The Emoticon Generation

by Guy Hasson

  “You have to see it.”

  The image changed again. Dozens of adults in the fountain were throwing water at each other, laughing, and having fun.

  “Now, remember, these are complete strangers.”

  “Complete strangers.”

  “And they’re all behaving like children.”

  “Like children”

  The image changed to a street corner in the middle of the night.

  “Now look at this.”

  “Oh, this is good.”

  A forty-something year old man climbed on a street light as high as he could, and began yelling at the passing cars.

  “When our cameraman was taking a break, he caught a sight of this man in the middle of the street behind City Hall.”

  “Is he yelling?”

  “I think he is.”

  “He’s yelling!”

  “And he looks happy!”

  “Unbelievable.”

  The image changed again to look at Jean Sandoval and Sally Crawford sitting in the pleasant surroundings of the morning show.

  “We’ve had so many videos like these, we’re absolutely swamped.”

  “We don’t know what to do with so many!”

  “No, we don’t!”

  “Who would have thought that one interview with a scientist could get such a reaction from people?”

  Roger’s hand dropped, and without noticing, he let the remote control slip. His back turned slightly to the TV, and his eyes became blank, as something ran through his mind, and he became oblivious to the sounds around him.

  “And the thing is, this phenomenon is spreading.”

  “Right. So if you happen to record any of these incidents on your cell phone and you think they’re newsworthy, just send them over to us.”

  “Through our website, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right. Through our website.”

  “And we just might show your video on national television.”

  “Right. In the meantime, here are more people jumping into the streets and into the fountains in other major cities around the U.S.”

  Roger’s squinted, looking at nothing in particular. “Wow,” he whispered to himself. “I can imagine anything.”

  Suddenly, Russell shot into the room, slammed hands-first into a wall, then bounced in another direction, as if he was a billiard ball. Once he reached the sofa, he flung himself into the air and falling face-first into the sofa. “Woo-hoo!” he shouted. “Woo-hoo!”

  “Russell! Get dressed! You have to go to school!”

  “Television said school is bad!” Russell shouted. “Free day! Free day!” He jumped up and down on the sofa, his usual energy tripled. “Free day! Free day!”

  Roger squinted again, but in a different way. “Russell!” Russell stopped jumping for a second. “The television lied,” he said with an ominous voice.

  “Free day! No school!”

  “If you don’t go to school today,” Roger began, then, for a split second, he paused, searching his imagination for something truly imaginative and new. He came up with a thought, decided it was imaginative enough, and said it, “I will blow up your school with an H-bomb.”

  Russell’s energy dropped. “What?”

  “No, no, I’m kidding. But you’re going to school... Now.”

  Ten minutes later they exited the house on their way to school. And when Roger led Russell and out to the car that day, he smiled.

  ~

  Later that day, Joan sat in her office, poring over the performance reports of all employees in the company. The summary of the performance reports had to be handed in to her bosses by the end of the week at the latest. They needed her help to make sense of the data.

  Above the papers, the computer screen was set to the live news network site, which constantly played softly in the background.

  “As the sun is rising over the West Coast,” her computer chimed. Joan turned a page in the report. “It is clear that this phenomenon has spread to all major cities across the U.S., completely independently. For some reason, the interview with Dr. Burrows has struck a nerve across the country. Later in the show, we’ll speak with Dr. Nichols, an expert in children’s behavior, to explain why adults are behaving like children. We have a slew of psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists and other experts to explain to us the different aspects of this new phenomenon: Have we been repressed our whole lives? That is the question of the day.”

  Joan nodded to herself in response, although she did not look up from the papers. Instead, she turned back a page and began rereading the previous one.

  “But before all that,” the reporter on her computer said. “We’ll show you more unbelievable videos of the freedom movement that is hitting the streets. We have hundreds of videos received from ordinary people around the country, and we’ll keep showing them throughout the entire day. And please, send us more, we’ll show the most interesting ones on the air.”

  Joan turned the page, started reading it, then turned the page back to read the first one again.

  “Before we go to commercial, here is the part of Dr. Burrows’ interview that stirred all this up.”

  Dr. Burrows was in the corridor, again, trying to get past Jack Seuter. He was saying, “Four things block the release of the hormone. One: A feeling of time constraints or deadlines.”

  Joan looked up from her papers and looked at Dr. Burrows.

  “Two: A feeling of trying to appeal to someone else’s standards. You try to do what they think is good or right or proper by the standards of others. You force other people’s standards into your brain rather than having to live with your own standards.”

  “Hmmm,” Joan said.

  “Three: adopting others people’s standards and making them your own. By taking the second stage one step further, you actually step on yourself as well as your imagination to succeed or to be liked or out of duty.”

  Joan leaned back in her chair.

  “Four: Forcibly performing a task at a certain time. School, for example, always begins at the same time. Doing homework or writing a paper for the university or performing tasks in your job – doing that at an arbitrary time dictated by others is doing something that forces your thoughts into a place that closes in on them.”

