Fictionarium Chapter 10. The Hijacking of an Imagination

 

"A whole town full of people, tricked into creating things they don't really want. How does that even happen?"

Mel raised both of her hands and looked at them with some suspicion-- then let them back down easily. With a nod instead towards the sunny world shining through the open window of the Lakeland library, and with aim in her eye, she rephrased her question. 

"That ridiculous town, Hill Valley… all of us there, how did we agree to live in such scarcity and greed? I mean, Why did we all build such a draining, thankless piece of crap like that? It's like everybody in Hill Valley just decided that humans actually using their brains was a bad idea… or, that the smartest way to use our time and energy is to give it to… what? This is what I don't understand-- how did all of our thoughts, and desires, and our imaginations get so hijacked?"  

 Mel's question was a good one. Daniel looked at Arlo, then they both answered nearly at the same time.

"It's a Fictionarium."  

Arlo might well  have known the dull technical answer to her question, but having spent a few days in Daniel's company, he wanted to hear a fresh version of the ancient formula-- he wanted to hear the Lakeland version. Given the rough beginnings of Lakeland's own mass-awakening, and Daniel already being a trained Observer, he knew the SB's tricks, and he'd actually had some field experience in helping people make the great leaps from asking the rhetorical question of "Why is the world so messed up?", and then working their way up to more precise questions like Mel's "How did our imaginations get hijacked?" It was the right question, and it contained a key word: Imagination.  

"You nailed it Mel-- when you said 'imagination'. Imagination is a thing that many people have given away, before they're even old enough to know any better. Imagination's limits, though, are taught-- taught by the parents. In a Fictionarium town, like Hill Valley, the parents are programmed-- or taught-- those false limitations by the Board's constant deluge of fear-- mostly through the TV. In this way, the people become the frightened children, and the Science Board becomes their parents."

This really was a dark science that he was exposing, and Daniel sat forward as if to stress the next ingredient in the cruel potion.

"The people in a Fictionarium have the constant feeling they have been abandoned. The feeling of neglect is handed down through generations-- it's inherited by the kids. The children who miss their mothers the most will seek out any nurturing qualities of the Science Board, while those who needed a good father will look for a strong, protective authority figure as their 'leader'-- to serve as that proxy parent. The mother's true care, and other such nurturing qualities, can be simulated with various government social programs. Similarly, the father's protective strength can be manifested and then delegated to a brutal police force and surveillance, or an army-- to protect the resources, or 'economy' of this fabricated family unit. It's parental abandonment issues-- on a grand scale. Hill Valley-- they just don't wanna grow up, but they don't actually know anything different, yet."

 

 Daniel sat back again, and nodded towards the window. "Lakeland's people… they have no limits on their imaginations. They saw, and still see-- what happened when they quit empowering some external authority, and quit delegating their creative, generative spirit to the Science Board. They imagined something better."

Daniel explained summarily how it took persistence, and a deft, shadowy hand to constantly frighten and manipulate people into willfully giving away their own imagination, while then gladly adopting a shittier one. If those sinister duties are neglected, things like 'Lakeland' happen. 

Arlo was impressed that Daniel had just summed up a month's worth of training from the Observer's classes in less than five minutes.  

This was the first time that Arlo had actually felt like a victim of the formulas, though-- he had always thought of himself as a student. As he looked out the window of the library, he thought about how every day in Lakeland was shocking compared to ordinary life in Hill Valley, or anywhere else. He had often wondered what would happen if a town were to drop from the clutches of the Science Board, and he was now immersed in that town, and it was preferable to anything that he had come up with. The hardest thing about Lakeland was that it forced you to look at yourself. 

Arlo could see no reason to go back to Hill Valley-- the police had his car, and he was almost certainly fired from his Observer position by now. He wasn't interested in experiencing his boss' response to his absence-- whatever that might be-- and he wasn't interested in seeing his crummy apartment again. The garbage needed to go out the last time he was there-- it was bound to be stinking by now.
Lakeland was serene, and seemed far away from all of that. While he was so trapped in serenity without his car, the twenty-four miles of highway between the two towns conveniently allowed Arlo to invent yet another solid reason to avoid Hill Valley for as long as possible.  

Mel walked past him hurriedly and turned her head slightly to speak. "I'm going back to Hill Valley. You can catch a ride if you want… unless you're staying."

Arlo was going back to Hill Valley. He did want his car back, and suddenly he saw no reason why he shouldn't just march right into the HVPD and demand that they give it to him. He had watched them tow the brightly painted car away from his apartment with a crippling feeling of dread, but now he stood up-- he had charged himself with enough positive Lakeland energy, and it was enough to share with everybody in Hill Valley, and beyond.   

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Thank you for reading this episode of FICTIONARIUM
previous episode (CH. 9) link is HERE 

all images by me 

FICTIONARIUM: Where the surveillance cameras may be fake, but they still do their job.

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