by Guy Hasson
He froze the picture. “At this exact point in time, you told us your story. You said a tornado came and swept up the Roseman Institute, flipped it in the air, and landed it right at the same side, completely upside down.”
Jack Seuter suddenly looked like a child caught doing something naughty. He looked at the camera with a child’s wide eyes, “That’s what my brain came up with.”
“It’s perfectly natural,” Dr. Burrows said.
The image changed at once to Jack Seuter interviewing Doctor Burrows in a corridor, “Let’s be serious for a second, Doctor Burrows. What does this mean for us? What have you learned about mankind? What are the secrets of imagination? What is the meaning of your scientific breakthrough?”
“The breakthrough of what my team has achieved is in what it promises in the future. By being able to observe the process of imagination as a process, we can slowly fine-tune our understanding as time goes by. Even at this early stage, we have discovered many things, the least of which is that the yellow lines are almost always the same in all humans and that it is a process of simple, repetitive action.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure I couldn’t possibly have heard you correctly.”
“I said that it is a process of simple, repetitive action. In each of us, the action is unique to us. In that way, one person’s imagination always tends to imagine the same sort of new things, while another’s imagination imagines a different sort of new things. These actions are automatic for each of us.”
“I’m sorry. Did you say imagination is... automatic?”
“In a very strange way, it is. Basically, what our research seems to point out is that at any given point, your personal imagination takes ‘all that you know’ and performs a certain action on it, giving you a result of something that is outside ‘all that you know’. Thus imagination never comes up with something that you know to be real at the time of imagining. But now ‘all that you know’ includes the imagined item, which means that performing that same action of imagination now would result in imagining something else, something outside ‘all that is known’ now. The same action gives you different results at different times, simply because your base of knowledge is slightly different. In that way, waiting a minute or an hour or even a second, results in imagining something completely different.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“That’s all right. This is just preliminary. And I’m sure it’s just the tip of the iceberg. In the following months, we will continue to analyze the data, gather even more test cases and come up with a tangible and coherent result or results that will hopefully teach us something new about ourselves.”
“You heard the doc,” Jack Seuter was standing alone in front of the Roseman Institute. “Scientists have unlocked the keys to the secrets of imagination. We will keep you updated in the upcoming months, as more and more strange information will no doubt flow out of the Roseman International Institute of Sciences. What will they discover? I’m sure that is something,” he smiled, “we can’t imagine. Over to you, Cliff.”
“Thank you. A fascinating report. Moving on to celebrity news—”
Roger raised the remote and turned off the TV.
Joan made a face and turned around, “Well, that was a waste of time.”
Roger was up on his feet. “What? What do you mean a waste of time?”
Joan was heading back into the kitchen, while Russell and Rose stayed in place, looking at her leave, “I mean it was a waste of time. Do you need me to imagine a better way to say it?”
By this time, Joan had disappeared into the kitchen. Roger ran after her.
“It’s exciting! It’s the forefront of science!” Russell and Rose heard their father shout. “Scientists are figuring out the secrets of our brain!”
“Really?” their mother was saying in the kitchen. “Imagination is automatic, that’s what they’re figuring out? A four year old child knows that can’t be true.”
Rose looked at Russell. Russell pointed at his own head. “I imagine... I’m a cow,” he whispered.
“You don’t know,” Roger was saying in the kitchen, “If a team of doctors says it’s true, then—”
“Then the team of doctors are damned fools, is what they are.”
“I imagine I’m a sheep,” Rose whispered. “Baaaaah.”
“Imagination can’t be automatic,” Joan was saying.
“I’m a dog,” Russell whispered to Rose. “Woof! Woof!”
“Maybe,” Roger was saying in the kitchen, “they meant another kind of automatic. You don’t know.”
“I’m a flying dog,” Rose whispered. She spread her arms and started running around the room, flapping her arms, “Woo-oof! Woo-oof!”
“Imagination will never be automatic,” Joan was saying in the kitchen. “No matter what kind of automatic you’re talking about.”
Russell started to flap his arms as well and to run in circles opposite his sister, “Woo-oof! Woo-oof!”
“Imagination is something... you can’t touch.”
“Woo-oof! Woo-oof!”
“Imagination is something... you can’t imagine.”
“Woo-oof! Woo-oof!”
“Imagination is... It can’t be caught...”
“Woo-oof! Woo-oof!”
“Or explained...”
“Woo-oof! Woo-oof!”
“...Or understood. Like a soul.”
Russell, growing tired, looked his sister in the face, extended his tongue, and gave her a spit-rich raspberry.
“Imagination is like your soul. Science will never find it.”
Rose, laughing, now stood in front of Russell, and raspberried him right back.
“Now let me finish washing the dishes.”
“I was in the middle of reading the newspaper, anyway.”
“Good, then.”
Russell and Rose ran to their room, laughing.
Roger returned to the living room and sat back on the sofa, picking up his newspaper.
~
A month and a half later, the Grant family was sitting at dinner. All four ate at the dinner table, in front of a muted television. Roger looked up.
