I met Dickens outside the Cybersleep centre. He was
shocked to see me and sounded different. His voice was unrecognizable. Sounding
peculiar like an out of tune guitar with discordant notes and the volume not in
control. It was his eyes that told me who he was, those green eyes with flecks
of gold sprinkled around the cornea. I'd read somewhere it was an indication of
a disease. Careful studies had found a gene responsible and precautions taken
to screen out the anomaly. No such eyes had appeared for at least three
decades. It was strangely heartening to see them again. Like being shown an
ancient artifacts from the 21st century. Nostalgia swept over me and I answered
warmly.
“Dickens, I have not seen you for almost 50 years!”
He answered slowly struggling to articulate his h’s.
“Forty
eight years, it was at the middle age convention, do you remember?”
Dickens
corrected me and then went on, his voice growing stronger and more certain with
each minute,
“I took a deep sleep forty seven years ago. My health director
indicated disease predictors required it,” he pointed to his eyes. “Woke up and
had the treatment. Stupid thing really, they discovered how to deal with the
disease 20 years earlier. I complained to the authorities but apparently being
two decades out in such things is no longer considered incompetence. If the
director had been out by three decades I would have had a substantial claim.
Just my luck!”
He shook his hand warmly
above my hand and I waved back. It had been the flu endemic of the 23rd century
that had changed human interaction substantially. Apparently, humans used to
actually shake hands with complete strangers. After 20 million were wiped out
by a flu epidemic that spread purely by skin contact, handshakes were banned.
Nowadays, it was an intricate business with different types to suit each
occasion. Dickens had responded to my friendly wave palm down with a 10cm gap
just above my own hand. Strangers involved a greeting with the opposite side
hand wave. Readers never responded to a wave. They stood well back and scanned.
The difficulty with advanced intuition is that you need time to read the
intent. Readers had to scan you before responding and adopted to drop the wave
for ethical considerations. Cherry, his wife was a reader and he never got used
to her cold stare at visitors or new work colleagues.
Once he complained and she had answered,
“We have to.
If you don't read them the wave could be interpreted as an acquiescence.
The wave ceremony is a way of getting to know someone
politely. As a reader we do it by reading, it takes us less time and avoid
mistakes. It also warns others that they are being read. If I just waved I’d be
pretending I wasn’t a reader. That would not be fair.”
Keats brought Dickens home for a meal and his wife
Cherry had read him at the door. Dickens had stood with his palm down in a
friendly invite and his wife Cherry had stared coldly back. A minute passed and
in the awkward hand retreat, Dickens had blushed vivid red and then made his
apologies and left. His wife explained it was more appropriate that he had
left. But no matter how he pressed her she would not tell him what she’d read.
She responded,
“It’s against our ethics you know that.”
I had argued,
“But I’ve known him for years, I need to know!”
The next day I tried to call Dickens but there was no
response. I never knew what she had read but the next day I explained that my
friend had disappeared. Sherry had nodded knowingly,
“I expected he would, it's one of the reasons people
keep to themselves nowadays. They know readers are out there and their act will
be discovered.”
Angrily I told
her,
”Do you know in Pacifica readers are banned”.
She nodded unruffled.
“That's one way to approach it. I view it differently.
You may find it intrusive and unfair but it is also a protection for the wider
community. Pacifica has had huge spikes in negative activity probably as a
result of not allowing readers”.
Keats
felt annoyed,
“Oh, come on, you can't
play that card and take the credit for solving social ills. Claim that without
your kind, everybody misbehaves!”
Cherry looked Keats in the eyes before responding,
“Apart from being prejudiced against readers Pacifica
has the highest child abuse, domestic abuse, animal cruelty and an epidemic of
elderly early death syndrome”.
Once euthanasia was legally allowed and the numbers of
deaths of elderly went through the roof the term EEDS was coin to address the
broad spectrum condition from those who are terminally ill and wanting released
from their suffering, to those whose greedy beneficiaries no longer wanted to
wait for their elderly relatives to die of natural causes. While legal measures
had been put in place to prevent healthcare officials from benefiting from
EEDS, a whole subculture of vultures had emerged. Befriending the old, the ill
and the isolated in order to line their own pockets with an endgame of
termination became endemic. The media exposé highlighting these unscrupulous
activities resulted in the elderly and the infirmed fleeing Pacifica. For
elderly protection in other nations, readers were employed routinely to screen
social contacts and had unearthed an uncomfortable amount of close relatives
with unsavoury mindsets. Abusers were rarely the stranger on the street as had
once been feared but much more commonly the homegrown family member. One online
wit had coined the phrase, ‘everyone everywhere does something’ and it had been
the rallying cry of the main political group in Pacifica. Cleverly highlighting
a recognition that everyone committed negative acts and judgement wasn't an
appropriate response. Despite all this being in the pubic domain, Keats still
felt he had to hold to his argument,
“You make it sound as if readers commit no wrong!” He
snapped.
Sherry was becoming irritated.
“I didn't say that. Of course there are positive and
negative readers!”
The Lindenbury affair clarified that once and for
all. In Pacifica a certain Louise Lindenbury, a reader, had taken money to make
incorrect readings for the unscrupulous. It was the case that led to the banning of
readers from the country. A mass program of oppression had resulted in huge
amounts of reader refugees crossing out of Pacifica borders. The ripples had
also infected neighbouring nation states and resulted in the law ‘Watchers need
Watched’. This required readers to be subjected to weekly supervision by other
readers. This safety supervision was called intrusive by the reader community
who argued that the wider community, who routinely committed atrocious deeds,
were not subjected to such investigations. However, in the aftermath of the
Lindenbury affair refugee readers had not been in a position to complain. They
had been happy to find sanctuary and accepted the edict.
