One Billion Drops of Happiness

by Olivia Joy

  As for New America, they had not taken the declaration seriously at all. They had more pressing matters to deal with. Henry had advised Bathsheba Ermez to concentrate on rushing through the final stages of preparation for Ophelium. He was confident that this funny business would blow over very soon. Productivity in the country had slowed significantly, but was thankfully it was not yet at breaking point. Only a little while longer and this whole sorry saga would be history.

  Meanwhile, Effie Brigham’s mother was arriving at Excelsior Headquarters in a bad state. She was spewing fury at the government; spewing fury at the country that made her work every day of her life without rest. She was tired. She was angry. She was confused, yet she had never seen so much clarity. How dare they poison the world? How dare they kill the animals, those poor things, those mostly four legged creatures that nobody had given a damn about until now? How dare they! It was wrong, it was heinous!

  Merely the sight of the building boiled her blood. She looked around and spied several thousand other people just like her in the immediate vicinity. They must all have shared the same idea. It was not borne of genius however; the Excelsior building was an easy target for the dissatisfied.

  She fixed a determined eye at imposing entrance of the building before letting loose and launching into a high pitched cry.

  ‘Stop the oppression, say no to suppression!’

  The others stopped buzzing around in a disordered fashion and turned to watch her.

  She yelled again:

  ‘Stop the oppression, say no to suppression!’ she found that one arm began rhythmically punching the air while her feet began to stamp.

  ‘Stop the oppression, say no to suppression!’

  This felt natural, this felt right. The people around her began to whisper excitedly. Perhaps it was ironic that now these citizens were bunking work, they still instinctively welcomed a task to carry out.

  ‘Stop the oppression, say to no suppression!’

  A few hundred people joined in.

  ‘Stop the oppression, say no to suppression!’

  A few hundred turned instantly into a few hundred thousand.

  ‘Stop the oppression, say no to suppression!’

  Effie Brigham’s mother excitedly hoisted herself onto the low roof of the entrance archway. She gasped in delight at the swarms and swarms of matchstick people marching in unison before her, manically chanting her recently dreamed words. Her eyes shone bright. So this was what it felt like, she was finally living!

  The crowd roared in approval at the sight of their makeshift leader elevated over their heads. The roads were instantly irrefutably blocked. It had all escalated in the blink of an eye. The resulting scene was total mayhem.

  ‘Stop the oppression, say no to suppression!’

  The roar was almost ear splitting. The crowd was swelling dangerously. Casual passersby who were up to that point mostly in control of their Suppressitors found themselves abandoning ship and giving in to the will of the pack, the sheer noise and excitement simply too much for their delicately balanced devices.

  ‘Stop the oppression, say no to suppression!’

  People could not help but join in, the energy was positively effervescent. They screamed until their lungs were torn, and then screamed some more. It was as if all the years of emotional suppression were being released in one fell swoop.

  ‘Stop the oppression, say no to suppression!’

  Then suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, a large handful or so of figures clad in pure white from head to toe darted onto the canopy where Effie Brigham’s mother was still stomping her foot resolutely, an enormous grin spread across her face. Later, some people would swear they came hurtling from the windows of the Excelsior building. Nobody would truly know for sure; the whole thing happened in an instant.

  In a matter of seconds, Effie Brigham’s mother was spirited away kicking and screaming, but it did not matter, for the chanting of the crowd drowned it out. Those who could see assumed it was all part of the spectacle. Those who could not see simply continued chanting, growing louder and louder until the confused roar of the people at the front interrupted the former mosaic precision.

  With their leader vanished into thin air, there was no longer anybody to conduct the orchestra of protestors. The shouting fast transformed into a muddled din. Those at the back had no idea what was going on and the halt in proceedings only agitated them further. A few hundred people whose Suppressitors resumed emitting weak signs of life began to run away as they came to their senses. To be caught here would be catastrophic – career suicide at the very least.

  People jammed into the middle sections of the crowd saw this and misinterpreted the motive. Basic human instinct kicked in and they too, began to flee. Soon tens of millions of people were hurtling in every direction, the terror magnifying as each second passed. There was absolutely no escape from the blaze of emotions afflicting the citizens. Worse still were the millions of people caught amidst the stampede, the millions of people who in their fright, lost their footing and fell, dropping like flies.

  Afterwards it emerged in official circles that these millions of people who now lay motionless on the ground could have been saved. Of course they could have been saved – this was new America for goodness sake. The normal protocol would have been to send them to the hospital where they could have been immediately patched up and sent home, but alas, in these tumultuous times, the hospitals were all full to the brim and closed firmly to all new patients.

  Therefore, the question was finally brought to the attention of an unimpressed President Bathseba Ermez: what to do with the fallen protestors? After all, although crushed, they were still breathing and could easily be put back together again when the hospital crisis eased.

  Her answer was instant and it was simple.

  ‘Sign them all off,’ she said without emotion. ‘I want the roads reopened by noon.’

