The Censor

"Author's comment: It's been a while since I've posted something. Heck, it's been a while since I've written something. I pulled this together in a few minutes, I'm out of practice, let's see where it needs improvement."

"It's quite a simple device, really. In layman's terms, it manipulates the mind."

Mr. Andrews was showing me his new invention, and the damned lunatic had actually created something world-changing. I couldn't believe it; I wasn't aware that science had even taken us this far into understanding the human consciousness -- but there it was: the key to happiness, in the hands of a deranged, old man. And he had been set to retire in a few years too. The last few decades of my "fellow scientist" attempting to show me his psychotic inventions had inexplicably led to his creation of something that would actually alter the face of humanity forever. It was entirely sickening.

"This is just the prototype, of course," he laughed heartily, holding up what looked like a black headband. "I've seen the market model they've made for me; it's so small it's practically invisible."

Of course. The benefactors had eaten up his proposition, even after the previous decades they had spent mocking the man's obvious insanity.

"Would you like to know what it does?" he prodded cheerfully.

I already knew what it did; I asked him to tell me anyway. I wanted to hear it from the mouth of the lunatic; perhaps then it would seem less real.

"It censors sadness! I know, I know, it sounds incredible, doesn't it? But it's really quite simple. Yes, quite simple indeed. You see, the brain naturally has many ways of censoring things around you. You wouldn't even notice if you hadn't been told about it, but it's the reason that you don't see your own nose in front of you, or the veins that cover your eyes. Your brain simply ignores them; pretends they don't exist! My device hijacks that ability; whenever it finds you noticing something that triggers your sadness, it makes your brain censor it! Doesn't it sound remarkable?"

It sounded lunatic. Absolutely lunatic; just as the man's inventions had always been. But this one worked. People were talking about it. Its release had been marketed incredibly -- the key to happiness; the ultimate goal. But advertising was fickle, couldn't anybody see that?

"Think about it, my good man," continued Andrews. "The next time anything even slightly disheartening occurs in your vicinity, you won't notice it! Your life will carry on completely unaffected!"

It was a blinder, that’s what it was. To think people would be desperate enough to willingly blind themselves to reality. Why would anyone voluntarily choose to live their lives wearing such a psychotic contraption?

"It's entirely foolproof," Andrews said, twirling the prototype in his hand. "You won't notice anything wrong with your life; especially not after everybody starts using these. Sadness will be entirely eradicated! The incurable disease; cured! Think about how superior the state of humanity would be if we didn't have sadness getting in our way all the time!"

We looked each other in the eyes. I was suddenly suspicious of the man; could he be wearing his terrible invention, even now? The "practically invisible", perfected model? Is that why he was so blind to my obvious disgust?

He held out the black band. Up close, it was more obviously metallic, with large grey squares on the underside that seemed electrical in some sense. The lunatic was offering that I wear the damn thing.

"Look, Jacob," he began. I stared. I wasn't sure whether the man had ever referred to me by my first name before. "You won't regret it, I promise. There is no downside -- no loss of self, no physical harm. Just the absence of negativity. You will be the world's happiest optimist. I'm sure people will be opposed to it at first, but soon enough everyone will see how good of a thing it is to be happy. Can you honestly say that you haven't wished for sadness to go away?"

He forced the thing into my hands. It was unbelievably light. I found myself contemplating; I wouldn't have cared about the man's speech if I hadn't thought that, in some capacity, he was right. It was only a matter of time before the world gave in to this temptation. A fear of sadness was the one thing that united all of humanity -- and what a fear it was. I shared that fear; that wasn't the issue. The issue was that this was all insane. This thing, just censoring out sadness, as if it was merely some grotesque sight -- how was that acceptable? He said there would be no loss of self, but this was by definition a loss of self. As much as I despised my capacity to fall into darkness every so often, that was me, wasn't it? It's who I'd always been. How could censoring that be healthy?

Andrews coughed.

I stared at him. How could he have been the man to invent this? The raving eccentric? I'd never seen the man as much as frown; he'd laughed at every one of his countless failures along with those around him. And yet, he had eradicated sadness? Had he been so convinced of his mentality being superior that he'd packaged it up to sell? He was insane.

"Put it on," he smiled.

I gripped the device. I wanted to break it, but that wouldn't have accomplished anything -- it was already being mass-produced. A mass-censoring -- the kind that governments would have been condemned for -- would face only mild protest, because of humanity's fatal weakness.

I found myself unmoving. The details of Mr. Andrews’ dusty lab room were suddenly calling for my peripheral attention – I wanted to make myself certain that reality was reality, and understand that the things around me would remain whether I observed them or not. It was surely the antithesis to Andrew’s ideology. If I could remain grounded to truth, in any capacity, then I would do so. But I couldn’t not wear the device. I yearned for it too, on the inside. It slipped on with no resistance. Perhaps that was a design choice made for more than just comfort.

At first there was nothing. The moment after, there was everything. But there had always been everything. What had changed, I asked myself. Surely nothing? Everything was as it had always been. There was some hint of memory digging itself into the deepest areas of my mind – perhaps to hide – but what the memories were, I could not remember. A feeling of some sort; one that might have plagued entire months of my life. But those months didn’t exist, did they? No, they were just some fleeting fever dreams.

I blinked. I felt a slight headache, but I didn’t mind. What was there to mind, anyhow? It was strange that I seemed to have forgotten what I was doing, but I didn’t mind that either. What on Earth had I been feeling so opposed to just now? There was absolutely nothing wrong with the world.