The Heart of Happiness

This week's Friday Challenge is here. It was supposed to be

"Hence this week's assignment. I want you to think about, plot out, and make at least a promising start towards writing a modern, updated, 21st century (or later) good clanking hard sci-fi remake of Heart of Darkness."

I'm not sure I do "good clanking hard sci-fi," but this is my story --

The Heart of Happiness

The world has been changed, no doubt about that. The doctor appeared out of nowhere, set up shop, and proceeded to create a thriving business. By the time the media started checking out his background, there were actually lines of people waiting to get in to his clinic. When they could find no record of any medical school or license to practice, nobody cared. He was working miracles.

I was his first patient. Really! I’m not making it up. He was fastening his name plate next to the door of the clinic when I collapsed on the steps. I was exhausted and just needed to rest. When you weigh 355 pounds, walking takes a lot out of you. And if you’re carrying a bag of groceries, it totally wipes you out, especially if the bag is full of foods that are good for you. Apples and grapefruit are a lot heavier than marshmallow bread and bags of chips. And cantaloupe! That’s really good for you, but impossible to carry two and a half blocks.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” He was a tall, fit man with warm brown eyes and blonde hair. He was quite handsome, almost as though he was an actor playing the part of a doctor, not actually the doctor himself. He looked at me with concern, and then he came down the steps and put his hand on my shoulder. "Please come in and let me see if I can help you feel better."

He helped me up, then took my bag of groceries and carried them through the door. I felt I had no choice but to follow my groceries, but if I had it to do over, I don't know if I could have entered that clinic.

The inside was very spacious, with a large waiting room full of empty chairs, and a long desk-counter-top with computers and phones for eight assistants to make appointments and process payments. It looked huge for a new clinic. I thought the doctor must have a large following from his previous location.

“We don’t open until tomorrow, so let’s consider this an introductory session for a neighbor, free of charge.” He smiled. “I am Doctor Conrad, and I’m pleased to meet you. Do you live very close?”

“Yes, just around the corner. I’m Maryann Blaise. It will be nice to have a clinic in this neighborhood. Is it a general clinic, or do you have a specialty?” I asked.

“We do have a specialty, Maryann, but it encompasses so many areas that there are very few things we don’t treat,” replied the doctor. “We strive to enable our patients to enjoy perfect health and happiness.”

He was interrupted when a beautiful young woman in jeans walked in to the waiting room, holding an armful of disposable gowns.

“Ah, there you are, Jean. We have our first patient, Maryann, a neighbor from around the corner. Would you please take her into one of the examining rooms while I wash my hands? I will be in shortly.”

Jean dumped the gowns onto the desk and turned her attention to me. She was very friendly, and soon had me sitting in a nearby room, where she took my blood pressure and temperature and all those basic measurements of health. She started a patient record for me and was just finished writing down the last thing when Dr. Conrad walked in, this time wearing a white coat. He read what she had written, and then asked me a million more questions. It ended up with him telling me my worst problem was my weight (as if I didn’t know!) and that would be what he would treat first. I tried to tell him about all the other doctors and how their treatments hadn’t worked, and the multitude of diets and self-help groups and books I had tried, all to no avail, but he assured me he would not fail to help me.

Then he launched into an explanation of the treatment and how it worked. I don’t think I understood very much. What he described seemed like x-rays or some kind of magnetic waves, but different. He promised me it wouldn’t be painful or harmful in any way, and that it would gradually make me more healthy, week after week, until I would reach a normal weight. And the first treatment was free, if I would do it today. He had a lot more to say, but it was even harder for me to understand, because it seemed so magical. He could make me happy and beautiful and young. It sounded so too-good-to-be-true that I almost turned down his free first treatment. But it was free. I couldn’t pass it up.

He took me into a treatment room, where I sat in a lounge-chair thing. He pushed a button, and the chair stretched out and became a soft table. Then he pushed another button, and the big machine next to the chair hummed for a few minutes until he turned it off. He made the table fold up into a chair again, and then we went back to the examining room where I stepped on the scale again. I had lost ten pounds!

It was hard for me to concentrate on his summary of what the machine had done, because I was arguing with myself over the ten pounds. I couldn’t help but feel it was fake, that Jean had recalibrated the scale while I was in the treatment room. After all, I didn’t feel any different. But I forced myself to listen to him. He said the machine had agreed with his diagnosis that I needed to weigh less (duh!), and it had found several of my organs were not working as well as they should, so it had taken away ten pounds and boosted my thyroid production and refreshed my adrenals and removed scar tissue from my liver, all with the idea that it was improving my metabolism. Those were the things I recognized. I’m not exactly a medical professional or anything, so I didn’t know what the rest of it meant--stuff about the chemical balance in my brain.

