The Code of Happiness

by David J. Margolis

  “What's your name?”

  “We just have numbers here.” Sarcasm Jamie doesn't appreciate.

  “No point, don't you think? We won't see each other again.”

  “I just want a job.”

  Jamie's kicking himself. He's sweating it out on a treadmill watching the rain float down. He doesn't want to be this angry person, so easily triggered. The hot showers at the gym act as a masseuse, he'd stay under them forever except they cut out after two minutes. While changing, one of his crumbling shoe laces snaps in his hand forcing him to tie a delicate knot that won't hold. He walks past the cute featureless receptionist in conversation, but she's alert enough to ask if he wants to renew his membership. Jamie politely declines with his eyes. Strange he thinks, his watch works again.

  *****

  A black door opens for Jamie. It matched the address on the card for the free dental appointment. Located in a row of low-rise concrete buildings dearth of people, it's the sort of place you'd go to get depressed. A bell tinkles as he enters. It looks like a dental clinic reception; a waiting area with old magazines, dental hygiene advice on the walls, and a dinky bell to ring for attention. He reaches toward it but is stopped by Po calling out to him, a seemingly reprimanded Po on her best behavior.

  “You work here as well?”

  “Go figure.”

  These people must be desperate to get him. He'd heard Amway had gone to extreme measures to recruit but then again the metro always needed more banal column inches to fill. Po pours him a glass of water she insists he drinks making note of the curious point that everyone gets thirsty. Fear flutters through Jamie’s heart. These could be the people behind the disappearance of the five. He tells himself to be more serious. It's just a teeth clean, after all, and he snaps out of it in time to register Po handing him real paper forms. And as if reading him again, she says, “We're not going to kidnap you.”

  He stares at the forms. “Paper. Classic.”

  “Bamboo. When you're done, come through. Pen's over there,” and she sashays through a beat up red door. Jamie considers the glass of water and puts it down, his instincts distrust, an unease lurks beneath his skin, but he can't lay a finger on the precise nature of his doubts. It's more than the dated off-white walls and the lack of electronic signature. He turns his attention to the forms. They blur after reading a few lines, the dentist needing protection from the patient should anything go wrong. He signs and initials in several places much like any insurance form waiving his rights to claims.

  Jamie moves through the red door where Po, waiting in expectation, pinches the forms off him. She guides him to the dentist's chair and helps him lie back, vulnerable, a tortoise on its shell, belly exposed. Before he has a chance to settle she brings him a glass of water with a wisp of a smile. Her reading of him is a little more than uncanny. How does she know he refused to drink the water? He wonders if he's misread her, denying himself the chance to truly see her when they first met. He sees the back of her head, her black hair in a bob as she checks the forms. She has a sense of humor, he thinks. She's slender, cute, maybe too skinny, but maybe not quite as irksome as she first appeared. For a moment he sees her in a lighter shade. Perceptions change if you allow them to. His throat is parched from the thinking so he gulps down the water—another thing she was right about. It produces a smile. He should tell her that, but his jaw seems tight. He rolls it a little. Then it locks. The strangest dental freeze he thinks, except, what if it's not? He bounces upward and, as he does so, Po nonchalantly hits a button releasing automatic straps that whip around him and slam him back into the chair. He wriggles in a failed attempt to set himself free only succeeding in burning his skin. Po presses another button, and in an instant the whole chair disappears through the floor.

  Ray, dressed in a white coat, is there to meet him. He lets Jamie know he'll be able to talk in five minutes. From Jamie's state Ray accepts it's been a botched operation so he steps up, finds a pressure point on Jamie's neck, and lets him slip into the unconscious.

  Welcome to The Source Foundation are the first words Jamie hears upon awakening. The straps are still present and now his throat stings.

  “We are not here to harm you,” says Ray, “quite the reverse. In fact you may be of great help.” Jamie strains to be heard, wanting to be released.

  “We will. But first—”

  “Some tests,” chimes in Po.

  “They're harmless, you can stay awake if you want.”

  Jamie looks across to Po who gathers a syringe. What the fuck was he thinking coming here.

