The scientists probe the young man’s exposed brain with a metal object. He can feel nothing, just stare ahead at them.

“Tell me what you see, hear, or otherwise experience when we do these things,” their leader says, carefully touching his forehead with the prod.

“Are you ready?”

  • He can hear his little sister laughing screaming falling onto the ground. He could hear her in the other room getting beaten up by the officers. “She is too smart, smarter than those her age, she is getting ahead, she is getting restless, she may cause revolution. He can hear her talking to them, pleading, yelling, only in second grade, his parents down the hall silently watching her door with their hands clasped wishing they had not read to her instead of letting her watch the TV. 1
    He can her screaming to them.
    He can her screaming to him.

  • He can hear water splashing at Disney World her laughing her giggling.

  • “How many fish do you see in the pool?” a scientist asks him, testing his mental capabilities.

  • “Imagination is dead. But its ghost lives in my head and hurts me so when they ask what I’m thinking about I say ‘nothing.’ ”

  • Rat poison is good to take a bad child out of school for a day or a week or even two weeks (tops) when he/she is having a bad influence on the other children, corrupting them. 2

  • His mind flickers from thought to thought and he can hear a conversation, between his friends at a bar, them laughing and talking. “I saw a hot chick” “yes” “very good to all of the senses” “what would you do if you got a hold of her?” “I don’t think I just do” - don’t think just do don’t think don’t think don’t think don’t think

  • “Imagination can be removed.” 3

  • His future has been decided for him; he walks down the aisle at graduation holding a bouquet of flowers for the girlfriend that picked him out of the crowd because of his eye color.
    (Top 10 traits in males for ladies in 1999: sense of humor, personality, money, muscle, height, eye color, penis size, huggability, lip shape, clothing.
    Top 10 traits in males for ladies in 22614: height, money, eye color, hair color, unintelligence, docility, job assignment, number of friends, car, clothing.    )
    Tossing flowers. Her laughing. He can smell her hair. Is he still with her? Did he marry her? He cannot remember - his thoughts are trapped. He is caught in between time and twitches on the shelf, they probe another area.

  • Plink plonk plunk - drip drop 5 - staring at the leaking ceiling falling down the drain - music vibrates the ground downstairs - - downstairs - people laughing dancing throwing themselves against each other forgetting that they’re unhappy just feeling alive for once, why can’t he be like this? water drops down from above into the sink onto him he stares at the window is it time to jump?

  • His wife wants him to buy rat poison. What kind he asks. She says any kind it doesn’t matter she just wants those little shits out of there. It’s dirty. What would the neighbors think? He buys the rat poison, buys the one with the brightest package, it doesn’t matter what the cost is, he’s got the best one out of all of them, the one that will look the best when he purchases it at the counter with his credits.
    Sometimes the government patrols what people buy - are they intelligently buying the cheapest kind in the dullest package? He doesn’t want to be monitored anymore.

  • His sister has his eyes.

  • “Your dreams may cost nothing, but they sure as hell aren’t free.” 6

  • She lives upstairs.

  • He takes the rat poison and swallows it.

  • They circle around his sister she is almost 20 she has hidden all of her drawings and stories under a board under her bed. They watch her they monitor her she shows no outward signs of what she truly is but they know, they know deep down that she is just revolting against them and they are not happy with this - they are swarming her she is yelling she is throwing her schoolbooks at them.

  • The lab doctors have light green jackets that swoosh behind them like capes, like they are all trying to be Superman. Except instead of helping the people they are handing them over to the bad guys. They’re just extensions of the bad guys. There are no longer any mad scientists. The gene pool is receding. 7

  • She is shrieking she is falling to the ground there are groups of people around her

  • “Sometimes I dream of a better life, but where would it happen?”

  • He picks her up and puts her in the bathtub. She carefully pets the warm water and smiles, mouth slightly agape. He hears his wife call, leaves the room to see what she wants - she wants to dance with him, it’s their song of course. the running water splashes on the floor, begins to drip into the bathroom below; no one at the party knows about his sister, no one will check for a while yet

  • The rat poison is settling in. He goes upstairs to throw it up, none of this will work. A few agents follow him up the stairs, just to make sure he’s not doing anything against them that they should know about.

  • He remembers when his sister comes home from her lobotomy - how she doesn’t speak anymore just looks out the window dully. She’s like a dried flower retaining her old form but lacking any life substance.

  • He opens the window. He used to dream when he was a little kid of far off lands and parents that cared. He used to dream of a woman who loved him. He used to dream of laughter, real laughter, and playing in fields instead of plugging in, shutting off.

  • His sister is drowning upstairs in the bathtub, he has forgotten to stop the water. It is getting hotter, she is burning but can’t get it together enough to tell. He pushes open the window as the agents bust in

  • “Imagination is the doorway to the soul, don’t forget it, or your eyes will stop sparkling. Your eyes are your best part.”

  • He feels the tiles he feels the ground he hears yelling he sees blackness.

  • Paramedics around him taking him to the hospital

  • “Hey, listen, honey, maybe we shouldn’t buy this house, it has rats in the basement.”
    “We can get them out. It’s right in our price range. Please?”

    He speaks to them as they violate his thoughts.

    “No,” one of the doctors says to the other, “you’re right. He’s useless to society. You want to end him or should I?” 8

    “I’ll do it. I won; fork the $5.”

    “Yeah. I’ll treat for dinner.”

    general fiction

    1 Allowing your children to watch television instead of reading to them has been, according to many studies, detrimental to their minds. And their eyes, for that matter.

    2 "6th Sense" (mother poisons child for pity), "Bingo" (said dog swallows rat poison, dies)

    3 Mrs. Hopkins (english teacher): "Sooner or later they'll start removing imagination like they do the appendix, it's useless until it hurts you then you complain to your doctor and they simply remove it."

    4 2261. Placed in for the Casers of the audience. (One may also note that money, height, and clothing are important factors no matter when a story takes place.)

    5 Otomotopoeia

    6 I would like to thank John, Elizabeth Moylan's friend for this quote. I have no idea where it originally came from.

    7 "We need more chlorine in the gene pool." (T shirt at Hot Topic)
    (Especially appropriate that this is sold in the Wyoming Valley.)

    8 The Giver by Lois Lowry (read it)