He ended by saying I should give it a week and see how I was feeling. If I wanted to continue the treatments, I could come back in and schedule appointments and arrange a payment plan. I asked him how much it cost, and he was a little vague, but he did say that the cost of a single treatment was $200, and that the cost per treatment went down the more treatments were needed, down to only $50 each or less, depending.

So, I went home with my groceries. The first thing I did, of course, was weigh myself, and yes, I had really lost 10 pounds. At the end of that week, I had lost another pound. That was the first time in many years I had actually lost weight just from dieting. It sure looked like Dr. Conrad’s machine had gotten my metabolism going better.

It wasn't until a few days later that I noticed the tiny mole on the side of my nose was gone. I don't know a whole lot about moles, so I concluded it had disappeared the same way it had suddenly appeared several months ago.

So here I was at the end of the week, arguing with myself constantly about whether or not I wanted to go back. In the end, I won the argument, and I went back to the clinic. I knew it was my only hope for losing weight. However, this time there were eight assistants sitting at their computers and maybe ten patients sitting in the waiting room. I went right up to the desk and started asking questions about the cost. I found out that every time I told someone about Dr. Conrad, and that person came and got an introductory free treatment, then I would get a free treatment, too. That sounded terrific to me. I signed up for a year of weekly treatments, which reduced my cost to $40 per week.

The weeks went by very quickly, and I lost ten pounds every week until I was actually at a normal weight. It was a miracle! I also got 38 people to try the introductory treatment, so I ended up not paying for very many weeks. But that wasn't the only thing that was happening. My gray hair disappeared, and one time Dr. Conrad asked me if I would like to change my hair color, so I did. I chose auburn. It was permanently changed. No roots to touch up.

There were so many things that changed. My body became very healthy and fit, and my face gradually became beautiful. I almost didn't recognise myself when I looked in the mirror. I felt confident, I had new skills, I could speak four other languages, I could play the piano beautifully, and most of all, I was happy. Ecstatically happy!

Meanwhile, Dr. Conrad opened up more clinics all over the world. I don't know how he found so many people to run them or how he made so many of those machines, but he didn't seem to have any trouble with that. He was curing incureable diseases and handicaps of all kinds. He actually made starving people gain weight! Half the world had been in his clinics, and he was given awards and so much news coverage that it was hard to find any other topic on TV. The world began to treat him as if he was a god or something. He could do no wrong.

When the spaceship appeared, nobody was worried. They were too happy to worry. But when the occupants of the spaceship took over all of the media we no longer talked incessantly about Dr. Conrad. Instead, they told us who he was and what he had really been doing. I had a hard time listening to it, because I just didn't believe it.

Turns out the machines were swapping and transforming things. They pulled out things from people that had too much and put it in people that didn't have enough. There were a lot of fat people in the world, and the machines were turning the excess fat into other things -- more machines, more staff, supplies, and buildings for the new clinics that were springing up everywhere. They took tumors and scar tissue out and put in feelings of happiness and self-esteem.

Then we learned what the media hadn't told us. People not only didn't worry any more, they didn't care any more, either. Nobody helped any one else. They were too busy being healthy, beautiful, and happy. Hospitals closed, leaving no emergency care for injuries. Staff in old folks' homes walked out and went to the beach, leaving helpless patients to die. Churches were deserted. Priests and nuns took off their robes and went on vacation.
CEO's retired and walked out on their jobs. People didn't need to work any more. They could get whatever they needed from Dr. Conrad's machines.

At the end of the alien's speech on TV, he told us Dr. Conrad was "The Evil One" who had come to steal our souls. His goal was to get us to go to him instead of God for everything we wanted or needed. He had done this to other planets, and these aliens were following him to fix the damage he had done, because he had stolen their technology to do it.

I'll never forget his final words. "We will use our science to repair your planet. You will go to sleep, and when you wake up, everything will be the way it was before Dr. Conrad came here." And I'll never forget what I felt when I heard that. I knew I would no longer be thin, beautiful, healthy, and happy, but I wasn't worried or afraid. I was ecstatically happy.

The earth slept. And woke.

"Oh, God..."

The Nihilist Ranger

The Friday Challenge for 2/27/09 was Nihilists in Space.


