This is your brain on...
Feb. 21st, 2013 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talonkarrde"Empathy," he proclaims in a booming voice, and you, and everyone else in the room, stare at him.
"What do you mean?" someone calls out. The obvious question to ask, in this case.
"Empathy is defined as the ability to recognize emotions that are being experienced by someone else," Elin — the CEO — explains, and then waits for the followup question. It's not long in coming, not with this group.
"And this...this machine — it gives you this ability? It makes you good at empathy?" Your incredulous tone is obvious to him, and he arches an eyebrow briefly before smiling smoothly — after all, it's all part of his script.
"Well, it's not perfect, certainly, but what this machine does is close to it — it stimulates the mirror neurons in frontal cortex and parietal lobes to such a degree that has previously been untapped. It unlocks feelings to a degree that will change the world."
"And it works?" The reporter from FOX News, undoubtedly, even though you can't see him.
"All trials have been FDA approved and have gone off without a hitch, yes," he says, just a bit smugly, and then waves his hands to the machine — which, you dictate into your recorder, looks like the old electro-shock-therapy machines that scared everyone in the 1930s and '40s. How short our memories.
"And," he continues, "The treatment — no, rather, the experience — will be freely given to everyone. Not only that, but today, at this unveiling, all of you journalists can be the first in line to try this technology out. Who would like to be the first person in the world — outside of the company, of course — to experience the next step in humanity?"
You look at each other, all fifteen of you. It'd be an inside scoop, which normally you would all be lunging for — but your sense of danger is fairly well tuned by now to include a heavy dose of self-preservation. So no one volunteers, at first, and Elin's smile gets a bit tighter.
Then a plucky youngster, Jimmy'O, new to the world of journalism and the mad scientist-entrepreneur-genius paradigm, steps forward. "I'll do it," he pipes up in a barely post-pubescent squeak.
"And so you will!" Elin says, the smile on his face growing again, as if he never doubted that there would be at least one volunteer — and maybe he didn't, the skeptical part of you thinks. Maybe the kid is a plant.
But regardless of what the kid is, he's stepping up there and getting the cap on his head, facing the rest of you with a rather lopsided — and increasingly uncertain — smile. He gives a small running commentary of what it feels like, and the rest of you scribble or dictate his words, proving that he'll get his five minutes of fame, if nothing else.
Then the lever is pulled... and nothing happens. No flash of lightning, no dimming of lights, nothing that science fiction teaches you to expect. Nothing at all, really, and you think it's a bust, and some people start scribbling again — recording the failure, no doubt.
But when Jimmy'O steps out of the machine, you notice that his face is oddly slack. Slack, that is, until he looks at someone, and then someone else, and then someone else, and each time he does, his face changes to match theirs. Happiness, then suspicion, then confusion — ever changing, faster and faster, as his eyes dart from face to face, until he gets to you.
Nothing happens between these long thuds that you eventually realize is your heart beating.
Nothing happens, that is, until his eyes roll up inside the back of his head, and he falls backward, stiff as a board.
---
A/N: More last second than last second — unfortunately, a work crisis came up right as I started to write, and it brought me down to about ten minutes of writing time before the deadline. Though I made the poll, in the interest of full disclosure, I was definitely late. With regards to the writing, I think the general idea comes through, though there were a couple of thoughts I wanted to fit in — on what happens when everyone is empathetic and how that would change the world, for example — that I simply didn't have time for. I really like the framing for it, and I think second person works well in these short action sequences. Oh, and Jimmy'O is of course a reference to Jimmy Olsen, of Superman fame.
"What do you mean?" someone calls out. The obvious question to ask, in this case.
"Empathy is defined as the ability to recognize emotions that are being experienced by someone else," Elin — the CEO — explains, and then waits for the followup question. It's not long in coming, not with this group.
"And this...this machine — it gives you this ability? It makes you good at empathy?" Your incredulous tone is obvious to him, and he arches an eyebrow briefly before smiling smoothly — after all, it's all part of his script.