  “Po.”

  She puts down the syringe, her attempt at humor…

  “You'll like her once you get to know her,” says Ray.

  “Just don't like people getting to know me.”

  “These are very important tests, Jamie. They will decide more than your future,” says Ray as he continues to ignore Jamie's garbled pleas to be freed. “I know this seems weird. It's not normal for us to take... such... well... drastic measures, but you will understand in time—and there's not much left of it.” The straps grip like steel cables, sapping Jamie's strength. His only release is yelling through his useless hoarse throat.

  Ray and Po are content to watch his energy drain. It's body not mind that relaxes, and Ray has no choice but to send Jamie into a state of unconsciousness again. He injects him with a sedative and belatedly acknowledges he should have done so in the first place. It's not much of an apology, and Jamie drifts into sleep.

  He's not sure if it's the sound of large flies or his eyes flipping open to blue light that alarms him, but Jamie immediately chokes as he tries to speak. His mouth is stuffed and gagged. Ray's there to provide guidance on the latest developments much like a spokesperson for the government. He explains in an increasingly authoritative voice the obvious. Jamie's being scanned, there are electrodes all over his chest, his heart is key—as Jamie will find out—and it's all harmless. Jamie zones out Ray's voice as he concentrates on the room; machines suited to 1950's shock therapy and the acerbic Po watching monitors that at least are an ode to the current century, although which decade is debatable.

  It's a dream, he thinks, the only explanation. If it is he can wake up. Usually there's a key in his deep dreams to manoeuvre from one state to the next. It's how he coped with the nightmares when he was younger. He excelled at finding ways out as long as he avoided being pulled through floorboards, the dream exit that met death and haunted during waking hours. The current situation required him to find the anomaly, the oddity that doesn't belong, but there's an immediate problem; it’s all surreal, and his heart races at this cognisance distorting the readings on the monitor. Po looks worried but from Ray's reaction it could be good—or it could be bad. Ray sides on the affirmative. Would Ray fib to make Po feel better? That's it, thinks Jamie. Po being worried! That's the anomaly. He attempts to force himself awake by repeating it's a dream but finds the blue light ubiquitous. There’s only one thing for it, change strategy, take control and lucid dream. He reassures himself he has options and starts by returning his breath to normal.

  He can see now, yes, he can see more details of the room; odd instruments, boxes, red high heels. Once again his eyes flit upward and then over to the other side of the room where the lime green paint long ago peeled from the walls. He prefers his vision to rest on the cork ceiling where he can create a door to open, or imagine an old country path to walk on, both legitimate routes to wakefulness. But his conjuring tricks fail and the ceiling remains what it is. Perhaps he must face the truth. This so-called dream may in fact be real. Confronting this knowledge pulls at his very being. It’s true after all. His life is so worthless it's only fit for experimentation. There's simply one thing left to do. Fall asleep.

  *****

  Jamie awakes in a single bed wrapped in a white duvet. It's a different room, small, pod-like. The light is warm, the walls and shiny furnishings white too. He feels restored and strangely at ease and has no idea h
ow long he'd been asleep. His watch has been removed and his clothes have been washed and neatly pressed. They wait for him at the edge of the bed. He can't remember feeling this safe in a while, possibly since childhood.

  He dresses. The shredded lace on his shoe has been replaced. A gesture of goodwill perhaps. The button to open the sliding door is easy to find, and critically, it works. He's faced with a narrow corridor of dank gray concrete more in keeping with what he'd seen before. Voices echo and he takes a guess from which direction they flow. They have an attraction and he follows his intuition to seek them out. As he draws closer disappointment settles. It's Ray and Po. The low moment is followed by the recognition he no longer fears them. He's oddly focused and impervious, a coat of Teflon. His appearance doesn't faze them either. Ray asks how he slept, as if nothing had happened, and switches off the monitors while Po fetches a glass of water. Ray notes Jamie's concern and sips to prove it isn't spiked.

