Joy Apparatus How far would you go to feel happiness? Would you even steal it? Prologue Mr. Barrington’s tanned young skin is disrupted by laugh lines when he smiles through the television. His face is plastered everywhere, and with good reason. By his side is his young son Zuess, whose sole purpose is to convey innocence. His blue eyes are the brightest specks of color in the whole commercial. In every advertisement he gives different variations of one long speech. “Every century a new invention is made that changes everything. In the 19th, it was the electric bulb. In the 20th, it was the internet. The 21st century gave us Elangiam, the international drug that adds seventy five years to everyone’s #life. And thank god for that!” he laughs and rubs his stomach which slightly bulges beneath his finely tailored suit. “These inventions changed our everyday lives for the better. And now, the twenty-first century will have another earth-shattering invention!” Barrington uses the hand not holding the microphone to gesture at the large machine that swings into view. He continues his political and undermining speech. “Tell me, who out there is depressed? Who out there feels sad and alone? Everyone believes there’s only one way to feel happy. To have pure happiness, you need someone or something special, right? This now incorrect assumption has been haunting individuals like yourselves since the dawn of time! You see, our miraculous engineers and scientists that made Elangiam have invented Joy Apparatus! It is a fancy machine that is able to create feelings and send them to the limbic system which controls emotions.” Then the camera always pans over to a “satisfied consumer”. The old man sits on a fashionable spinning stool that turns right as the camera shoots the Grandpa. His dark gray tweed suit sits comfortably on the grinning man who speaks his story in a bold tone that somehow pulls pity out of you. “My dear sweet Beth died because of a horrible car accident, leaving me with seventy-five more years where I’ll have to live without her. I was very depressed and was even considering suicide when someone finally took me to try out Joy Apparatus. And by golly I’m glad I did! I now look back at Beth in happy remembrance instead of grief and somehow I know she’s happy that I’m happy.” He looks up at the ceiling of the filming studio for dramatic effect. Then he looks back at the camera with a crazy grin and opens his arms widely when Zuess jumps into his arms. The young boy laughs and shows his smile to the camera. If only the little boy knew. If only everyone knew of the lies Mr. Barrington was shoving down their throats. If only people would get suspicious of how a machine could create feelings. If only. But the little boy doesn’t know. No one knows about the lies Mr. Barrington is shoving down their throats. People aren’t being suspicious. And machines can’t create feelings. It can only place stolen feelings into customers. Barrington knows about the humans enslaved beneath the ground. Barrington knows about what happens when all emotion is sucked dry out of someone. Barrington knows that the males sucked dry of emotion become laborers and that drained females become numb unloving mothers. Barrington knows about those robbed of feeling. Barrington knows about the Drained. Barrington knows about me.
