The Happiness Inquisition

by Nōnen Títi

  First Published 2008

  By Nōnen Títi

  www.nonentiti.com

  ©Copyright 2008

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-473-14537-8 (print)

  ISBN 978-0-473-21585-9 (epub)

  ISBN 978-0-473-21586-6 (mobi)

  This book is copyright. Except for the purpose of fair reviewing, no part of this publiscation may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Infringers of copyright render themselves liable to prosecution.

  The Copy Press, Nelson, New Zealand

  www.copypress.co.nz

  Ebook production 2012 by meBooks

  THE HAPPINESS INQUISITION

  On Thursday evening Amanda arrived for her night shift at the children’s special care unit after the others had already started the round. “Sorry, I had to find somebody to watch Crystal.”

  Pat, the paediatrician, gave her a brief smile that meant she had no time for small talk since she, too, had children waiting at home. But the two duty nurses, like Amanda, had all night, and agreed that childcare was getting too expensive. It was only affordable for the rich, who didn’t need to work, while those who were desperate for help couldn’t afford it, forcing them to leave their children home alone or on the streets.

  “And why? Because the childcare providers, the few that haven’t bailed out yet, are paying a fortune in legal insurance.”

  “Happily married stay-at-home mothers don’t seem to do much better,” Pat said and stopped in the little room of the latest arrival. “Came in this evening with multiple head injuries; suspicion of abuse at the hands of the mother. He hasn’t responded to stimuli since admission. Seven years old, though you wouldn’t think it, seeing his size. Could be growth retarded due to whatever was going on in that home. The mother is in custody, but she blames the father, who has been restricted access until further notice. The neighbours and grandparents seem to not understand what happened; they say she was stable and gentle and she loved the boy. The child has a twin, who has been put in foster care, but she seems in good health.”

  The tiny boy in the big bed looked cold and lonely with nothing but the monitoring apparatus to keep him company. No caring parents to hold his hand, alone in the world. Poor kid. What kind of a mother would do this to her own child?

  “A mother who doesn’t deserve that title,” Pat said, and added that Amanda shouldn’t talk to anybody about it. “Especially not to that pesky journalist downstairs.”

  Being a student nurse, Amanda was assigned to watch the boy for the night because, unlike the post-op and seriously ill children, he only needed simple observations and daily care. “The best thing you can do is talk to him like you would to a plant. Even if he doesn’t understand what you say, the soothing sound of a human voice may help rouse him.”

  A night shift of random talking would have been extremely long had Amanda not brought the manuscript of her brother’s story. The child in the bed was breathing unassisted and invisibly; maybe he could hear her, maybe not. Either way, the words were ready to be spoken.

  “Jimmy didn’t write it for children; he wrote it for parents, little Josh,” she told the comatose boy while settling into the chair beside him. “I would have read it at his funeral last year, but those hypocrites who called themselves our parents threw me out. They didn’t want a reminder of their failure.

  “And why? Because they belonged to a generation so focused on their own selfish existence that they didn’t listen to the needs of their children, too busy projecting their own frustrations to stop Jimmy from looking for love where it was dangerous. And then they had the nerve to turn around and tell me that I’m not a good mother. How dare they?

  “Jimmy didn’t find what he was looking for; he wasn’t gang material. He was soft and kind and smart. Besides, they were no more than kids themselves, acting in a fake hierarchy, every one of them searching for a new set of parents. Nor did the pills help him, whether legal or illegal; they simply denied his existence altogether. Just like our parents denied him by accepting the label the doctors gave them as a cure for their own guilt, so they could believe that it was a disorder and not their incapability that drove my brother to suicide.

  “I won’t let that happen to my baby. I love Crystal too much to wait for things to get out of control. I don’t want her to end up like you or like Jimmy, orphans of this war on parents – because, like in every other war, in the end it is the children who suffer.”

  Amanda moved to sit on the side of the bed next to the child’s head the way she would sit when reading Crystal her bedtime story, so she could stroke the dark locks of hair.

  “This, little Josh, who reminds me so of my brother, is Jimmy’s story, but I think he’d want to dedicate it to you.”

  The Happiness Inquisition

  There was once a wise and fair king who ruled his land with majesty and asked his subjects for their consent before making decisions. The people enjoyed simple, healthy lives and most had loving families, and those in need would always find help with their neighbours.

  Of course, there were the normal problems, like the occasional spell of poverty or disease, harm caused by evil villains and sometimes one of the neighbouring countries making an attempt to invade. But in those cases the young men would stand by their king and he by them, as equal brothers to defend their freedom.

  However, the king had one regret; he had no children of his own to inherit his kingdom. So he sent out a request to every village that they should choose one young boy to be put forward as ‘the king’s prince’. These chosen princes then participated in four tournaments, each testing a specific skill – one of courage, one of intelligence, one of compassion and one of loyalty – and the winner of each tournament was to become one of the four heirs to the crown.