Jack486 emerged abruptly from his dream and rolled out of his sleeping net. The ship’s alarm was screeching stridently and unceasingly. He strode forcefully into the control center and looked for indicators to tell him what the problem was this time. It wasn’t going to take too many more of these early morning episodes for him to get to the point of dismantling the alarm, no matter what headquarters said.

There it was on the proximity warning screen. A system with planets was about two days away. He punched the buttons that told the alarm he had seen the warning and was complying with the directive. It shut off immediately. He rubbed his eyes and waited for the com unit to connect.

A scene from his interrupted dream floated into his thoughts. What was that thing, anyway? It was a vine with thorns, and it had a very thick, strong stalk. He always dreamed about plants, either plants fighting each other, or else himself fighting off a gang of plants. And always the dream ended with the Cleaner destroying all the other plants.

The Cleaner was the ultimate weapon that he carried from planet to planet. It was a superplant, stronger and more virulent than any other plant that had ever existed. Its job was to clean up planets whose sentient inhabitants had socially imploded. He would seed it over the planet, and in a few days, it would cover the surface. After a decade or so, there would be no sign of civilization, no evidence that any other entities had ever been there, whether animal or vegetable.

But the best thing about the Cleaner was that after about a hundred years of being the only thing alive on the planet, it would get sick of itself and mutate. No one could predict what creatures would spring up on any planet. It was different every time. There would be a wide variety of plants and animals and eventually, sentient beings. And then the process would start all over again. Each new planet would begin with eager virility, but after thousands of years they all ended the same way. They would give up on their goals and dreams and turn on each other, becoming more and more self-destructive until they finally reached the implosion point, and society died.

“Jack?” The com unit had connected with headquarters.

“Yes, I’m here. I’ve received a proximity warning of a system with planets.”

“Have you attached your monitoring device, yet?” The voice was female, and he could swear he caught some motherly overtones. That was probably on purpose, to get him to obey orders. A slight smirk touched his lips. She hadn’t read his file yet, if she thought he would respond favorably to a reminder of his mother.

“No, I haven’t done anything but wait for your voice, HQ.”

“That’s good, Jack. You may get out the device and attach it now. Let me know when you are ready to test it.”

He pushed another button, this time on the door of the monitor dispenser. The door opened, and one monitor popped out. He scooped it up and pulled the strap over his head, positioning the little gadget so a sensor plate was over his temple, and a tiny tube was next to his ear. He didn’t really want to know how it worked, but he knew it measured him in hundreds of ways, from temperature and heart rate to what he was thinking and feeling.

“Ready for testing,” he said.

“Beginning calibration,” the HQ voice replied. There was a short pause. “Your temperature is a bit low, your pulse rate is a little high, your bladder is full, and you are feeling irritated. Did the alarm wake you?”

“Yup. Again,” he said emphatically.

“Is there anything unusual? Are you feeling well?”

“Nothing unusual, and I’m feeling fine.”

“What are you thinking about the planets up ahead?”

“I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking I want some coffee.”

“Your attitude is not very cooperative this morning. You know this is to help you as much as it will help us. We are trying to find out why planet checkers are disappearing.”

“Yes, ma’am, sorry.” He tried to say it as cooperatively as possible. No use getting HQ on his case.

“So, what are you thinking about the planets up ahead?”

“Nothing unusual. I feel ready to check them and carry out all functions necessary to the situation I find. I’m not having any strong emotions about them, and I hope I don’t have any. I’d really rather this was another routine case where nothing goes wrong.”

There was a slight pause, then HQ asked, “Are you feeling any fear or reluctance to approach the planets? This is the first time you have expressed a preference not to experience whatever may be happening to others in your group.”

Jack thought about it for a few seconds. “It’s possible that the lack of any concrete information about these disappearances over such a long period of time is making me a bit apprehensive. We’ve been monitoring for almost two years now, haven’t we? And there are no answers yet.”

“That’s true, but we do have a great deal of data, and statistical analysis of that data is beginning to provide some common threads. I have no doubt we will eventually find answers.”

“Okay, well, I just hope I won’t be one of the contributors of that data. I want things to go on the same as always.”

“Test complete,” was HQ’s response. “Your monitor is calibrated and recording. I have turned on your ship’s hourly reminders. You are ready. Any questions or comments before I go?”

“No, ma’am. I’m good.” Really ready for coffee, too, he thought to himself.

“Then good luck, and enjoy your coffee.” The com unit clicked off.

Guess the mind reading part is working, thought Jack.

An hour later, when the first reminder started, he was on his third cup and reading the report he had retrieved about the nearby planets. So far he had discovered only one of the planets had any life on it, and that planet had been Cleaned about two hundred years ago. He would get to see the beginnings of a new world. Or rather, a renewed world.