“Hey, that’s the guy from the thing,” he said.
Joan, Russell, and Rose looked up.
“Who?” Joan said.
“The imagination guy. The guy from the thing. The scientist imagination guy.”
Dr. Burrows was seated next to a fair-haired news anchor, and the two were talking.
“What are you talking about?” Joan said.
“Wait. Hold on.” Roger looked for the remote. “You know, the guy who said he found the cure to imagination. I mean, the science of imagination.” Roger stood up to get a better look for the remote when he realized he was sitting on it the whole time. “You know, how imagination works.”
“Oh, the idiot,” Joan said as Roger pointed the remote at the TV.
Roger turned the sound back on. “The list of discoveries we have made stemming from our research is quite wide,” Dr. Burrows was saying. “Some deal with the minutia of the chemistry of the brain, the electricity of neurons, neural nets, and so on.”
“But we’ll steer clear of those,” the anchor said. “I think our audience fell asleep halfway through your last sentence.”
Rose then Russell looked at their plates and started eating again.
“Exactly,” Doctor Burrows answered. “Although if you’re interested, there are quite a few details at our website.”
“I’ll be sure to check that,” Joan said.
“Shh,” Roger said.
“Let’s get to the bottom line, Dr. Burrows,” the fair-haired anchor said, “to the thing simple people like me and our viewers can understand. You discovered a freedom hormone?”
Roger squinted. So did Joan. Russell looked up.
“No, no, wait,” Doctor Burrows waved a hand as if to wipe away confusion. “Let’s be clear.”
“Be clear, but be clear quickly,” the anch
or rushed him. Joan raised an eyebrow.
“Very well. The discovery most pertinent to your audience is that whenever we use our imagination, a hormone is released into our bodies that—”
“A freedom hormone?”
“No. A hormone that gives us the feeling of freedom.”
Joan leaned back as Doctor Burrows spoke, “Whenever we imagine, we feel a little bit freer.”
Roger frowned. Russell looked at Roger. Rose looked at Russell, then continued to eat.
“What are the implications of this, Dr. Burrows?” asked the anchor.
“We do not know the implications of this yet, but if you think about it, there is something philosophically beautiful about it.”
Joan bit her bottom lip, as the anchor prompted, “What do you mean?”
Doctor Burrows put his hands in front of him, trying to make a ball with his fingers. “Think about it... A person can live in a tiny prison cell. But if he has the actual ability to set his imagination loose whenever he wants, he will feel free.”
“Wow.”
Roger’s eyes widened. “Huh,” he said.
Russell looked at Joan, then at Roger again.
“Indeed,” Doctor Burrows continued. “Contrariwise, a person can have all the physical freedom in the world, but if he does not feel free to imagine, his brain believes it is in a cage and that the man is not free at all.”
“That’s almost impossible to believe.”
Joan, mesmerized, nodded. Russell also started to look at Doctor Burrows, intrigued.
“We’ve proven it scientifically,” Doctor Burrows said simply. “I can show you the documentation.”
“No need, no need,” the fair-haired anchor laughed, and laid a hand on Dr. Burrows’ arm. “I’ll take your word for it. Any more future discoveries you expect to make?”
Rose looked at Russell, then at the TV screen, then back at Russell.
“I doubt we’ve even scratched the surface,” Doctor Burrows said.
“You’ll keep us updated, I hope.”
“Of course.”
“Thanks. It’s been a pleasure having you here, Dr. Burrows.” The anchor turned to look at another camera, which now show a close-up of him and his fair hair. “You heard it here first. Scientists have discovered the freedom hormone!”
“No—” Dr. Burrows’ protest was heard off-camera. Almost immediately, his mike was cut off.
The anchor continued without blinking, “Moving on to our next item. Does cat food give your cat cancer? Susie Lang has mor—”
Roger muted the TV again, and returned to the food on his plate. “Interesting,” he said.
Joan looked at her plate, but for the moment did not continue eating, “What does it mean, though?”
“I don’t know,” Roger said, his mouth full.
“It sounds like it means something. We can feel free when we’re not free if we just think about whatever we want? That’s crazy.”
“I don’t know,” Roger said again.
“It means,” Russell said, “that when I’m in class and I think about playing outside, I’m free.”
“You just do your homework,” Joan said.
“You asked what it means,” Russell insisted. “It means I can think about whatever I want whenever I want any time I want!” And he smiled a devilish smile.
Rose clamored, “I also want to think about whatever you want!”
Roger laughed, Joan caressed Rose’s hair, and Russell raised his hands in triumph: “That’s right! Everyone has to think about whatever I want! Yes!”
Joan laughed, and said, “Eat your peas.”
~
Russell walked into the living room, holding his math book in his hand. Roger was lying on the sofa, reading the daily newspaper. Joan was sitting at the table, crossing things off a list.
“Mom,” Russell said, “I have homework for tomorrow and I don’t know how to do it and I don’t want to do it.”
Joan looked down at Russell. “What is it?”
