The Emoticon Generation

by Guy Hasson

  “Thank you, Dr. Stone. It’s been a pleasure.”

  “History in the making, Dave.”

  “I didn’t understand half of that, but it certainly seems like you’re out to make history. We’ll be back after this with news of the latest Hollywood scandal.”

  Commercials came on. Roger muted the TV.

  “Hmm...” he said.

  Joan thought in silence.

  Roger, after a moment, stood up. “Time to put Rose to bed.”

  Joan moved aside, allowing him to lift their daughter while asleep.

  “You think it’s any good?” she asked him as he carried Rose to the kids’ bedroom.

  Roger shrugged. He went in, and after a minute, came back out. Joan was leaning against the wall, thinking.

  Roger turned off the TV.

  “Do you think he’ll change the system?” Joan put a hand on his back.

  Roger shrugged.

  “Come on,” he said. “Time to go to sleep.”

  ~

  Four months later, Roger looked out the window just as the news was about to come on.

  “The streets are empty.”

  “Hmm?” Joan looked back. She was already sitting on the sofa, ready for the nightly news.

  “The streets are completely empty.” Roger left the window. He sat beside her, “No cars, nothing.”

  “What do you expect?” Joan said. “They’ve been promoting it like crazy.”

  The promos have been running all day yesterday and all day today. Dr. Burrows, who had kept media silence ever since his famous interview, will be interviewed in regard to the Stone Education Plan.

  “Last time I heard the streets were empty because of TV was back in the fifties, I think.” He pulled the curtain back and sat near Joan. “Every time Jackie Gleason came on, or Burns & Allen, or one of those.”

  “Yup. Here we go.”

  Rose ran into the room, “Mom, I want to go outside and play.”

  The news logo began to play.

  “Not now, sweetie.”

  “Russell!” Roger roared.

  “Mommie, mommie, mommie, I’m bored!” Rose’s voice drowned the blond anchor as he began to talk.

  “Louder,” Joan said. “I can’t hear what he’s saying.”

  “Russell!” Roger roared again, at the end of which, Russell’s head peeked from behind the door to his and Rose’s room.

  “What?”

  “We gave you a simple assignment. Take care of your sister for half an hour!”

  “Shh! Shh!” Joan said. “He’s coming on.”

  “Do it!” Roger roared in a whispered. “Now!”

  Russell took Rose’s hand. “Come on. Let’s play anything you want.”

  “Anything?” Rose jumped.

  On TV, Dr. Burrows was already saying something.

  “Anything. Come on,” he led her by the hand to their room.

  “Dr. Burrows,” Joan turned up the volume even higher, “you haven’t given many interviews in the last few months.”

  “And close the door!” Roger shouted after him.

  “Shh!” Joan said.

  “To tell the truth,” Dr. Burrows said, “I gave four interviews and it seemed to me that the world exploded. I thought I should remain in my lab and do what I do best, which is research.”

  The door to the kids’ room slowly shut itself from the inside.

  “But now you’ve agreed to our interview,” the anchor was saying.

  “Yes.”

  “We want to talk to you about Dr. Stone’s Stone Education Plan, which is about to be voted into law two days from now.”

  “Yes.”

  “It is based on your famous interviews. It is based on your research.”

  “Yes.”

  Joan’s back tensed, and she sat up straight.

  “And yet,” the anchor was saying, “we haven’t heard a thing from you on the subject. Does the new education program actually release people’s imagination?”

  “What I think you meant to ask me was whether the new program does not block children’s imagination. And yes, as far as I could tell, it does pretty well.”

  “So you, Dr. Burrows, are saying that the bill, the Stone Education Plan, will release kids’ imagination and make them free?”

  “No, no one is saying any such thing. Listen. The Stone Education Program isn’t meant to release people’s imagination. It is meant to stop blocking children’s imagination. Which, in turn, helps imagination keep roaming freely. Which, in turn, makes for very healthy people.”