  “We are The Source Foundation,” he says, “created by John Charles Cavour, a billionaire philanthropist. A man who dedicated more time to solving the mysteries of this life than making money.”

  Jamie's subdued. If he listens he'll get out of there sooner. If he has to feign interest in this man's prattle he will. Ray pulls a leather bound tome off a shelf. “He was a student of mythologies and spiritual practices around the world, seeking commonalities, the universal.” He hands it to Jamie who casts a suspicious eye on the cover, The Commonalities of Life. It's time for him to pretend. Ray draws up a chair, this one strap free. He swivels Jamie around to watch a silent visual presentation Ray narrates. He explains how John Charles Cavour came to the conclusion human interaction revolved around the heart, and what was invisible to most people—well—he'd come to the precise details later.

  Jamie has to hide his cynicism. He watches a faltering holographic display of planets with rings emanating from them.

  “Do you know what the strongest form of energy in the universe is?” asks Ray.

  “Look it up when I get home?”

  Ray ignores him.

  “The torus. The sun generates a torus, planets, the solar system, distant stars and galaxies. All generate this field of energy. And there's more.” The flickering display shows an androgynous human being, rings pulsating from it, specifically—and it's here where Ray emphasizes—the heart. “There's more,” he insists, “the earth used to be like this... and now...”

  The visuals display random patterns around the blue planet with Ray's explanation of electronic interference on every continent dating back to the late twentieth century destroying the earth's torus. He's impressed Jamie never went the embedded device route. They double-checked, of course, while he lay asleep.

  “Look at your charts Jamie. Your energy field.”

  They're off the charts,” pipes in Po.

  “You have an ability,” says Ray, “you don't know of.”

  They see Jamie's distrust of praise.

  “Of course, your parents are from the entitled generation and your reality doesn't mesh with theirs.” Jamie wants to defend them. They may have heralded from that society but they hated the generalization, the convenient tag foisted upon them because of the few. But he doesn't defend them because the one thing he'd known over the past fifteen years was to keep silent, dead silent, about them and where he grew up; the farm, his guilt. Jamie was zoning out but Ray continued to blather, how the average human heart was sixty percent made up of neurons—the cells in our brain—and that Jamie has an anomaly. His heart showed it was at ninety percent, not scientifically possible. Great, Jamie thinks, now he's a mutant.

  Ray doesn't let up as he moves on to a slideshow. Certain phrases and images linger for Jamie, one's supporting his world view. Human beings acting in their own interest don't seem to be doing any harm, but viewed from another angle, the random actions collectively look like microbes attacking cells.

  “Our actions are destructive,” says Ray. “Our search for happiness has brought unintended consequences.” Rainforests burn in front of Jamie's eyes and mega cities sprout in their place like warts, the bottom line; the earth is dying. It's a trope he's heard since he was in the womb but at least the visual of human beings likened to microbes was somewhat fresh.

  “It's time for some intention,” declares Ray.

  “Don't tell me, saving the planet.” Jamie's jaded tone washes over Ray and Po.

  “Nice idea,” says Ray, “but that won't happen unless...”

  “And that's where you come in,” states Po.

  Jamie tries to be polite. Somehow they missed his point. He's not interested and doesn't realize he's being facetious. “I may have all these extra neurons in my heart as you say, and yes the planet's a mess, but I'm not an activist just because I don't embed all kinds of crap under my skin. Don't you know anything about me? I assume you've done your research?”

  “You wanted a job,” says Po.

  “Yes, we know about you Jamie,” with Ray’s tone implying 'almost everything'. “We don't want you to be part of a group, or preach to the converted.”

  Jamie's distracted by Ray's eyes. They seem to be kaleidoscopic, changing color, hypnotic. He wants to know the extent he's being played, the degree of information they have on him. He's prepared to continue the charade but is unaware of the strength Ray's seduction has in his decision.