  To prepare all four for being king, he had them instructed in tactical warfare and hand-to-hand combat; they learned mathematics and public speaking and most of all he taught them moral and humanitarian concepts so they would always be able to judge what was best for all the people. “To have loyal subjects is the most important goal for a king,” he told his new sons. “And if you make the children happy, they will stand by you when they grow up.”

  But when the princes turned eighteen, the king, who was a real egalitarian, didn’t know which of the four boys to choose. He valued each of their skills equally and didn’t want to disappoint any of them, so he decided they would rule together. He once more reminded them of their duty. “When children cry, the king is to blame.”

  The four princes took this to heart, but no sooner had the king died than all four started to cry. On hearing this, the king’s apothecary promised the princes to brew them a potion that would cure their crying. The princes – since they were very distraught – accepted the offer and each was given a dose of ‘pleasure potion’. It was warm and enjoyable and their tears dried up.

  The apothecary promised them that no child would ever need to cry again. He invited the compassionate prince to go find children with tears in their eyes and bring them to the castle so he could prove that the remedy worked.

  So the prince went in search of children in need of a dose of pleasure potion and invited them to the castle to be cured. And indeed, as soon as the children swallowed their medicine they stopped crying. The apothecary gave them each a small bottle to take home and soon the news about the wondrous potion that could cure children’s tears spread through the land.

  More and more parents were willing to pay good money for the magical cure, while the princes began to dream of a land free o
f pain and tears and renamed theirs the Land of Happy People. The apothecary brewed cauldrons full of potion, but soon he had more bottles prepared than there were crying subjects.

  Now, everybody knows that there are two kinds of children in the world. There are children who are naturally obedient, polite, hard working and even-tempered, like the princes had been, and who need their parents for praise and encouragement. These children didn’t cry much, so they didn’t need any potion. But there are also children who love pleasure and get into mischief a lot, and these children need protection and limits, so they were sometimes punished by their parents and teachers, who would say, “You asked for it.” And they were right, because good parents know what each of their children need and children are very good at asking.

  But not all parents and teachers cared enough for their children to listen to what they asked for. The apothecary’s teacher had raised him with the policy that a lashing a day could prevent mischief altogether, and the apothecary, who by nature was obedient and hardworking, remembered suffering this injustice. So he called the clever prince and said, “You are the smartest of all the princes. Surely you can see how the children are suffering. It isn’t enough that their tears are dry; truly happy people show laughter.”

  And the prince agreed. Of course children needed to be heard laughing, so he went to his brothers and said, “You are kind and brave and loyal, but I am smart and you have to trust me that many children are suffering from undetected pain while there is such an easy cure available.”

  Naturally, the compassionate prince wanted to stop the suffering, the loyal prince wanted to do his duty and the courageous prince wanted to rescue the poor children, so they set out immediately to test the apothecary’s story. And sure enough, they found many obedient and hardworking children, but none of them laughed very much, so they handed out potion and told the parents they would be held responsible for this silent suffering. Children deserved praise and shouldn’t be made to do anything that caused them to be unhappy. Physicians, teachers and soothsayers were instructed to look out for hidden unhappiness and, since it was now a crime to have a crying child, Happy Homes were built so potion could be supplied for free to children whose parents were unwilling to buy it.

  Most people accepted this as progress and started to look out for each other. Two athletic children who used to play outside now sat at home eating lollies, because the neighbours had told their parents that an injury would cause them pain. One mischievous little boy laughed so hard over a prank he’d pulled that it made his eyes water. The soldiers, who were trained to look for tears, took him to a home where he didn’t have to be so unhappy. A little girl who was found crying beside the grave of her mother was given potion, so she would not have to feel so sad, and so was every child that went to the doctor, because ill children don’t laugh very much. And just in case they didn’t catch the unhappy syndrome in time, it was advised that parents give pleasure potion to every child from birth.

  But no sooner was every child in the land taking the potion than the apothecary saw another gap in the market; he had noticed that many adults were acting very anxious lately – many were indulging in chocolates and herbal inhalations, so he suggested to the princes that being nervous and worried was a sign of unhappiness in adults and surely they could benefit from pleasure potion as well.

  The less laughter there was, the more potion people bought, which soon became the most celebrated stimulant of all time, with most of the population, including the princes, being daily users. But that still wasn’t enough for the greedy apothecary.

  He persuaded the princes to make a last amendment to the law: Inhaling herbals was setting the wrong example for children and could not be allowed. No need to ask the people; it would be much more beneficial to first make the law and, once the people were addicted to the new substance, give them the option of trying to reverse the vote.

  The princes, who believed they could judge what was good for all the people because they had won tournaments, once again responded. Not just the herbals, but the consumption of chocolates was also forbidden; good parents used potion.

