The Machines that Surround Us
I don’t quite remember when it started. The blank stares, empty conversations, and drone-like movements, but one day it seemed like I was the only one of my species left. I should have seen this coming, with the amount of time I spend reading, you would have thought that I would have at least gotten a hint that people were changing so much around me, and in retrospect, I think I did, I just chose to ignore them. By the time I started putting two and two together, it was, of course, too late. In the years since my revelation, I have dedicated many hours to researching and studying this change in what materials are available and what foggy recollections still remain.
Hydrophanine was its name. A drug designed to treat severe neural degradation in coma or brain trauma patients. It was still in early trial phases when a group of college students got their hands on it and began experimenting with it, to great effect. They found that Hydrophanine had a funny effect on individuals who had a healthy brain; it stimulated the prefrontal cortex’s goal and reward system, making simple achievements result in a high and larger achievements, pure ecstasy. After a few doses, they found that its users seemed to develop a type of hyperfocus, doing anything they could to stimulate their reward center. This resulted in consumers ignoring friends, entertainment, and even, in more severe cases, necessities such as eating or sleeping. Seemingly, it took only a few months for this drug to spread around college campuses throughout Europe and North America. The hyperfocus and dopamine reward were enticing to those lazier or less productive students, and it became commonplace to see vacant expressions and soulless movements on every campus.
It was produced by a Swedish pharmaceutical company called Skandigen, which seemingly had some strong allies in the FDA and the US legislature. The drug had been approved in a record-breaking five months, passing over many of the regular tests that a drug of this nature would have to go through. A similar process followed quickly in most of Europe and Asia. What made this drug different from other focus drugs like Adderall or Ritalin was its abundance; in just months after its approval it could be found in any pharmacy, grocery store, or even gas station and for a relatively low price. This is probably when I begin to hear the first murmurs about it. I vaguely remember my colleagues mentioning a new drug that was “sweeping the kids away,” but I never regarded the threat as anything serious, or at least never as something that would affect me.
It was about two years following its approval that the vague drug I had disregarded really made its entrance into my life. I remember, I had gone to meet with one of my colleagues to discuss a book I had recently read and was met with a blank wall of a person. Nothing like the vibrant individual I had talked to just a few weeks ago, a monotone drawl and a vacant stare where I once saw creativity and genuine interest. After a few minutes of this dry conversation I confronted him, to which he simply replied that “he had become more efficient thanks to hydrophanine” and that “this conversation held no interest to him.” He taught for only three weeks after this conversation before quitting. Last thing I heard he had gotten a job as a sanitational worker, a less abstract, simpler job.
Following this every few weeks I watched another colleague disappear, and get replaced by a senseless, unthinking, machine, going through life systematically in pursuit of the next minor goal. Along with this, I watched with growing apprehension as my class sizes slowly dwindled, I had never been the most loved professor but there always seemed to be a loyal base of intellectuals and want-to-be philosophers who filled my seats and found my obscure lectures enticing. It seemed however, that they had found a greater calling with hydrophonine. The closing of the university hit me hard, not that I wasn't expecting but I had expected at least a few more years. The stated reason was funding lapses, and bureaucratic issues, but in my growing awareness I knew the truth that not enough minds were left free of the ensnaring claws of hydrophinine.
I spent most of my time during the day at the library following my termination. I found it to be one of the few places that still felt somewhat normal. True, it was more sparsely populated then it had just a few years ago, but it seemed that it was one of the last places that remained free from the drones that seemed to roam the streets anywhere I went. At night I often found it difficult to sleep and took to roaming the streets, looking for something, maybe it was a sense of normalcy, or a purpose to fill the gaping hole that unemployment had brought me. Either way, these walks let me watch as everything beautiful seemed to disappear around me, the parks were paved over, murals allowed to crumble, and edifices that once filled the skyline replaced by dull, efficient, boxes.
The day I knew it was over was when they decided to knock down the Met, to build another warehouse or parking lot. A group of us still aware and free thinking individuals had gathered to protest the senseless destruction. Our belief that we still had a voice and that we could actually make a difference was optimistic, I of course know better now. When the police opened fire on us I watched as my few remaining compatriots seemed to crumple and fall around me in pools of their own life. I don’t blame the police or construction workers for what they did, hydrophonine had long ago replaced their humanity with only carnal desire. I hid among the corpses of my friends and cried over their bodies as the blast charges crumbled the ancient museum behind me.
I sit here today, in the library I once considered to be the only normal place left in the world, and look around to see only empty chairs and the ghost of a species. At the end of day, the human race didn’t end in a cathartic blast, but rather a slow, efficient, trickle, I silent genocide that only I am left to witness. I don’t know if I am the only person left that remembers what it is to be human, but I can’t stand to be in a world where I am surrounded by others but completely alone. I hope that one day the creatures that were once human break away from their chemical enslaver and wake up from the haze they live in, reclaim their lost beauty, and a world now forgotten.
**Note: This is my first time posting a story or really finishing one, I’m looking for any feedback or ideas any of you have about anything related to the story. Thanks!!