It is the year 2245.

We are only in the second week of the new school term, and everyone is still excited. Especially today.

The large clock above the classroom door is almost showing one o'clock. Teachers are changing classrooms. Some students are chatting, others are laughing, and a few are staring out of the windows.

In a moment, we will have our very first lesson in IA.

Intelligence Africa.

I have no idea what we are going to learn, but the name sounds exciting.

Almost everything in our lives is digital.

This morning, my smart alarm clock woke me up with my favorite song. In the kitchen, our home robot, Sami, prepared breakfast while projecting music in my favorite color across the wall. Later, an autonomous flying chair picked me up at our front door and carried me to school.

That is just how life works.

Nobody really thinks about it anymore.

I sit next to a girl from China. Her name is Ai.

I like her name.

As we wait for our teacher, I whisper to her,

"I'm looking forward to IA."

Ai nods.

"Me too. Maybe we'll learn about new planets."

The classroom door opens.

At once, the room becomes quiet.

Our teacher walks in.

She has dark brown skin, curly black hair, and kind eyes. Tucked beneath her arm is something unusual.

Not a hologram.

Not a data cube.

Not a digital tablet.

A rolled-up paper scroll.

Curious, we watch her every movement.

She places the scroll on her desk and looks at us.

"Would you like to know how your great-great-great-great-grandparents lived on Earth?"

A wave of excitement spreads through the room.

Then all of us answer together.

"Yeeees!"

The teacher smiles.

Carefully, she unrolls the paper.

It crackles softly.

I have never seen a real paper map before.

She hangs it on the wall.

It shows a vast continent.

"This," she says, "is Africa."

Her hand moves slowly across the map.

Then her finger stops at a tiny point.

"My family's roots began here."

She pauses for a moment.

"This place is called Nairobi."

Nairobi.

The name sounds familiar immediately.

I turn to Ai.

"That's the same name as our spaceship!"

Ai smiles.

"You're right."

I look back at the map.

At that tiny little dot.

Nairobi.

A place on an ancient world.

A place I have never seen.

A place whose name our ship carries through the stars.

The teacher begins to tell stories.

About people.

About cities.

About savannas.

About lions, elephants, and zebras.

About rainy seasons and dry seasons.

About children who played football beneath open skies.

About families who shared stories together in the evenings.

As she speaks, my eyes wander toward the transparent wall of our classroom.

It is not really a window.

It is part of the ship's outer hull.

Beyond it lies the universe.

Dark.

Endless.

Scattered with stars.

Far outside, I can see part of our enormous generation ship drifting silently through space.

Across its silver surface shine large letters:

NAIROBI

Suddenly, I think about the animals.

The lions.

The zebras.

The elephants.

All of them are sleeping deep within their protected habitats inside the ship.

They have been asleep for years.

Maybe even longer than I have been alive.

Sometimes that makes me feel a little sad.

But in about fifty years, we will reach our new Earth.

Then the animals will wake up.

Then they will run across grasslands again.

Then their young will be born beneath unfamiliar stars.

Perhaps they will never know they once came from another world.

My gaze returns to the paper map.

To the tiny dot called Nairobi.

Then to the shining hull of our spacecraft.

And finally to the countless stars beyond.

Suddenly, I wonder:

Where does a homeland really begin?

In a place?

In a story?

In a name?

Or in the people who remember one another?

The teacher continues speaking.

But for a moment, I no longer hear her words.

I am looking out into the endless stars and galaxies.

And I find myself wondering:

When we finally reach our new Earth,

will our children still know where we came from?

Or will they one day unroll an old paper scroll,

point to a tiny dot,

and tell stories about us?

For a brief moment, it feels as if the past and the future are floating together in the same room.

The old Earth behind us.

The new Earth ahead of us.

And somewhere in between,

us.

Traveling between memory and hope.