  Joan pursed her lips. The anchor reappeared on the screen, surrounded by high-tech computers and people working busily in the background. “More fountain videos right after these short messages.”

  The commercials began, and Joan, with a motion of her hand on the mouse, muted the computer’s sound.

  Familiar commercials played on silently, as Joan stared at them, seeing and not seeing.

  After a minute and a half, the commercials ended and Joan had not moved much. The anchor was saying something, and then amateur video began to play, showing people jumping into fountains.

  “To hell with this,” Joan suddenly straightened.

  With two strokes on the keyboard, she was out of the news webpage, and the news no longer played.

  Joan returned to pore over the performance reports. This was important. Her reports will help the company run more efficiently. Her job was necessary.

  She stared at the pages.

  After a minute of not moving and simply staring, she rose while slamming her hands on the table. “To hell with this!”

  Joan was out of the office in less than 30 seconds. “I’m taking an early lunch,” she called, not caring if someone heard her.

  ~

  “I am right here at ‘The First Freedom Fountain’, as it has come to be called by the thousands of people who have spontaneously filled this square over the last five days. As you can see behind me, there are literally dozens of people splashing around in the fountain. People have been leaping into the fountain all day, cooling off, throwing water at their friends, and then running off God knows where.”

  The TV at the Grant family had been on, ever since Roger came home with Rose. 30 minutes later, Joan came in with Russell
. The TV continued to play in the background.

  “Standing beside me is one of the denizens of the Freedom Fountain that has stayed here for the last five days.” The young and busty long-haired blonde reporter gestured to a spot outside the screen, and a six-foot man approaching his fifties, dressed in a drenched suit and tie stepped into view, looking at her. His hair was still dripping, his cheeks flushed. “Sir, tell us something about yourself.”

  Joan and Roger had their glances slip towards the TV.

  The man looked into the camera, his eyes sparkling. “My name is Hugo Donnelly, and I am – correction, I used to be – a lawyer.”

  Russell was clinging to Joan’s leg. Rose was sitting on the carpet. “Russell, go do your homework,” Joan said.

  “There’s no homework today,” Russell said.

  “I’ve been calling in sick,” Hugo said, “every day for the last five days. I guess now they’re going to know. But you know what? I don’t care!” Hugo raised his hands in the air and hollered, “Yippi-kuy-ey, you bastards!”

  “What did you say?” Joan asked, unable to look away from the TV.

  “I’m a free man!” Hugo continued to shout. “A free man! I don’t care if they know. I don’t care if I lose my job! I don’t care if I have to live in the streets and beg for food! In my head I’m free! I’m free!”

  “There’s no homework today,” Russell said.

  “For the first time in more than twenty five years,” Hugo continued to shout, “I’m really free! Wooo-hooo!” Hugo Donnelly raised his arms in the air again and hollered so loudly, that the busty reporter had to take the microphone away, while wincing and touching the earpiece in her ear.

  Joan looked down at Russell, “What did you say?” But then she looked up at the TV again, just as Hugo, his howls now muffled by the fact that the microphone was far off, turned around, and ran away from the reporter. He jumped up to stand on the edge of the City Hall Fountain, and leapt into the water with a big splash.

  “There’s no homework today,” Russell said.

  “A-ha,” Joan said, not looking at him.

  The cleavage-rich reporter followed him with her eyes, spell-bound, then looked back and the camera, shrugging apologetically. “Mr. Donnelly has been a hard-working, respectable lawyer and now he is... this. And he is not as wild as the rest of the people hanging around here who, until yesterday, were just as ordinary as you or I. Here is a little taste of the characters I’ve seen today. Let’s roll the tape.”

  Joan looked at Russell, then at the TV. “Roger,” Joan reached for the remote Roger was holding, “turn down the sound for a second.”

  Roger moved the remote away from Joan. “Go to the other room.”

  Joan looked at Roger, then down at Russell. “Come here a sec,” she said, and led Russell to the kids’ bedroom. “What did you say about homework?”

  “There’s...” Russell spoke slowly, as if to a slow child, relishing every word, “...no... homework... today.”

  Joan opened her mouth to speak, when Russell quickly added, “Or tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “Or the day after that. ‘No homework this week’! That’s what Mrs. Miller said.”

  “That’s what... Why...” Joan’s tone softened, “Russell, did she say why there’s no homework?”

  Russell shrugged and climbed on his bed. “She said she thinks maybe homework causes headaches.” He leaned on the wall and looked at the ceiling. “She says she wants to think about it for a week. So,” he looked at Joan, “no homework.”

  Russell began jumping up and down on the bed, “No homework! No homework! Can I go outside, Mom?” He jumped off the bed. “Can I? Can I? Can I?”

  “Sure.”

  Russell sped out of the room. Joan looked at the open door, heard indistinct sounds from the TV in the living room, and her forehead crinkled.

  ~

  Talking to Mrs. Miller was Roger’s job. He was better at it.

  But he did not catch her on the phone that night, nor did he find her during the short time he had when he brought Russell to school on his way to work. But he did catch her when he took Russell from school.

  Roger, Russell, and Mrs. Miller stood at the edge of the school, beside the parking lot.