  Her will was done.

  Later that afternoon a government official came by Effie Brigham’s office. She greeted them briskly. She was extremely inundated with work; her taskforce of two million was decreasing drastically by the day.

  In a low but solemn voice, the official explained to Effie Brigham what had happened to her mother. That she had been caught inciting violence in an anti-government protest. That she had been ferried away in disgrace and immediately Signed Off under orders of the new President.

  Effie Brigham did not blink an eyelid.

  ‘Good job,’ she said. ‘Miscreants have no place in our society. Our new President has done well to make an example of such odious behaviour.’

  TWENTY ONE

  ‘Come to the lake, I have something to show you.’ Lars said one day, quite solemnly.

  Xandria looked up at him, noticing that his eyes contained an honesty about them.

  ‘Of course,’ she said jumping up. ‘I’ll come now. Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said, with a faint grin. He looked like Gabe when he did that.

  Their many shared walks together had built a sense of ease between them. Sometimes he talked and she would listen, but he never probed about her life in New America. She liked it that way; she knew his opinions on the country and was glad that he momentarily overlooked them in return for her simple company.

  When they arrived at the lake there was a solitary wooden boat bobbing at the waters’ edge.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing curiously.

  ‘Get in,’ he said. ‘We’re going to a bird island.’

  He extended his arm to steady Xandria as she viewed the contraption with much suspicion.

  ‘It’s how people traversed water since time began,’ he explained. ‘It’s a boat.’

  Safely seated, Lars began to row expertly across the water, rounding a corner of the lake that Xandria had never yet seen beyond. There was more of the same crystal lake extending to the tree-lined shores in the distance. They glided through the water, Xandria feeling surprisin
gly contented.

  She sat back and sighed. Lars looked over at her.

  ‘Are you happy?’

  She found herself smiling.

  ‘If this is what it feels like, I could do with some more.’

  ‘Wow.’ He slowed the boat before whistling in amazement. ‘I can’t believe it, she’s finally happy. Hooray!’

  He shouted into the empty skies, causing the nearby birds in the trees to flap their wings and scatter. He examined her face.

  ‘Is that a smile?’ he teased, ‘I daresay it is! At last she smiles!’

  Xandria’s smile felt boundless; before she knew it she had thrown her head back and a strange sound was reverberating around the lakeside. She was laughing for the very first time. Lars soon joined in, resting his oars and sitting back with Xandria, laughing up at the cold sky, laughing at nothing in particular until they could both laugh no more.

  They sat there companionably for a few moments catching their breath.

  ‘Was that worth it?’ he asked, turning to her. His eyes were warm, so much warmer than she’d ever seen.

  ‘One hundred percent,’ she said, surveying the scenery. ‘This place is so beautiful. I love it here.’

  ‘She speaks of love, she’s definitely changing…’ Lars teased, before his face became still. ‘But seriously, it’s something you have to be careful with. It’s one of the more dangerous emotions.’

  ‘Why?’ Xandria asked.

  ‘Love is the most powerful weapon,’ he said, taking up the oars again. ‘From it everything else is borne, hate being its most venomous consequence.’

  ‘Are you saying that humans should stay away from it?’

  ‘Only that you should never depend on anyone else for your happiness,’ he replied, eyeballing the shoreline as they came nearer to the shore.

  ‘From what I’ve seen of it, I think it’s like a key and a slot.’ Xandria attempted. ‘With time the shape changes and the key no longer fits.’

  ‘Too many people find the wrong person.’ Lars said shortly, hopping out of the boat and dragging it up the shoreline. Xandria had too disembarked when instructed. ‘You should look to find the person who would gladly have their own heart broken a million times before yours should so much as bruise.’

  Xandria mulled this over. Lars retreated back into his silence as they walked. Occasionally he would intersperse the quiet to show her this bird and the other. If she was honest, Xandria was paying more attention to what Lars had said earlier.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder,’ Lars had confided hesitantly, ‘if the fruitless human quest for love, often spanning a lifetime of agony, is in response to God defying us to find a better love than his own?’

  Xandria was confused by this God and his prevalence in the Olsens life. Lars seemed to have an unshakeable belief in this invisible deity above. Sometimes she did not understand the things he said, so she said nothing in response. Maybe he was asking himself these things more than he was actually asking her.

  As the thorny undergrowth snapped and crackled underfoot with every step, for the first time in a long while, Xandria realised she had not thought of Henry. The love potion had finally subsided; she was free. It had been a gradual ending, she felt grateful for that now. No inward shriek of regret that there would be no more immaterial moments with that person, no cringe-worthy sequences of desperate pleading and disproportionately amplified desire. Instead, it had been rather like the smoothest space flight, that instant when you landed so delicately it was only when voices erupted around you that you jolted into the consciousness that the journey was complete and you had absolutely missed the ending.

  They walked for several hours in a comfortable hush, before Lars said it was time to go.