“I don’t understand how you divide the thingies.”
“What thingies?”
“You know, the thingies... Fractions.”
“Ah,” Joan said. “Give me the book. I don’t remember exactly myself, but maybe I’ll figure it out...”
Roger looked over his newspaper at Russell and Joan, as she opened the book. Roger’s eyes slipped past the TV on their way to the newspaper.
“Oh!” Roger said, his hand looking for the remote, “the news is already on.”
“Not now, Roger,” Joan said. “I’m trying to read Russell’s math.”
“I’ll put it on quietly.”
“—Have an exclusive interview with Doctor Burrows, whose research team has discovered the secrets of imagination,” the fifty-year-old anchor was saying, his hair moving as if it was a statue glued to his head.
“Exclusive interview?” Joan looked up from Russell’s book. “Wasn’t he on TV yesterday?”
“That was another network,” Roger said. “They can’t say he said something to someone else, so they’re talking as if they’re the ones who discovered him.”
“Nice,” Joan returned to the book.
“Good to have you with us, Doctor Burrows.”
“Thank you for having me.”
“Doctor Burrows, let’s get to the nitty gritty: You are saying that imagination is literally good for us.”
“Not exactly. My research has shown that imagination is physically good for us. When we use our imagination, a hormone is released, granting us a feeling of well-being. It is an interesting philosophical point that though imagination is good for us we spend most of our lives caging it. It would behoove us to let it roam.”
The anchor with the perfectly-aligned hair glanced at the camera nervously, then looked back at Doctor Burrows. “Doctor Burrows, we’re on television. Use simpler words, please.”
Doctor Burrows blinked a couple of times, then said, “All right. My point was that we are keeping imagination locked in a cage most of our lives. A team under my supervision has begun researching what exactly is the nature of this cage.”
Rose came into the room shrieking, and, just as she reached the couch, jumped up, and landed on top of Roger’s stomach.
Roger doubled-over, as Dr. Burrows continued, counting points of research, “How can imagination be blocked? What are the bars made of, synaptically? What are the long-term implications?”
“What have you discovered so far?” the anchor asked.
“We’ve discovered nothing, we have only begun this avenue of research last week.”
“But what can you tell us about the results?”
Joan looked up at the TV screen with disapproval, then looked back down.
Russell, who was looking at her, looked at the TV screen. Roger took Rose in his hands, turned her around, and lay her on top of his stomach and chest.
“Look. I can only answer about what I know,” Dr. Burrows said. “These are the facts that we have discovered that prompted this additional avenue of research. Whenever someone blocks your imagination by saying ‘no’, a feeling of pressure inside your mind is created, while saying ‘yes’ helps release the pressure, gives rise to imagination, and creates a feeling of freedom. This much is clear, although I cannot tell you the exact neuron specifications that cause—”
“What are you saying, Doctor Burrows? Did you just say we should let kids do whatever they want?”
Roger, Russell, and Joan all looked at the television at once.
“Did you just tell us,” the anchor continued, as Rose followed everyone’s glances and looked at the screen, “that to never say ‘no’ to our kids is the most healthy thing we can do?”
“Of course not,” Dr. Burrows said. “There are two kinds of ‘no’. One is of a disciplinarian nature, and regards actions and not thoughts. You should tell kids to not run into the streets, not do bad things, not to touch electricity, and to behave properly.”
Russell blink
ed. Joan crooked her neck.
“Limits are healthy and necessary for the human beast,” Dr. Burrows continued, “and cause no psychological damage as far as we could determine. However...” Roger sat up. “Limiting people’s ideas with ‘no’s or any similar variation, like ‘that would never work’, ‘what were you thinking’, ‘that’s a stupid idea’, etc., is limiting to their imagination and triggers a psychological response that lasts longer than that particular episode. The person’s imagination, in a very small way, is blocked neurologically as a result. Headaches could ensue. Blood pressure marginally spikes, and so on.”
Joan looked at Russell, then back at the TV.
“We must remember that imagination is not limited to kids,” Doctor Burrows continued, as the anchor seemed out of questions. “As kids, we get one ‘no’, and another one, and another one, until our lives are filled with pressure of this ‘cage’ which has been built over decades.” Rose began softly hitting her father’s chest for fun. He put his hand between hers and his chest, but was distracted and did not look at her. Dr. Burrows continued, “So much so that the pressure feels natural to adults, in the same we way get used to a bad smell. Most likely, most of us don’t even feel that pressure is there.”
Joan’s fingers, which were resting on the math book, slipped, and the book’s pages flipped back, closing the book.
“Are you saying,” the anchor said, “that most of our health problems are because our imagination was limited as children?” Rose gave up trying to hit her distracted father and looked up at the TV.
“I cannot answer that without further research,” Dr. Burrows said. “I can say that our empiric evidence shows that adults have as much imagination as kids do. In this regard at least our brains are structured in the same way as when we were children. As far as the ability to imagine goes, our ability to imagine is not lessened in time, it is just less used. Or, more accurately, caged.”