Cleverly, the weekly sessions were designed that
refugee readers were supervised by resident readers and vice versa. Each set
was anxious to prove that their particular nation was more morally innocent
than the other. So these weekly supervision sessions had become ridiculously
intense and stressful as minute signs of corruption were hunted for. Keats was
beginning to feel sorry that he had raised the whole affair. Cherry would be
having her weekly interrogation and it made no sense to torment her with
history. So he spoke apologetically,
“I liked him, Dickens was one of my oldest friends and
it hurt to drive him off like that. We went back 50 years”.
Sherry nodded in sympathy,
“I know, I'm sorry, but there was a reason the doctor
kept him in a cybersleep state for 50 years and had little to do with his
health issue.”
Keats held her arm gently,
“I don't want to know but I expect you had valid
reasons. It doesn't make it easy for me but I have to respect your reading”.
Sherry responded by hugging him and Keats added,
“Knowledge is a terrible burden but like sight, if you
have it you can't go through life blindfold that would be intolerable too. I
expect the maxim if there are 10 qualities and an individual nine bad then we
should focus on the one good is difficult to sustain when you're a reader”.
This was said sympathetically. Sherry responded,
“Actually no, usually readers are constantly inspired
by what they pick up from others. Goodness is much more common than you think.
In fact during our early supervision, in the years after Lindenbury we were
taught ‘look inward and find what should not be there!’
Keats was bemused and asked,
“What did that entail!”
Cherry explained,
“Well, in terms of the old maxim it meant we should
read ourselves and find not the good qualities but the bad and use the
supervision to address it fully. A painful affair but deemed necessary given
what had just happened.”
Keats nodded and asked,
“So why did it change?”
“Well, given the fact that readers were constantly
coming across excellent ideals thoughts, actions and deeds in those they met
daily, weekly exposing of their own faults became too toxic for some. There was
an outbreak of suicides in case loads of over zealous supervision officials.”
Keats was horrified and enquired,
“But surely the reader supervisors would've picked up
on the dangerous thoughts the new maxim was triggering and then changed their
practice?”
Cherry nodded,
“Some moderated their approach immediately, many
resigned on principle, but most did not pick up on the suicidal leanings in
clients because it was only in the days after supervision when reflecting on
their own failings that things went downhill.”
“How long before things changed.” Keats asked.
“Four years.” Cherry answered.
“What!” Keats was shocked and Cherry elaborated,
“There was a change in the maxim. ‘Look inward and
find what should not be there, look outward and be inspired by what you find in
others’.”
Keats was angry and exploded,
“And that changed what exactly? It seems a half assed
adjustment after four years!”
Cherry answered calmly,
“Actually it was very transforming. The protection of
ourselves grew out of the learning from others. Until that point we were in a
judgment mode of others without knowing it. Being asked to look inward
critically meant we applied a toxic judgment mindset to ourselves. Once, it became
balanced with and appreciation of the good in those we met, readers found
themselves on a continual path of transformation. Now, during supervision the
focus is on reading if that positive progress is being made. Are lessons
learned in interactions with others being applied? Do our deeds match new modes
of thinking or lag behind.”
Keats could understand the difference this could make
and pointed out,
“So the weekly supervision is not so bad.”
Cherry paused before responding,
“Well, it depends, there are a few old school readers
still supervising and while using the new maximum cling to the old practices.”
Keats was aghast,
“What! You mean it still goes on, driving readers
over the edge?”
Cherry answered calmly,
“It's very rare now, all readers trained in the last
decade wouldn't dream of applying the old maxim. Even veteran readers are
undergoing retraining to address issues they may have. There is the odd old
school supervisor that sneak through the system like mine.”
Keats groaned,
“Oh Cherry, I didn't realize that's
what you faced each week!”
“It's not too bad, it's exhausting, but nowadays the
reader can usually pick up on first maxim supervisors and make sure they
protect themselves by applying the second maxim in practice during the week.”
Keats asked pointedly,
“But what about those that don't manage that?”
Cherry explained,
“We learned a lot from what went on before. Recently
published papers have indicated that even under the old maxim the majority of
readers behaved ethically in society. Provided they had enough social
interaction with healthy individuals. Rogue readers, like Louise Lindenbury,
tended to work in closed systems like prisons or mental institutions with very
disturbed and psychotic inmates. Such environments it turns out are not suitable
for readers. We need the fresh streams of normality to keep us from being
polluted.”
“Doesn't everyone!” asked Keats,
“But you can't imagine what it's like to read your
friend Dickens and know exactly what he's done and what he would like to do.
Imagine being surrounded by such people every minute of the day. You lose your
perspective and even the second Maxim is no help because there is little
inspiration from others to find. No, in such environments readers can only be
used to help determine sentences but only once in a lifetime.”
Keats asked,
“Have you ever been called in to do
sentencing?”
“No and I hope I never will.” answered Cherry, “It’s
the two things that every reader endures but never enjoys supervision and
sentencing.”
Keats nodded and added,
“It seems we almost live in
different worlds, you and I. I never really understood before.”
Cherry laughed,
“Actually for me living in a world where you cannot
pick up on what someone is thinking, seems terrifying. I could not survive in
your shoes for a day I would feel vulnerable and ignorant.”
Keats laughed in response and grimaced,
“And I couldn't last one hour in your shoes. Seeing
inside another’s head and knowing all the murky details would seem like a never
ending nightmare.”
Sherry grinned and pointed out,
“Well, it seems, none of us are tested beyond all
limits. Perhaps our greatest protection is being exactly who we are ending
grateful for that! And being especially appreciative of the goodness we find in
others.”
(to be continued)
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