  The soldiers did their duty and inspected every property to make sure there were sufficient amounts of potion on the premises to ensure at least a week’s supply for all members of the family. Law courts were set up to convict any subject who fell short of these requirements and the judges enforced the laws, because they were knowledgeable enough to understand that these people were guilty of inhibiting happiness. People’s greatest fear became to not have enough money to buy more potion, so they started working more and more hours every day, while those who fell short were guilt-ridden, which made them need more potion. Many more Happy Homes had to be built for the children of these overworked parents to grow up in and equally as many mental institutions for those lost souls who were misled by the wrong morals.

  Soon everybody agreed that happiness was the greatest good of all, although none could quite remember what it was like to have fun or to be free. The apothecary became not only the richest man in the land, but also its only ruler. And they all lived…

  “I can’t tell you how this story ends, little Josh. I can’t tell you if the people were smart enough to realise that all evil comes from moral judgment; from people using praise and blame to police each other, regardless of the name they give their political system. And I can’t tell you whether they eventually learned that four skilled princes with narrow minds can never equal one wise ruler.

  “But it’s no different in the real world. The examiners of the ‘happiness inquisition’ of which you have become a victim still don’t understand why you are here. Those who preach morality don’t understand that every war, every genocide, every act of bullying and every domestic dispute is due to people finding fault with somebody else. They don’t understand that children need to be protected by their parents, not from them, and that to treat one type of child with the response meant for the other is to do them injury.

  “Maybe your mum was simply a victim too. Maybe all parents are…

  “If you wake up, little Josh, I hope you won’t go looking in those dangerous places, like Jimmy did. Try and find somebody who cares enough to listen when children ask; somebody who understands the reason for that proverb. Somebody who can explain to you what drove your mother to desperation.”

  MOTHER INSTINCT

  On Tuesday morning, Doreen woke up from the bedroom door opening a crack. She waited, but nobody came in. “Josh, is that you? Are you okay?”

  The door opened a little further. “I had an accident,” he whispered.

  “Then go to the bathroom and wash,” Martin said from under the blankets.

  Doreen sighed and pulled on her dressing gown. “It’s nearly seven, Martin. It’s time to get up, anyway. Come on, honey. We’ll make you a bath.”

  “You shouldn’t spoil that child so much. If you keep saying it’s okay we’ll have him in nappies until high school,” Martin grumbled, stepping out of bed.

  “He can’t help it,” Doreen whispered.

  “Can’t help it? A normal seven year old doesn’t wet the bed every night.” He stopped in front of Josh. “Do you think you’ll ever make friends if you keep doing that? Who’s going to want to play with you if you smell?”

  “Martin!” Doreen hissed.

  “Answer me!”

  Josh stared at his father, but didn’t respond.

  “He does have friends at school,” Doreen lied, and pulled the shivering child into the bathroom to take off his wet pyjamas.

  Martin followed them to use the bathroom mirror. “It’s your fault, I tell you. You pamper them. I can’t even take my own son to the park to play. If you’re looking for Josh you only have to search where the crying comes from. Go ahead, wash him. I’ll make my own breakfast.”

  “Now you see what happens if you do that?” Doreen asked the boy and turned on the shower. She gave him a quick wash and told him to take five minutes to warm up a bit, whil
e she called Becky to say it was time to get up.

  When Doreen came down to make him his coffee and lunch box, Martin, now in uniform, was eating burned toast. “There’s something wrong with that child. He didn’t do anything to defend himself against those kids yesterday. Normal boys play outside, scrape their knees and fight. If you’d let him do that, he wouldn’t need to wet the bed. I wanted a son, not a dimwit.”

  “They say talk like that only makes it worse, Martin. Our child is just timid. It’s nobody’s fault. A lot of children have this problem.”

  “You just don’t want to see it. I want you to take him to a doctor and this time I want to see proof that you’ve been there.”

  “But the doctor won’t have time to listen. He’ll suggest therapy, like with Becky.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Doctors have to look for medical problems and keep their noses out of people’s private business. You tell him that!”

  He left without drinking his coffee.

  “Mum, do I have to go to a head doctor?” Josh asked, coming into the kitchen.

  “No, of course not, honey. We’ll just make an appointment at the clinic. You probably have a weak bladder. They’ll give us some medicine.” Doreen walked to the stairs to get her daughter to come down. “Becky, come and eat.”

  “If I’m sick, can I stay home?” Josh asked.

  “But you’re not sick and you can’t stay home, honey. Children who don’t go to school don’t learn anything.”

  “Not true,” Becky said, walking into the living room.

  “Don’t put the TV on, Becky. It’s time to get ready. You’ll be late.”

  “If Josh is sick, I also don’t want to go. I want to watch cartoons.”

  “You can watch cartoons when you come home. Now you have to eat breakfast.”

  “I’m not hungry and I don’t want to go to school.”

  “Please Becky, don’t do this again. We have to go to school. All children go to school.”