  “John Charles Cavour discovered those with an abnormally high percentage of neurons were able to generate a different torus from the majority of us. They could transform the state of another human being intentionally.” Ray cleverly resorts to everyday examples; how Jamie reacted to Po, how all these interactions happen continually—after all, Jamie didn't like Po and look how that affected him. What if he could change Po's state so she'd be less hostile to him? Wouldn't that be worth exploring? What John Charles Cavour had really discovered was the mechanism by which this occurred and how human beings—the right kind—could be trained to deliver in the simplest terms what we recognize as happiness to others. It was the affectus transfigurantes.

  “That little heart of yours, the one you ignore? Holds the key to happiness.” Ray follows this with one last animation, this time reversing the visuals. The torus emanating from the human heart, healing and ultimately restoring the Earth's own torus. It would carry more power but for Ray's voice. It's become a blunt instrument. Acutely aware, Ray tries to inject humour and self-mockery about the kookiness and misses the mark.

  “We need to change Jamie, but need help, a gentle push in the right direction.”

  “And in this scenario, I'm Jesus Christ fucking superstar?”

  Po wants to smack him.

  “If you like,” says Ray.

  Jamie's long forgotten his commitment to keep silent, to listen, to get out of there. He's pushing buttons but equally it is he who is being pushed and riled.

  “Nine billion people?”

  “Set them free.”

  “And if I leave now, you're not going to stop me?”

  “You can run, Jamie. But the question is not who you are running from, but who you are running to.”

  “And If I tell people about this?”

  “Who will believe you? A dentist's chair that goes through the floor? Some quack with all these charts? That, how did you put it? You're a Jesus Christ fucking superstar? I'm assuming you don't want to return to the straps?”

  “Fair point there Ray,” says Po. She just can't resist.

  “I'll take my chances.”

  “Good luck at rising above the noise,” says Ray. “Po will show you out.”

  *****

  Jamie pounds the concrete. The outdoors has replaced the gym for exercise. It's a risk few take, vulnerable to pollutants and the more recent spate of kidnappings. His run takes him past giant receptacles of computer parts, tires, and repossessed sailboats that became defunct and unsellable after the last recession. His thoughts take on a circuitous route. As the days have passed the abduction has taken on a malleable quali
ty. He's wondered if it actually happened. The night before he dreamt he went back, but the black door remained large and shut. He was so determined to break in, he accessed the sewers only to get lost in tunnels of filth before waking up in a sweat. Running was good for thoughts. They jump back and forth to the rhythm of movement, the cracking in his ankles and feet. He's resolute. He won't be part of any group, not just The Source Foundation. It's who he is, he doesn't identify. It’s those people. Their thing. Jamie notices how repelled he feels at the thought of being an activist; it's almost equal to working for XXLI. He runs faster, running to be out of an invisible trap. Sirens and booms echo around him and people put on masks. Most are disgusted by this man racing against no one without protection, it's flagrant abuse. Jamie continues oblivious and sprints beneath an electronic billboard of a man in silhouette advertising a weekly exclusive: Why Blaze would never run for President. Jamie wheezes, he has to slow to a walk. The billboard changes: EVER WANTED MORE xxli.

  *****

  A lone dusty can of baked beans is on offer in the pantry, the respite from a day inside role-playing on the holograph. Jamie's taken a sick day from nothingness to let his lungs recover. His ineptitude at looking after himself now stares back at him. He can't remember the last time he cooked a fresh meal. At the local indie mart he wanders aimlessly beneath the under-lit LED's. The apples seem out of place, all waxy and processed. He wouldn't know what to do with parsnips and rutabaga. Famine food he thinks. The only problem with potato chips was the choice, rival products from the same factories, a decision complicated by numb taste buds and an un-hungry stomach. He knows he needs to eat something and that's about it. He grabs a couple of bags of super size lime chilli chips and follows with a six-pack of local lager. Mexico, he thinks. He's never been there but he can taste it. Ahead of him at the cashier is an old guy with an arm in a sling. Jamie doesn't pay attention as to whether it's the left or right. The guy's taking forever checking out his cart of lunch meat and unripe tomatoes, so Jamie's eyes coast and settle on a pile of oxygen masks opposite him. He picks up one to play with and puts it down when he sees the XXLI sign, unpronounceable but helping you breathe.