  “Please, Dr. Burrows, stick to short sentences. Are you saying the Stone Education Program follows your rules for imagination?”

  “Again, I think you’re confusing things,” Dr. Burrows insisted. “There are no ‘rules’ for imagination, certainly none of mine. There are certain behaviors that block imagination, which I happened to have named on the air.”

  Roger scratched his cheek and looked at Joan. Her eyes were riveted to the screen.

  “Dr. Burrows, no one at home followed what you said,” the blond anchor said. “We need a yes-or-no answer. Does the Stone Education Program meet your standards for free imagination? Will this program free our kids’ imagination?”

  “The Stone Education Program seems quite remarkable in that it bypasses each of the behaviors that stunt our imagination. So: yes, it does.”

  “It is a revolution, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly seems like it. It is quite admirable that in such a short while, a new education system was invented, a program that goes completely against the grain of everything we’ve done for the last thousands of years. Kudos to Mr. Stone’s ingenuity.”

  “Dr. Burrows, I understood what you were saying, but no one else did. Revolutionary: yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh,” Joan released air from her mouth without noticing, as her lips parted.

  “It will lead to a whole new era of mankind? The Era of Freedom is beginning? Yes or no?”

  “I am not a clairvoyant,” Dr. Burrows said.

  “But you think a new era is coming? Yes or no?”

  “I think it might be.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  Dr. Burrows crinkled his forehead. “A yes to what?”

  “Revolutionary: yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “It follows your rules: yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “History in the making: yes or no?”

  “Probably. I’m no expert in the field of—”

  “Was that a yes?”

  “It wasn’t a no.”

  “A yes, then. Excellent. Dr. Burrows, trying to interview you is like trying to pull teeth, but thank you nonetheless.”

  “Thank you.”

  The anchor turned to face the camera, which gave him and his hair a close-up. “And thank you, Dr. Burrows, for bringing about a new revolution. There you have it, folks. Dr. Burrows’ complete and wholehearted stamp of approval on the Stone Education Plan. History in the making, indeed. The Era of Freedom begins... now. Next: Are your pets killing you? We’ll be back after these messages with the surprising answer.”

  Roger raised the remote. “I’m turning it off.”

  “All right,” Joan said.

  Roger turned off the TV and looked at his wife.

  “So,” he said. “I think the choice to give Russell a personal tutor was a good one.”

  Joan was biting her lips, the tension showing. “Yeah. It was. And I think Mr. Duncan is good. He goes straight by Stone’s plan.” Private tutors had adapted the Stone Education Plan as soon as Dr. Stone’s book was on the shelves.

  “Yup.”

  Joan, still biting her lips, kept nodding to herself. “Yup. Yup. Good. I’m calm now. Good. Good.”

  “Yeah,” Roger leaned back and restive. “By next year, the schools will be working according to the new plan.”

  “Yup.”

  “We’ll put Russell back in school.”


  “Yup.”

  “And Rose will start the first grade. We’ll just put her in normal school.”

  “Yup.”

  “She’ll only know the new kind of education. She won’t know what we went through.”

  “Good. Good. I’m calmer now. I’m calmer now.” And with that, Joan suddenly exhaled relief that deflated her back and brought visible exhaustion to her eyes. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Yup,” Roger said and put a hand on his wife’s back.

  ~

  “Today the Stone Education Plan was passed into law,” the fifty-year-old evening news anchor with the perfect black hair continued. The Grant family, meanwhile, was finishing its dinner. “Which is the perfect opportunity to go back to the People of the Fountains and check to see where they are today and what they think of the new law.”

  “Russell, go wash your hands,” Joan ordered.

  Roger’s attention was drawn to the TV.

  Russell leapt off the chair, and immediately Joan said, “And take your sister with you.”

  Russell gave Rose a hand, and began helping her down the chair.

