by Dwight Okita
As I stroll through the corridor, I look into the large glass windows of activity rooms. In one room, a South Asian woman stands in front of a screen revealing hand-held footage from an earthquake. Buildings collapse in slow motion, citizens run for their lives. The woman holds a silver locket in her hand and weeps. In another room, there is a somber Caucasian family. On-screen I see the blueprint of a house, with pictures of the mother, father, and child each confined to separate rooms, each one is typing on a computer. In another room, I see a teenage boy doing some kind of interpretive dance in front of images of Keith Haring cartoon images, though the dance's meaning is lost on me.
"These are images of hope and hopelessness," says a young woman's voice behind me. "They come from the minds of our customers." It is April, the woman from the front desk. Her voice is calm and soothing, not giddy as I remember from the soft opening. "Customers are encouraged to express their lives through movement and memory, or to channel their inner demons onto a small movie screen."
Jada smiles. "Luke and I haven't gotten to the activity rooms yet."
"The activity rooms are extra," April explains. "They're supplemental to the treatment." It strikes me that though there is a reverential tone at the store, though religion has never been brought into the mix. That suits me. Personally, I like a clean separation between church and psyche.
A tall man with searching eyes stands at a kiosk and nods at me. He wears a simple black dress shirt. But when he turns around, I see written on his back in shiny silver letters are the words: "Begin to hope." I notice these shirts are also for sale on a clothes rack. There are hope accessories everywhere I turn. And why shouldn't there be? Another shirt says: "Hope is the engine that moves you forward." I decide to buy one of each: for Otis and me.
Finally, it's time. I walk into Luke's office. "Greetings, stranger," says Luke. "You look radiant."
"Hey, Luke."
"So please tell me how have things been going? Did you notice anything new?"
"I don't know where to start."
"Then just start anywhere," he says.
And I begin to tell him about my weeks of wonder. "My sister Sheila and I go shopping together at Target. Have you ever been in a Target store, Luke? You know how their red circle logo is everywhere and there are bright red walls next to the escalator which takes you down to the underground parking lot?"
"Right."
"When I ride that escalator to the garage, I always feel like I'm descending into purgatory and that the happy giant faces on the wall are mocking me. But when I went to Target last week, I didn't feel that way," I say.
"How did you feel?"
"I felt the logo was just a logo. The bright red walls reminded me of cherry lipstick, not hell. I actually enjoyed shopping at Target. That's never happened before."
"When a person accumulates more dopamine, they naturally feel more positive," Luke explains. "There can be global benefits that go beyond feeling hopeful. You can also feel more open, more awake even. Some people notice their memory improves, or food tastes better. Hope level increases can have both local and global effects."
"Here's another thing," I say. "I always liked doing art projects when I was younger, but after a certain age, I stopped. Last week, I found myself making a diorama. I took an old shoe box and cut out figures to create a scene, a little slice of life. I made one for you." I reach into my shopping bag and pull out a box and place it on Luke's desk. It is a diorama of The Hope Store. Blue tinfoil creates the neon sign bearing the store's name. Through the window, one can see a tiny waterfall behind the tiny reception desk. And standing out front of the store are little paper cut-outs of Luke and Kazu."[G3]
"It's wonderful, Jada. Very creative," he says.
"Do you really like it?"
"No, I don't really like it. I love it."
I'm thrilled. "Oh, I started to look for work again. Even though the job market is still crummy, I just have a good feeling that there might be a great job waiting for me with my name on it. It's not logical really."
"Hope doesn't have to be logical to help you," Luke says.
I don't tell him about my housekeeping adventures or that I asked Otis if he wanted to start a family. There's too much to tell and a girl has to keep some secrets to herself.
People who’ve survived their suicide attempts tell their loved ones that it wasn't so much that they wanted to die. It was that they wanted to end the pain of being alive. There is a difference. It's a difference lost on most.
-- What the Living Can Learn from the Suicidal
Victoria Chase
JADA
21. COMPLEX
Blair Matters and I are having drinks at Reservoir. It is a chatty Thursday crowd that seems to be chomping at the bit for Friday. We are both drinking today’s special: pear martinis. “Blair, I’m so glad you could meet. Today was a very juicy day at The Hope Store. I hope you can use some of what I share with you for your story.”
“I’m all ears, Jada.” He stirs his martini with his finger. “All fingers too.” He licks a few digits.
“Well,” I begin, “I have to say this story is much more…uh, uh...what do you call it?”
“Give me a hint. Sounds like?”
“Uh, you know, I mean it’s not a simple story…”
“Complex? This story is much more complex than you expected?”
“Exactly! Thank you.”
Several pear martinis later, I have told Blair all about the nasty protesters from the Natural Hopers, recounted how I was subjected to a brain scan and all sorts of new age nonsense, and finally got my hope installation. I give him both the protesters’ pamphlet and The Hope Store’s pamphlet and Blair plans to draft a story tonight.
And then I mention the lotus blossoms. How I don’t know quite what to make of them.
