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Part I: people and dreams

 

It doesn’t do what it promises, it fades away if you’re not careful, and not everyone can afford it. Love is the alchemy of the modern age.

(i. invention)

The world is black and white, really. So what I’m going to tell you should be easy to explain. I believe that your eyes see as mine do. Why else would you keep reading? Still, I guess that memories are always blurry, and if you want to see them right, you just have to close your eyes. So from time to time just close your eyes as if this were a dream, and then I’m sure we’ll be seeing the same things.

It’s too bad that you have to close your eyes to see your memories, or to remember how the world was before. But the world is black and white. I’m not sure why someone came along and changed things. It’s strange that someone way back when made color. Why did color have to be invented anyway?

Personally, I don’t think color is such a marvelous invention. People were doing fine without it before, but I guess that isn’t the point. Color must have been a technical marvel at the time. At first it wasn’t great, but as the process improved more and more things became colored: the sky, the trees, the ground. And of course the people, too. It certainly didn’t take long for people to color themselves.

Today a person’s color can tell you so much about them. People turn red when they are embarrassed. They are yellow when they are frightened. The saddest people are always a shade of blue. But all this color isn’t real: it’s just red and yellow and blue mixed together. It’s what we see with our eyes. It’s what we want to see because we weren’t happy with black and white. I guess we weren’t happy with grey, either. But people are grey, really.

The whole thing is actually a lot like sound. I don’t know why someone had to go ahead and invent sound. The world was a much more peaceful place until we were drowned with all these noises. There were enough shades of silence to please everyone, I thought. We used to enjoy the quiet hush of sunset. I remember the utter stillness of a morning sky. And of course, you could always share a comfortable silence with someone near.

But like color, sound has gone into everything – even things that don’t need it. To think that now even the ocean makes noise. It storms and it roars and it crashes. Even worse is the deafening roar of a waterfall. It’s just water of course. It’s the same as the water in your bath; it’s the same as the water in your eyes. Water doesn’t need a sound. I thought it was fine the way it was.

It doesn’t stop there, either. People themselves were the first victims of this new invention. People were strangely quick to give themselves voices, I think. Now, not only do we have to look at them (in full color), we have to listen to them. I’m afraid we’ll never be able to get rid of all these sounds. It’s a whole industry. And you can never get rid of an industry unless you make something bigger and cheaper. But really, there is nothing cheaper, nor more abundant, than the human voice.

On its own that wouldn’t be so bad, except that nowadays people speak much more than they listen. And even with all these sounds, hardly anyone tells you anything interesting. They talk of grocery lists and weather reports, not wish lists or fantasies. No one even bothers to share their dreams anymore.

I.i. invention
i. invention
The love you find these days resembles a drug, just like something the Doctor might give me. It’s like those pills that make you thinner, the drinks that make you stronger, or the creams that make you younger. They’re all schemes – even love.

Of course, you had to be invented too. Just like color and sound, you came into this world quite suddenly and unexpectedly. It’s clear that all inventions affect the world, but not all inventions are useful. Like color and sound, each person can change the way everyone else sees the world. Every person is filled with a hope and wonder about this curious world we live in. But maybe you can invent something we could really use. I have hope that you could make something truly good.

Love. Yes, why don’t you try to invent love? Don’t tell the Doctor though! She gets upset whenever I mention the word. She doesn’t understand that I mean real love, not the stuff we’re given today. The love you find these days resembles a drug, just like something the Doctor might give me. It’s like those pills that make you thinner, the drinks that make you stronger, or the creams that make you younger. They’re all schemes – even love. It doesn’t do what it promises, it fades away if you’re not careful, and not everyone can afford it. Love is the alchemy of the modern age. Of course people have tried to make real love before. And they continue trying, but only some ever succeed. Certainly it hasn’t spread to everyone yet.

Did you know that even the government has experimented in love? When the government tried though, there was too much waste. They let it out like radioactive waste, releasing into the environment strange new pollutions. That’s where pain and misery, rejection and neglect come from – these are the waste products of malformed love. They won’t admit they’ve tried though. That’s the government for you: they talk a lot about love but they still don’t even know what it is. You can never trust anyone who talks a lot about anything.

Just maybe, though, I’m hoping if you invented love we could go back to the way it was. People might just be happy with black and white again. They wouldn’t need color to paint themselves. And the world might even go back to being quiet. The people would be proud of their silent grey. Can you imagine? All the lovely grey people in love. Because love is grey, really.

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