  ‘I’m going to fight soon, you know,’ he said in a low voice, as they clambered back into the boat.

  ‘I thought you would,’ she said. Her brain was buzzing with a thousand questions, but she bit her lip. She did not want to spoil the afternoon.

  ‘Will you remember me?’ she asked, feeling fretful.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember everything and everyone. My memories will keep me going when I’m out there.’

  ‘I’m sorry for my country,’ she said suddenly. ‘I really am. I wish it wasn’t a part of my past.’

  ‘Never be sorry,’ Lars said, rowing them back across the lake again. ‘Your history makes you a part of who you are. It moulds you future and helps you become the person you’re supposed to be.’

  ‘You’re so full of wisdom, Lars,’ she said simply.

  ‘I’m not,’ he replied, fixing her with his eyes.

  It should not be allowed to have eyes so blue, thought Xandria, noticing them.

  ‘I’ve just had a lot of time to think about life, that’s all.’

  * * *

  ‘Are you ready?’ The woman asked functionally, surveying the couple before her eyes. They were on the one hundred and eighth floor of LovePotion Incorporated. She was about to administer the syringe of potion into the man’s arm.

  ‘Wait,’ said the man suddenly, withdrawing from the needle. His partner peered quizzically at him. She had unusually shaggy eyebrows. ‘I had this potion with someone else a little over six months ago. Is this going to be alright?’

  ‘Well,’ said the woman, putting her syringe down onto the resin table. ‘As it was over six months, the initial dose will have worn away. Tell me; did you feel any of the side effects commonly experienced?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘In fact, I feel no different today as I did back then.’

  ‘Then you must have a remarkably strong constitution, sir.’ The woman replied. She allowed herself to digress. ‘But of course, the country already knew that. I have boundless gratitude to you for what you’re about to unveil.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The man said without pleasure. ‘He turned to his partner. ‘Bathsheba, shall we proceed?’

  ‘Of course, Henry,’ she said, presenting her arm.

  The deed was done.

  * * *

  Bathsheba Ermez had always vowed never to be subjected to something as silly as the love potion. But that was before she met Henry. Despite it being her who was now President, he was the figure she most respected and took orders from. It was essentially Henry who was running New America these days, albeit without the grand title and privilege.

  They had worked together an exponential amount since she was promoted from the prison. She was willing to stay all night and work for four or five days straight if need be. Following the incident when she had unwittingly exposed Xandria’s true nature to Henry, he had trusted her implicitly. Hers was the sort of blood that the country needed in this crucial transitional period.

  Henry had been brooding much on his mental state. Ironically, since he had taken the potion with Xandria, he had achieved leaps and bounds with the progression of Ophelium. He was not superstitious, but if there was any factor he could replicate to ensure continuing success, he would be sure to take it. True to his word, he had not suffered a single side effect of the initial love potion. It was like it had never been administered. Perhaps somewhere deep down in the echelons of his being, it was having some sort of effect, but he was positively immune to it right now.

  He supposed he ought to have some sort of top up now that six months had passed. With the entire country losing their marbles and roaming around completely off-kilter, he could not risk the same happening to him now that Ophelium was in its final stage. The turbines were having the finishing touches applied to them – a dab of paint here and a lick of paint there - and then Ophelium was good to go.

  Soon the mindless masses would revert to their former efficient states. They would forgive them just this once for their calamitous transgressions. They could not punish the entire country. A few weeks of New American industry and progress slowing down and having a rest would be a mere drop in the ocean when the gas was finally working. What marvelous new inventions would ensue, he could only im
agine.

  He was vaguely aware that the Old World was gathering soldiers but he had to admit he was not following the saga. They were not releasing much information, but the dribs and drabs that had leaked through to him via various contacts did not sound overtly threatening. He had not taken any of his precious time to consider what the Old World could do to stick a fork in the works. He did not honestly think that they posed a threat, despite Bathsheba Ermez’ low warnings that they must not dismiss it entirely.

  He preferred to make a mockery of the Old World’s efforts by not retaliating. New America had plenty of goodies in their armamentarium that they could dig out if the time came, which he severely doubted it would.

  Proposing the love potion to the new President was easier than he imagined. Informing her gravely that their positions of authority were at stake if they did not take precautionary measures, it did not take her long to agree with Henry that despite it most probably being an ineffective gimmick, it was best to take it just in case things suddenly changed.

  Privately, Henry had believed it did work on some particularly susceptible individuals. He had noticed a tangible change in Xandria’s demeanour after she had been injected. He rather hoped for her sake that Bathsheba Ermez would remain the same. If anything, the love potion appeared to double up as a screening tool for potentially weak-minded individuals. Perhaps he should look into developing that after Ophelium, he thought.

  As for Xandria, he hoped she was rotting wherever she was. Her own grandfather had disposed of the most valuable member of New American society, and he, Henry, had been associated with her. It had made him look foolish. This is another reason why it was a good idea he swiftly associate with someone new; a woman of a far better calibre than before.