“Hold the phone,” he says. “Are you telling me you think this hope installation somehow magically conjured up these flowers because you hoped for them?
“Of course not,” I say. “That would be crazy, right?”
Blair just shakes his head. “Oh shit. You’ve gone and drunk the Kool-Aid, haven’t you?”
“I’m sure the flowers were just a weird coincidence. I’m going to see how things progress -- or fail to progress -- over the next few weeks,” I say. “
“Hold the phone. Are you telling me you’re actually feeling more hopeful since your trip to The Hope Store?”
“Well, uh, am I feeling more hopeful,” I say.
Blair is thoroughly disgusted. “Then, Houston, we have a problem. Because we no longer have an exposé in progress. We have a puff piece. And Blair Matters may do a lot of bullshit to make a buck, but he doesn't do puff pieces."
“Like I was saying, Blair, the story has turned out to be more complex than I expected.”
He tosses some bills on the table. “Thanks for being such a loyal partner, Jada. Thanks for helping restart my career. Thanks for nothing,” he says. “I hope your hope installation has horrible side effects. And if there’s any way I can make you sorry for this -- I will.”
Blair Matters walks out the door and never looks back.
I have Otis on my cell’s speakerphone, as I check email on my laptop. He’s eager to know how my treatment is going. My cat Shadow jumps up onto my desk and nudges her head against my hand. I pet her for a while, scratching under her neck.
“So what are you feeling exactly? Be specific.”
“There was this glimmer…out of the corner of my eye,” I say. "Do you know what I mean?’
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And there was other stuff too,” I say thinking about the lotus flowers that I seemed to manifest at the store. On my huge flat screen TV, I notice there is a commercial for The Hope Store. It’s alluring and mysterious...confetti falling in slow motion.
“You’re a tease, you know that?” Otis says.
“Otis, sweetie, I wish I could tell you more but I haven’t really,
what do you call it, processed it all. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
JADA
22. AT THE MOVIES
When I return to the store the next day, there are new flowers at the front desk. White tulips this time. I lean over and inhale their delicate scent. Kazu comes out to say hi.
“How is the treatment going? Is Luke behaving himself?” Kazu asks.
“Luke is amazing. I’m so happy you two have found each other.”
“We have to catch up over a meal soon,” Kazu says. “I’m sure a lot has happened for you in the past ten years.”
“Oh, don't be so sure. Really, my life is pretty dull compared to yours."
"I’ll call you to arrange dinner,” he says.
And soon I am in Luke’s office. "Today I'm going to show you a short film that should help fill in some blanks," says Luke. "We were dying to have it ready for the press opening, but the technology gods had other ideas. It's mainly important for a Hope Orientation Session with new clients."
"I love movies.” He guides me to sit down on a small wooden bench. Then he pushes the remote and a movie screen rises up from out of the floor! The screen is curved like a parenthesis to surround me. It’s about ten feet across and five feet high.
“Just relax and enjoy the show.” Luke uses the remote to turn off the lights in his office.
My eyes are riveted to the screen. Emblazoned on the screen are the words: "The Biology of Hope." The movie starts. A full-size image of Luke Nagano walks onscreen. It startles me and I gasp. There Luke is onscreen, big as life.
"Hi, welcome to The Hope Store. I hope I didn't startle you. I know you have many questions and we'll try to answer the main ones with this little movie. My name is Luke Nagano and this is Kazu Mori."
Luke looks off-screen but no one comes.
"Uh, I said...and this is Kazu Mori!"
Kazu now walks in from the opposite side of the curved screen. He waves a bit sheepishly into the camera.
"Hi, everybody. I'm a bit camera-shy so... So let's get started with Question 1, shall we?"
Onscreen, in a very large font, are the words: "Question 1: WHAT IS HOPE?" Animated image of a crowd bustling in a busy downtown. One cartoon man stops at a window display of a car dealership to admire a gleaming new car. Luke's onscreen self speaks.
"So what, you may well ask, is hope really? We turn to psychiatrist Shana Rosenstein, consultant for the project."
Ms. Rosenstein is seated apparently in her psychiatrist's office, a long paisley couch is in the background.
"Of course many people define hope as getting everything they've ever dreamt of! That's more wishful thinking than anything else. Or some say hope is something that a religion or philosophy gives you to make a person strong. And certainly hope can come from many different sources. But the dictionary definition is actually much more simple and pure. And we scientists like simple."
The dictionary definition of "hope" flashes onto the screen:
1. the feeling that the thing you most want, you can have.
2. the confidence that a desired goal can be achieved.
3. optimism, confidence in a future outcome.
There is a sunny shot of Luke standing in front of The Hope Store. He speaks. "In fact, it has been said that hope is the engine of everything we do. Have you ever tried to drive a car without an engine? It's hard."
Cut to the cartoon man in his cartoon car. He is pumping the gas pedal but nothing is happening. The man frowns. Then a thought bubble above his head reveals a picture of him in that gleaming new car and he smiles. The man walks on his merry way.
Onscreen are the words: "Question 2: WHAT IS THE BIOLOGY OF HOPE?" This footage is very modern and high tech. There are rows and rows of test tubes in racks filled with colorful solutions. Spinning centrifuges.