"Well, it's not perfect, certainly, but what this machine does is close to it — it stimulates the mirror neurons in frontal cortex and parietal lobes to such a degree that has previously been untapped. It unlocks feelings to a degree that will change the world."
"And it works?" The reporter from FOX News, undoubtedly, even though you can't see him.
"All trials have been FDA approved and have gone off without a hitch, yes," he says, just a bit smugly, and then waves his hands to the machine — which, you dictate into your recorder, looks like the old electro-shock-therapy machines that scared everyone in the 1930s and '40s. How short our memories.
"And," he continues, "The treatment — no, rather, the experience — will be freely given to everyone. Not only that, but today, at this unveiling, all of you journalists can be the first in line to try this technology out. Who would like to be the first person in the world — outside of the company, of course — to experience the next step in humanity?"
You look at each other, all fifteen of you. It'd be an inside scoop, which normally you would all be lunging for — but your sense of danger is fairly well tuned by now to include a heavy dose of self-preservation. So no one volunteers, at first, and Elin's smile gets a bit tighter.
Then a plucky youngster, Jimmy'O, new to the world of journalism and the mad scientist-entrepreneur-genius paradigm, steps forward. "I'll do it," he pipes up in a barely post-pubescent squeak.
"And so you will!" Elin says, the smile on his face growing again, as if he never doubted that there would be at least one volunteer — and maybe he didn't, the skeptical part of you thinks. Maybe the kid is a plant.
But regardless of what the kid is, he's stepping up there and getting the cap on his head, facing the rest of you with a rather lopsided — and increasingly uncertain — smile. He gives a small running commentary of what it feels like, and the rest of you scribble or dictate his words, proving that he'll get his five minutes of fame, if nothing else.
Then the lever is pulled... and nothing happens. No flash of lightning, no dimming of lights, nothing that science fiction teaches you to expect. Nothing at all, really, and you think it's a bust, and some people start scribbling again — recording the failure, no doubt.
But when Jimmy'O steps out of the machine, you notice that his face is oddly slack. Slack, that is, until he looks at someone, and then someone else, and then someone else, and each time he does, his face changes to match theirs. Happiness, then suspicion, then confusion — ever changing, faster and faster, as his eyes dart from face to face, until he gets to you.
Nothing happens between these long thuds that you eventually realize is your heart beating.
Nothing happens, that is, until his eyes roll up inside the back of his head, and he falls backward, stiff as a board.
---
A/N: More last second than last second — unfortunately, a work crisis came up right as I started to write, and it brought me down to about ten minutes of writing time before the deadline. Though I made the poll, in the interest of full disclosure, I was definitely late. With regards to the writing, I think the general idea comes through, though there were a couple of thoughts I wanted to fit in — on what happens when everyone is empathetic and how that would change the world, for example — that I simply didn't have time for. I really like the framing for it, and I think second person works well in these short action sequences. Oh, and Jimmy'O is of course a reference to Jimmy Olsen, of Superman fame.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 08:55 pm (UTC)It seemed slightly inexplicable when the character suddenly died -- was it because he couldn't handle the amount of empathy? Because it happened immediately after looking at the protagonist I was trying to figure out if the protagonist's heart was so very black that it killed him or something. I note you say you wrote this in ten minutes, which is quite the accomplishment. I'd like to see how it would have looked after 20 minutes ;)
no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-22 09:08 pm (UTC)Though in the end I think it's strongly marked by my own habit of no-extraneous-descriptions (which I blame on my pre-law days)
no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-23 12:51 am (UTC)I'm wondering if the narrator is perhaps a robot/cyborg/alien, and thus lacks the emotions he/she should. ;)
no subject
Date: 2013-02-24 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-24 09:24 pm (UTC)Now I'm wondering what's up with the narrator, too!
no subject
Date: 2013-02-25 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-25 08:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-25 08:18 pm (UTC)