cleaner streets, less crime, less violence. It all looked so neat from a distance. But underneath, the pressure to conform to perfection has led to something far more sinister. People are anxious, fearful of making even the smallest mistake, because mistakes are no longer forgivable. We’ve created a society where every failure is scrutinized, where reputations are fragile, and where a wrong step could lead to exile.

     This is where I come in. I now work in the Ministry of Reformation, a division created to handle the unforgivables; the people who have made mistakes so great, so public, that they cannot be redeemed. They are not criminals in the traditional sense, but they are outcasts, marked by their failures. It is my responsibility to determine where they go, what happens to them once they’ve fallen from grace. The process is cold and devoid of empathy. I sit behind my desk, looking at the profiles of those whose mistakes have made them untouchable. There’s the celebrity who let their personal life implode, the politician caught in a minor scandal, the student whose social media post from years ago resurfaced and was deemed “unsavory.” Each one is weighed on a scale of damage: How irreparable is the harm they’ve caused? How deep is their failure? 

     There are a few options available to me. The first is rehabilitation. For those who made small, but noticeable mistakes, we offer a chance at reformation. It’s not a guarantee of success, but we provide access to government-run programs designed to “restore” their social standing. But these programs are not about forgiveness. They are about rebranding, re-educating, and reshaping these individuals to fit the idealized version of themselves that society demands. Failure to comply with the program means permanent exile from public life. The second option is a quieter, more insidious one. We call it “social retraction.” It’s a way of erasing people from the public’s consciousness, making it as if they never existed. These people are relocated to isolated communities, far from the public eye, where they are monitored and kept away from interactions that could disrupt the social order. It’s a fate worse than exile; an invisible prison where they no longer matter, where their lives are stripped of meaning beyond survival. Then there are the outcasts, those who, for various reasons, refuse to abide by the rules of our perfect society. Some are rebels, rejecting the system entirely and living off the grid. They refuse to be tracked, to conform, to participate in the game of perfection. These individuals are often from the lower classes, those who feel they have little left to lose. They live in the fringes of our cities, in areas where surveillance is weak, and their existence is ignored by the majority of society. Some of them attempt to create their own communities, but it is hard to escape the all-seeing eyes of the government.

     But what of education? It is in the schools that the foundation for this perfectionism begins. From an early age, children are taught that mistakes are unacceptable, that failure is to be avoided at all costs. This is the most visible manifestation of our society’s deep-seated anxieties. There are no more playgrounds for kids to run freely in. The parks are few, and they’re restricted to the privileged. Instead, children are pushed to study constantly, to hone specific skills, to maximize their potential. Schools are no longer places of discovery or growth; they are factories for perfection. And those who do not meet the standard? They are forgotten, pushed aside, and left to wither in the shadow of the ideal.

     As I sit here, contemplating the future of those marked by their mistakes, I feel the weight of the system we’ve created. I wonder if we have gone too far. There are days when I question my role in all of this. Am I helping build a society where people can truly thrive, or am I complicit in a system that stifles human potential? It is a question I ask myself often, but the answer is elusive. The unforgivables are not just numbers on a screen; they are people; real people whose lives have been irreparably changed by the fear of imperfection. And yet, every day, I make decisions that further entrench this system. I wonder if, in our quest for a flawless world, we’ve lost sight of what it means to be human. As I prepare for another day of making life-altering decisions, I can’t help but wonder: Will we ever find a way back to the messiness of human existence, to the beauty of imperfection? Or will we continue down this path, building a world where mistakes are unforgivable, and the pressure to be perfect consumes us all? Do I even believe in the system that I proposed?

     Perhaps, somewhere in the quiet recesses of my mind, I hope that the answer lies in education; the very thing we’ve twisted to fit our ideal. If there is any chance for redemption in this world, maybe it lies in giving people the space to make mistakes, to learn from them, and to grow without fear. But for now, I am bound by the rules of the system, a cog in the machine that is relentlessly grinding toward a perfect, but imperfectly human, future.