  “The world is changing, Mr. Grant. Everything we’ve done so far in raising our kids, and in the way we were raised, has been wrong.” Russell was tugging at Roger’s hand, but Roger’s attention was completely on Mrs. Miller. “I can’t be expected to teach the kids the way we’ve done so far. I’d be doing them harm.”

  “But what else would you do, except what you’ve done?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Grant,” she shrugged. “You’ve seen the news, you know what scientists say. You—”

  “I know. I’ve seen it all. And I understand what they say. But I’m sending my kid to school so he can learn something, so he can become a well-rounded adult.”

  “Mr. Grant, I will not harm Russell or any of my kids. I don’t know what else there is to say.”

  “Mrs. Miller, look at it from my point of view. School is for learning. If you don’t do your job, I will report you to the—”

  “Mr. Grant, I’m not doing anything wrong. I’ve put in a request for instructions from our principal, who has put in a request for instructions from the Department of Education. I’m telling you what I’m telling all parents. I am waiting a week for instructions. In the meantime, I’m still teaching them.”

  “You are?”

  “I’m teaching them biology, we’re reading books together, we’re doing a little math. We’re just doing it a bit more slowly than usual. I’m making it a bit more fun. And the only thing that’s different is, I’m not giving them any homework. For a week.”

  “One week?”

  “One week. To get instructions.”

  Roger made a face. “No more.”

  Mrs. Miller smiled sadly. “No, no more.”

  “Why the face?”

  “I won’t harm the kids, Mr. Grant. If the Department of Education tells me to go ahead and teach the way we have so far, I’d have to quit. Someone else will have to teach your kids.”

  Roger made a face, as well.

  “You see my dilemma, Mr. Grant.”

  “You see mine,” he said.

  The two looked at each other, and felt there was nothing more to be said. Roger shrugged. “One week, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “And we’ll hope for the best.”

  “Yes.”

  Roger shrugged, again. “All right. Thanks for your time.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Grant. You have a very smart kid.”

  “Thanks.”

  And with that, Roger turned away, and let Russell push him forward. “Yes, yes, we’re going, we’re going.”

  Roger then led Russell into the car and buckled him in. Before they began to drive, Roger pulled out his cell phone, turned on the TV from his favorite news channel, and began driving, while keeping an eye on the news.

  The image was of a Ken-like twenty-something reporter talking to a hairy-chested man, who had put his shirt on top of his head and screamed at the camera, “This is a revolution! A revolution!”

  “What’s a revolution, Dad?”

  “I, uh... It’s complicated. Let me think how I can explain it to you, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Roger clicked, and the phone moved on to receive the next news channel. A Barbie-like twenty-something reporter was interviewing a man in his mid-sixties. In the background was the First Freedom Fountain.

  “I was twenty years old during Woodstock,” the man said. “I was there, rolling on the grass with a head full of grass. But let me tell you, the Sixties are nothing compared to what we can do here. ‘Free Love’ was all about love and sex, but never really about freedom. But this? This is just about being free. Free in your head. Free as a child. Free to dream. Free to feel. Free to roam in your imagination to wherever you want. Free to coast, free
to imagine, free to lay there all day and stop dealing with deadlines, job restrictions, mind restrictions, doing everything the old way. Let me tell you, youngsters, I am freer now than I was in the Sixties. I am younger now than I have been in forty years. I am younger than all you stuffed shirts sitting there in offices, making millions you can’t take with you. I am young. You are old. This is the true revolution!”

  The Barbie-like reporter raised her eyebrow, and looked at the camera. “You heard it from a man who was there: This makes the Sixties’ freedom movement pale in comparison. We seem to truly be at the edge of an historic revolution. But how long can this last? Over to you, Bob.”

  Roger turned off the phone with a sigh.

  The light turned green, and he accelerated.

  “Dad?”

  “Russell?”

  “Did you think about it?”

  “What? About what?”

  “What’s a revolution?”

  “Hmm... A revolution, Russell, a revolution is when everything changes. And nothing stays the same.”

  “Ah,” Russell said and leaned back. Then he shot up again, “I don’t understand.”

  “Ask Mrs. Miller,” Roger said.

  ~

  A week later, during his lunch break, Roger was sitting at his desk at work.

  Work in the paper company he was working for had ground to a halt in the last few days. Production has been halved, and he himself has been sitting in his office with the door closed, unable to put in any actual work time. During the last few days, he had just sat there in front of his computer, leaning back, staring at the ceiling: unable to work, but unable to imagine, either.

  He turned up the volume on the news network feed that had been consistently running in the background for the last few weeks. Political Arena was coming on.

  “Today in Political Arena, we’re putting in the arena the revolutionary movement that has simply overtaken each and every one of last month’s news cycles. And, boy, do we have a doozy! Even though everyone seems to land on the side of imagination and freedom, we’ve brought proponents of both sides. On the one side, we have Mr. Lautner, formerly the Education Under Secretary of the United States between the years 1992 and 1998. Did I get that right?”

  “Absolutely.”