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A Sense of Humor
"Excuse me … excuse me, sir, can you help me? I seem to have lost my sense of humor." The bartender of the Dog and Crow turned to Joseph, polishing a glass with a cloth. "Where’d you see it last and when?" he asked. "Well," Joseph said, "I was here yesterday for the singles’ night (that’s why I brought it, you see. I’m afraid I rather doubted my own capabilities) and when I got home I realized I didn’t have it with me. That syringe was all I had left." The bartender nodded, placing the glass on its shelf. He continued to nod for a moment more and then said, "I apologize, Mister, but I’ve not seen any EBS around here for a while. No one ever forgets them — they’re worth too much. But feel free to take a look around if you’d like. Monday’s slow, you won’t be in anyone’s way." Joseph tapped the tabletop for a moment, watching his fingers, then looked up. "I think I will, thank you. You know, of course, how expensive stims are these days. Especially a sense of humor," he added as an afterthought. Turning from the counter he began. He moved from the left side of the bar to the right, checking tables, chairs, ledges, the floor. For a moment the bartender watched and then he looked away. The stim was nowhere to be found; the quiet dark bar was empty. Glancing over the room a final time, Joseph sighed, "Shit." At the profanity the bartender looked over. "Can’t find it?" he asked. "No," Joseph answered. "Can I get you a drink?" the man behind the counter said. He was, after all, a barkeeper. Joseph shook his head. "I’ll have to buy more," he said, speaking to himself. He then turned to the second man. "Thank you for letting me look around." Without another word he walked past the bar and then out of the Dog and Crow. "You don’t have a sense of humor?" Joseph’s voice was lifeless as he asked the question, pushing his hair back from his forehead. "No … it’s currently very rare. We haven’t had any humor in stock for nearly a month. A new shipment was ordered a few weeks ago. Still hasn’t come in, or else we would have it for sale." On the small vidphone screen the salesman shrugged, his movements made jerky by the device. He continued, "If you would like we can contact you when some comes in." "I need it now. Where can I get some from, then?" Joseph’s clouded, tired eyes suddenly snapped up. "Where?" The salesman shrugged again. "I can’t help you, sir. Sorry. You’ll need to get along without for now. You could just use your own sense of humor." "I told you, I don’t have one.". "No — your own natural sense of humor." Joseph snorted. "Thank you," he said, "for your services." Then he hung up. Joseph sat in his living room, the television on in front of him. It was chattering loudly, but Joseph’s ears were deaf to its noise. In his hand he twirled his happiness, spinning the plastic almost lazily. It was the last of his happiness; all the rest was gone. Another stim to refill. He was depressed. His happiness would help him: it would remove the strange emptiness he had developed when he lost his sense of humor and replace it with elated joy. It had always worked before. It was just that stims were so very expensive these days. Sometimes you couldn’t even get your hands on them. So he continued to rotate the plastic capped syringe. There was a deep-set twisted irony in this, he knew. He had lost his sense of humor and could not laugh about it. No. Instead he sat, depressed, on his couch, and held in hand his happiness. Joseph was no more than the average victim of substance abuse, one of many. He did not look beyond stims to alleviate his suffering — he did not even try. Stims had come on to the public market years ago and now everyone used them. They were a status symbol. They made you charming or thoughtful, touched or clever, or happy. They had become a necessity. A stim — Emotional and Behavioral Stimulant, EBS, whatever name it went by — was nothing more than a solution of amino acids dissolved in water. When injected into a vein through a syringe, hormones formed in the bloodstream. These hormones traveled to the nervous system and there they acted, changing the rate at which nerve cells allowed sodium ions and potassium ions to be exchanged. Minuscule, specific changes to this created emotion and often swayed behavior. It was an imperfect science: each body had an individual reaction to each EBS (but science had blessed the developers and the amount of variation was quite small) and the duration of the effect varied. Regardless, however, technology had found a way of artificially controlling emotions and had released it, with great success, to the public. The public adored the control it gave them and used it with such ferocity it became abuse. Joseph stopped spinning the plastic shaft and set it down on the armchair. Standing, he walked into his bedroom and through to the adjoining bathroom. His collection of EBS was set out on the counter. It was a small collection. He was not rich. Joseph picked up the glass jars, reading the labels. The Sense of Humor was empty. The Happiness was empty. Only one injection of Concentration and Attention remained. The supply of Kindness (previously packaged as Care and Love) was dwindling. Joseph left the bathroom, hurrying to the living room and his chair. He sat forward, attempting with desperation to watch the garish color and listen to the clashing sounds or the television. As Joseph moved, frantically, into and out of his bathroom, a side effect of stim use was being researched in a different part of the world: dependency. A theory was in the process of being created. Users of Emotional and Behavioral Stimulants, it had been found, specifically those who employed only a small number of variations and used them heavily, or were constant users, appeared to develop dependencies and then become incapable of functioning without a stim working on their nervous system. But even as the research went on, those conducting it knew that — in the simplest of terms — it was too late now. Events had progressed too far. To release a warning would frighten the public; to remove stims from the market would anger them. Furthermore, more addicts lead to more sales, creating rich businesses and even richer scientists. The researchers had no power to create change — the legal process and the power of those receiving money would stop them. Therefore: the companies said nothing; the researchers said nothing; the scientists said nothing. Joseph rose again and stalked over to the television set. For a moment he stared at it, mere inches away. The colors swarmed before him, a tempest of technology. It angered Joseph. He wrenched the power cord from the socket. The deafening mindless piece of equipment fell silent and went black. Joseph turned and walked back to his seat. The lack of noise and the lack of color and lack of activity devoured the room. It attacked Joseph, a savage beast, ripping at his eardrums and eyes, menacing his mind. He rose and began to pace up and down the living room floor. His footsteps, muffled by carpet, were ominous and made loud by friction. His labored breathing was inhuman. The pulsing of the blood in his veins was course. Hell comes in many forms and it came to Joseph that day. He sat again. He stood. He tried to fill the silence with his voice but he could not speak. And then, as if moving of its own accord, one of his hands reached out. It shook, but it found his happiness and clutched it. Trembling fingers slid off the plastic cap, leaving it to fall to the floor. He slammed the needle into a blue vein in his elbow, pumping his happiness into his bloodstream. He waited. Noiseless colorless motionless minutes passed in agony. There was then was a change in Joseph’s features. His creased brow smoothed, his jaw relaxed, his clouded eyes lightened. A small smile grew on his lips. Why be upset, now? Why worry? He would purchase more happiness, and a sense of humor as well, soon. Moving to stand behind the television set he knelt and plugged the cord back in. The picture and noise, his false companion, returned and filled the room. Joseph took his seat and watched television. The people of Joseph’s world were addicted to control. Why not control human emotions as well? Stims — Emotional and Behavioral Stimulants — EBS: the ideal solution. |
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A Sense of Humor
8.24.2001
1476 words |