  “None of my interviewees,” a Barbie-like reporter was speaking. Behind her, the original interview from last year was playing. “Was more memorable than the man known as ‘John’, the man who was there during Woodstock, the man who said the Sixties paled in comparison to what is going on today. I interviewed him earlier today.”

  Joan stopped gathering the dishes, and sat down, looking at the TV.

  “The Stone Education Plan?” John was dressed in a suit, his hair perfectly combed, in the middle of a semi-rich home. “It is a dream come true.” He leaned back in his futon, allowing the audience to get a better glimpse of the vast library behind him. “The Man is done. The Man has just passed a law that will make The Man obsolete. From now on there are only children. Grown-up children, like me, and little children, like my wonderful grandchildren.”

  Russell reentered the living room, holding Rose’s hand.

  “Show me your hands,” Joan said.

  Russell and Rose raised their hands and let Joan inspect them.

  “This is where freedom begins,” John continued. “This is where history resets. I’ve heard it elsewhere, and it’s the best name for what’s going on: The Era of Freedom is beginning. Children of all ages will be free to imagine, free to create, free to live, free of shackles, free of rules, free of pressure that tells us how to think and what to think and how we should process what we know. We are all now truly free at last. All of us. Regardless of color. Free at last, free at last: the Era of Freedom is upon us. I feel overjoyed to have lived so long so that I could see this happening.”

  “‘The Era of Freedom’,” the Barbie-like reported was back in the studio. “I think that might catch on.”

  “I think it might,” the fifty-year-old anchor with the solid black hair said. “That’s for that captivating report, Donna. We’ll be back after these messages with reports of violence in the Middle East.”

  Roger muted the TV, as the commercials came on. “Wow,” he said. “You hear that, Russell?”

  “What?”

  “That’s the Stone Education Plan. You’re going to learn under the Stone Education Plan. It’s going to make you feel so good when you’re grown up.”

  “I don’t like it,” Russell made a face.

  Roger raised his eyebrows. “You don’t like it? Mr. Duncan taught you using the plan. You liked him.”

  “I don’t like it,” Russell was insistent.

  “Do you even know what it is?” Joan said.

  “Dad said I’m going back to school. I don’t want to learn. School sucks.”

  Joan laughed. “Oh, you’ll want to learn with the plan. You will love every minute of school. I promise.”

  Russell made another face, and opened his face, when his mother stifled him, “Shut up and go to your room.”

  Russell opened his mouth again, when Roger jokingly turned Russell’s head, and pointed it at his room. “Go to your room, Russell, and enough with the wisecracks.”

  Russell, not caring much for any avenue the conversation might take, pursed his lips, and went to play in his room.

  Rose put her arms on her hips, and, mimicking Russell exactly, said, “I don’t want to learn.”

  Joan laughed even harder, “Oh, yes you do, young lady.”

  Rose shook her head.

  “What? You don’t want to learn how to read or write? You don’t want to learn arts and music?”

  “Oh, okay!” Rose said.

  “Oh, okay,” Joan said.

  “Ah, okay,” Roger said and looked at Joan. Joan smiled at him.

  ~

  Russell handed his mother a note. Rose was lying on her back on the sofa, looking at the ceiling. Roger walked in from the bathroom. In the background, the 24-news cycle continued.

  “What’s this?” Joan asked Russell.

  “Yes, now that the Stone Education Program is set up, I’ve put my children back in school.” Dr. Sheen was being interviewed again, almost a year after his memorable showdown with Under Secretary Lautner. It has been six months since the school year began, implementing in full the Stone Education Plan. “I want them to become part of the Era of Freedom. I want them to have first class freedom of thought, and freedom of imagination.”

  Russell made a face. “Mrs. Miller asked me to give you this.”

  Joan read the page.

  Dr. Sheen continued, “When I first heard the details of the Stone Education Plan, I was skeptical. It couldn’t be that simple. We couldn’t be that lucky. I went online, downloaded the entire 200 pages of law, and read every one of them.”

  “Look at this,” Joan handed the note to Roger.