Now there is a shot of Luke in The Hope Store waiting area, reading a magazine. He puts down the magazine and speaks to us.
"What role does our body play in creating hope? For that, we turn to bio-tech scientist Kazu Mori, co-creator with me of The Hope Store."
Screen goes to black. The first image we make out looks like an asteroid spinning through space. But it is actually a human brain. It slowly spins to a stop.
"So let's start at the beginning, with the human brain. Simply put, within the brain there are neurotransmitters whose job is to help parts of the brain talk to each other."
There is a cartoon image of a little stick figure man talking on the phone to a stick figure woman. They are depicted as residing within the brain.
"Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that, when released, inspires hope in us. We've known this since the 1970s. But what we've been trying to figure out is how to create more of it. Interesting footnote: because dopamine involves the way we view the future, it has been dubbed by some as 'the chemical of anticipation.' If that ain't poetry, I don't know what is."
Close-up on stick lady laughing on phone.
"So we've got the neurotransmitters chatting away and all is groovy. But for some reason or another, the connection breaks up. The reception's bad. Who knows? And in hopeless people, those neurotransmitters are just plain broken. Messages never reach their destinations."
The telephone line snaps in two. Question marks float over both stick figure heads.
"So when the need for hope arises -- the request for dopamine never reaches its destination. And so the hope order goes unfilled. The Hope Store has found a way to magnetically stimulate the part of the brain which releases dopamine, tricking the brain into creating surplus amounts of the stuff. This was a major breakthrough, essentially learning how to trick the brain to heal itself. Powerful magnetic waves surround the client in the Installation Suite. And [G4]a metallic slow-falling confetti acts as a catalyst when released over the subject's head."
In a cartoon image, magnetic fields are represented by lightning bolts hovering over the brain. And then...the slow descent of silver confetti around the client.
Onscreen are the words: "Question 3: WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT TO EXPERIENCE AFTER YOUR HOPE INSTALLATION?" Music segues underneath, mystical without being maudlin.
Shana Rosenstein peers into a microscope. She looks up. "You can expect that you'll start a whole new chapter in your life."
The cartoon man who dreams of buying a new car is now in the driver's seat. "You can expect that you'll never again drive an engineless car," he says. The man puts on some sunglasses and drives out of the frame.
Kazu stands in front of a chalkboard filled with chemical symbols and formulas. "Hope is the force underlying much of human endeavor. It is inextricably bound up with the future. And it will be inextricably bound up with your future too.” I find myself getting emotional.
The onscreen Luke stands in front of the dramatic waterfall at the center of the store. “At The Hope Store, we don’t just instill hope. We install it."
He snaps his fingers and looks up expectantly. Beautiful confetti of all colors falls in super slow-motion from above. He and Kazu pick up glasses of champagne and make a toasting gesture toward the camera. "Cheers!" As the image of the two men slows to a freeze frame, the logo of The Hope Store and slogan appear at the bottom of the screen which fades to a blind white.
I stand up and clap, even though it’s just a movie. "I want some more hope! You made me cry, darn you." But when I step outside the parenthesis, I don’t see Luke anywhere. "Luke?"
I wander out into the hallway and see the stairwell door open. So I start climbing the stairs because I see a light above and feel the cold outside air. When I get to the third floor, I see the roof door is open. I step out. Luke is there taking in the skyline.
“I didn’t know where you’d gone,” I say.
“The air is different up here. It’s cleaner. I was watching the movie and suddenly I felt…I don't know, anxious. It was hard to catch my breath. So I came up here where it's peaceful. Maybe it was a panic attack. I’m sorry I left you –”
“Not a problem,” I say.
“The movie was terrific. Are you feeling better now?”
“We should get back. Before they send a search party.” He smiles.
“But you’re feeling better, right, with the fresh air?” I say.
“You really should see the view from this roof at night. It’ll change your life, Jada.” I sense he really loves it up here. We slowly make our way down the three flights of stairs in silence. I don’t ask him again if he’s okay. And he doesn’t tell me.
LUKE
23. A DIMMING
There was a moment.
In my office.
With Jada.
When I felt a shadow fall across me.
In that moment I was terrified that I was having a relapse. That my hopefulness had been stolen away. In that irrational moment, The Hope Store had never been invented. Other subjects in the clinical trials sometimes reported similar feelings. If the first sign of new hope entering the subject is the glimmer out of the corner of one’s eye, then the opposite of a glimmer surely is a kind of dimming. Both sensations are premonitions of a change in brain chemistry. One subject reported he had “a dimming” in the middle of a birthday party. Another had a dimming during sexual intercourse. Yet another had a dimming while giving a speech. Sometimes the dimming is a sign that the individual needs another installation. But sometimes this is a symptom of a bigger problem.
When I get back to my office, I see a printout of the Tribune follow-up story on my desk along with a scribbled post-it from April saying, "Hell's bells! Do you know anything about this Psychology Tomorrow article?" I read on with great interest.