“This is your hourly reminder.” The ship’s voice was smooth, calm, and confident. And male. Nothing disturbing. “Have you noticed anything unusual? Are you feeling different in any way? Please report to the monitor.”

Jack automatically spoke aloud to give the monitor something to record. “I feel normal. I have not noticed anything unusual,” then returned to his reading. The monitor perched above his ear buzzed for a second, then the com unit clicked on and off again. Report sent.

A few minutes later, the com unit clicked on. “Jack486?” This voice was male, but not smooth, calm, or confident. It was more interested, maybe a trifle irritated.

Jack was startled. Now this was something unusual. “Yes? Who is this?”

“This is HQ. I was reviewing your report, and I see you were noticing something unusual, but you didn’t report it, something about two hundred years and a new world. Please explain.”

Getting over his momentary surprise, Jack explained that he had been reading information about the planetary system he was approaching. He read that part of the report to HQ. “Is that unusual? I know I’ve never been near a planet that soon after Cleaning, but I assumed other people had.”

“You are right, other people have observed planets after Cleaning, but what is unusual is that your ship has plotted a course to this system much earlier than necessary. It takes at least a couple thousand years to get to the implosion point.”

“Oh, oh yeah.” Jack was thoroughly embarrassed. “Sorry, that didn’t even occur to me.”

HQ didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. “I want you to run a diagnostic on the ship’s directional program. In fact, run diagnostics on all programs. When you get the results, send them through.”

“Sure, right away.”

The com unit clicked off.

“Hey, wait! I noticed something unusual. HQ called me. That’s unusual. And I felt embarrassed. That’s very unusual.”

HQ was already gone, but his monitor buzzed for several seconds, and the com unit clicked on and off. Report sent.

He stood there nonplussed for a moment, and then he grinned from ear to ear. “I noticed something unusual. And that is that I noticed something unusual. And the monitor reported it.” The monitor buzzed and the com unit clicked on and off. Satisfied, Jack486 prepared to run diagnostics.

* * * * * * * *

Two days later, Jack stared at the screen showing the planet’s surface as the ship passed over it. This was supposed to be the planet that had been Cleaned two hundred years ago, but it was not what he had expected to see. It was uniformly covered with the Cleaner, but instead of strong, healthy plants, they were wilted and had brown tips. Here and there, he saw open patches, where nothing grew.

“Uh … I am seeing something un…,” he began. Just then the hourly reminder broke in, asking for the umpteenth time if he had noticed or felt anything unusual. “Yeah, yeah, yeah…..give me a chance, will ya?”

Then he gasped. A crashed ship had flashed by on the screen, in the middle of one of the bare patches. It was a ship just like his, manned by a planet checker. He rapidly pushed buttons and started programs to look for life forms and remnants of civilization. He didn’t have any programs specifically designed to look for crashed ships, but they would be included in remnants of civilization.

The readout streamed data so fast he could barely keep up with it. It reported ship after ship, all crashed in the bare patches. The Cleaner plants were reported as life forms, but that was it. Nothing else was alive on the planet. He kept looking until the report started repeating. Hundreds of ships had crashed here, but not a single planet checker had survived.

He knew it was a lost cause, but he turned on the com unit anyway, to listen for SOS signals. His jaw dropped in amazement. There were hundreds of SOS recordings, so many that he couldn’t make out the individual messages.

“Ship, separate out one signal,” he demanded.

“Which signal?” asked the ship. “The signal from the life forms, or the signal from the remnants of civilization?”

“Wha…? The signal from the life forms.” It was wishful thinking. There were no living inhabitants of those ships.

Nevertheless, the ship was broadcasting the signal. “There is nothing. All life ends in nothing.” The message repeated over and over, while Jack sat horrified, eyes on the screen showing the planet’s surface. The plants streamed by, endlessly wilting, lamenting the death of all life, refusing to begin again one more time.

The ship shuddered. Jack looked around wildly. There were red lights flashing and alarms buzzing all around the control center. It was about to crash!

His last thought was that the monitor was overdue to report to HQ. It had failed to report that he had noticed and felt unusual things. It had reported nothing.

The ship crashed into a thick bunch of the Cleaner plants. There was a small flurry of activity, which soon subsided. By the time the next planet checker came along, Jack’s ship was in a bare patch, and it was broadcasting an SOS message. “Task finished, Jack486 logging out. There is nothing to be done here. There is nothing here. There is nothing.”