  “And I cried,” Dr. Sheen continued. “I cried from happiness when reading a bill!”

  “What’s this?” Roger took the note.

  “It’s from Russell’s teacher.”

  “The Stone Education Program,” Dr. Sheen continued. “Is a wonder to behold. It proves that we can do things as a nation, that we can pull it together for our children and their future. It proves that we humans adapt quicker than we give ourselves credit sometimes.”

  “Russell!” Roger was flabbergasted more than he was angry. “This says you got an F! How could you possibly get an F with the Stone Education Plan?!”

  “So, yes, I went back to work as a neurosurgeon,” Dr. Sheen said. “I put my children back in school. And I tell them every day: do what your teachers tell you, do your homework.”

  Russell shrugged. Rose made funny noises, as she kept looking at the ceiling.

  Dr. Sheen said ,”It is good for you, it will make you better people.”

  Joan said, “Wait, what homework are we talking about? Is this the poem you were supposed to write?”

  Russell nodded.

  “Listen to what they want from you,” Dr. Sheen continued. “And follow the new rules. Kids: listen to what your teachers say in school.”

  “But I read the poem you wrote. It was a good poem!”

  “Oh, yeah, I liked it,” Roger said. “That’s why you got an F?”

  “Listening to your teachers is the only way to ensure that your imagination will never be put in cages again. Do it. The Era of Freedom is here for you, to free you.”

  Russell nodded.

  “That’s it. That’s all I have to say,” Dr. Sheen began to turn away from the camera. “I think I’m going to cry again.”

  “Wait a second, wait a second,” Roger turned around, muted the TV, and returned to look at his son. “Explain this to me.”

  Russell shrugged. “She asked me what grade I thought I deserved, and I said an A.”

  “Yeah?” Roger said.

  “But she said I wasn’t telling the truth.”

  “Was she right?” Joan asked.

  Russell nodded.

  “What grade do you think you deserve?”

  Russe
ll made a face again. Rose made another funny noise. “An F,” Russell said finally.

  “But why? It’s a great poem!”

  Russell said, “I didn’t care about it. I just wrote it in five minutes. It’s not my fault that it’s good.”

  “You didn’t try?” Joan thought about it for a second. “So it doesn’t show any progress?

  “I don’t want to do more homework. Homework is stupid!”

  “Homework under the Stone Education Plan is not stupid, Russell,” Roger raised his voice. “And when you’ll grow up you’ll understand it. For now, just follow the rules. They’re there for your benefit. Just follow... the rules! Got it?”

  Russell looked down.

  Joan tried another approach, with a soft voice. “The rules are simple, Russell. The rules are good for you. You have to follow the rules. And it’s, like, only three rules. You can follow three rules that are good for you, right?”

  Russell shrugged.

  “Right, Russell?”

  Russell pouted, but said, “Yes, Mom. Follow the rules.”

  “Now go to your room, do your homework, work hard, and you’ll thank us when you’re older.”

  Sulking, Russell went slowly towards his room. “Yes, Mom.” Just as he shut his door, he said, in a stage-whisper, “When I grow up, I’ll never ask my kids to do homework.”

  Joan and Roger looked at each other, their eyes saying the same thing to each other: Kids will be kids.

  Joan sat next to Rose, and put her hand on Rose’s stomach. “Turn it back on,” she asked Roger.

  Roger pointed the remote at the TV.

  “This has been the last of our three part series noting the six month anniversary to the first school year under the Stone Education Plan. Six months for The Era of Freedom. Change is being felt all around the country, and, in fact, the world. There is no doubt that so far it has been a dazzling success. The cages we always had in our heads are gone. Education is truly good for the first time in human history. Next: Is breast-feeding killing your baby? We’ll be back after these messages with an in-depth look.”

  ALL-OF-ME™

  I remember perfectly the moment it all started.

  The moment was so innocent, so full of love and (somewhat) lust, that I couldn’t possibly have suspected anything.