The Happiness Project - short story contest entry - Man vs. Society

The Happiness Project

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The children played in the afternoon sun. Sylvia looked on. They carried bright ribbons, and they danced and ran, streaking color against the monochrome backdrop of November-brown hills.

“They are so happy,” Vern said.

Sylvia nodded at him and smiled. As an Indispensable, she was wary about saying anything to compromise her position.

Vern crossed his arms. “I will take over here. You’ve been called to Matchmaking.”

“Good news. I will go, then.”

She turned and walked along the balcony. Looking west, she imagined way off somewhere, in Overland, her parents and sister Patrice were thriving. Perhaps they were homesteading, raising livestock, a vegetable garden.

The sun had risen hundreds of times since President Uberall launched The Happiness Project. So much had changed. She missed the clocks and calendars she once took for granted, when days of the year meant something. And she could track time.

“Time does not make us happy,” she remembered Uberall announcing on the Morning News screen. “I hereby abolish its effects.”

She entered the building where Vivaldi was playing, as always. “Terminally happy,” her father once said. As a cellist, he preferred the richly somber notes of Bach. But cellists were not deemed to have Societal Gifts. So he was gone, along with Shakespeare tragedies, Bach and Yo Yo Ma.

On her way to Matchmaking, Sylvia passed through bright hallways, decorated with sunny, bucolic paintings. She detoured through Incentives to visit Richard and found him alone, hunched over his console.

“Where’s David?”

Richard looked up, eyes speaking words he could not say. “Our work is nearly done. David was… taken to the Exit Station today.”

Sylvia bit her lip. She had not imagined Richard to be at risk. He and David designed incentives--privileges for those who swore in and accepted the microchip. But now that most were indoctrinated or gone, perhaps their usefulness was over.

She made her mouth smile. “How wonderful for David. But you will miss him. I will send a songbot to cheer you.”

She turned to go, blinking away hot tears.

“I will miss you,” he said. She shook her head once, quickly, and was out the door. On her way, she sent Richard a songbot about happy birds, flying high over land and sea.

In Matchmaking, the attendant was waiting, hands on his hips, grinning. “Ah, here you are.” He introduced her to her mate.

Bryan had gray-blue eyes and a smile as practiced as her own. They held hands and smiled for their engagement picture.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.”

The attendant posted their picture on the screen with the others. “How beautiful. You will be summoned for your ceremony soon.”

Sylvia kissed Bryan’s cheek. “I must go to my work.” After Child Watch, her next chore was Grounds Watch, as she was one of the multi-tasking Indispensables.

The attendant touched his temple. “Miss Bellingham? You’ve been called to Technology.”

“How wonderful.”

She stepped into the hallway and the quixotic splendor of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and briefly imagined ripping the strings from violins. But then in Technology she was greeted by a silver-haired Matron with a stern smile. She cleared her thoughts.

“Good day, Miss Bellingham.”

“Good day.”

The Matron motioned for Sylvia to join her on the settee. “You are performing very well, Miss Bellingham. You are nearly ready for your next upgrade and new benefits.”

“Thank you. I’m so happy.”

“But of course, to be eligible, you know the requirement.”

“Of course.”

“Let’s look at what you’ll be doing. Perhaps that will be incentive enough.” The Matron displayed a screen showing Sylvia working in a library, pushing buttons to download titles for her patrons. So much literature at her fingertips. But all the books had titles like “Happy Times,” and “Making Joyful Moments,” the products of a Societal Skill.

“May I think about it? For a day?”

She walked out, glancing back. The Matron watched with a twitching smile. She turned a corner, then walked faster. Think.

Quickly, she sent a new songbot to Richard. “We are birds in flight,” she said into her device. “We fly over land, to the setting sun. Now.”

She came into view of the grounds vehicles. No one.

She got into the vehicle, and waited, breathing. He needed time.

Then she saw him. He was running. She started the vehicle and lurched forward as he jumped in, and at last they drove west toward Overland.

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Thank you for reading! I would like to express special thanks to the wonderful editors at The Writers' Block!