johnnynotsid

                It stings a bit, and everything sways. If you have your eyes open, you can see it, too. But usually, when they put your head in those clamps, there’s the urge to close them. There are three parts of the main instrument; two curve digits tightened onto each side of your skull, and one with a small, flat circle that goes on top. All three are connected to a small computer, overseen by the technician. When you go in, you tend to keep your eyes glued onto her until the final part is attached and you hear the whir of the machine. Then you shut your eyes; out of fear, out of excitement, bracing yourself for the pain you convince yourself you’ll feel. But once, I managed to pry them open. Everything moved slowly, hazily. It was not unlike the drugs they sometimes give us for stimulation.

                After you are done, you feel the change. It’s not exactly unpleasant. Not for long, anyways. Especially if it’s not your first time. You feel it, though, the loss inside your brain. You feel you’ve forgotten something or some things; which, of course, you have, but it’s more than that. When you normally try to remember something, you’ve forgotten something in your conscious memory. But this probes your subconscious memory as well. It has to. Part of the reason this is done is to preserve what the human brain forgets.

                They don’t let you go into a panic, or worry about it of course. After it’s done, you’re presented with a full list of what they took.

                Your ideas. All the ones you’ve had since your last gleaning, right there before you on paper. The technician hands it over with a smile after she’s printed it out for you.

                I have mixed feelings as I look at the list before me. On one hand, I’m somewhat impressed and proud of the lofty list before me. Has it ever occurred to you how many ideas you come up with in three days’ time? On anything and everyone.

                Some of course, are not too impressive, such as, ‘Mint Flavored Soda.’ Some are simply cringe-worthy, like ‘Game involving live fish.’ But then, some make you feel great about yourself.

                ‘Embryonic extraction and incubation for unwanted pregnancies.’

                An alternative to abortion. You’d think by now they’d have perfected such a technology. They can extract our designs and inspirations from our heads word for word but not unwanted pre-humans from a uterus without killing them?

                “Would you like to take that back to your apartment with you?” The technician asks.  I shrug.

                It won’t make much of a difference if I do or not. My part in this is done. My thoughts will be categorized and evaluated by teams of thinkers. Ones which are useless, harmful or have been imagined before will be cut. The ones that survive will be given teams of thinkers and producers to be enhanced, steamlined, and developed into whatever I came up with. If I was lucky, I would be on that team, but that probably would not happen. Anything else I came up with to perfect anything would probably just be extracted and sent off to whoever was carrying out the initial notion. Besides, that almost never happened.

                The government has found once they’ve put a Creative on the board to work on their own thoughts, they can’t come up with anything. Once an idea has been extracted, it doesn’t matter if you know what it is afterward, it is almost impossible come up with anything to add. No one knows why.

                And that’s what bothers me as I scan the list. Every little clever bit on there that I can take pride in is a bittersweet experience.

                I know that over half of what is on this paper probably passed through my mind for about half a second before it got lost. I know that without this, none of those things would be preserved. I know that I am supposed to be a benefit to the human race because I could generate all this intellectual output. I, like, the other Creatives, was chosen as a small child to be one. I was tested, just like the rest of them. My ideas went beyond childish imagination. I was a singular thinker in an extreme way. This is what I am for. That is why I come to have this done every two or three days. I spark the future.

                But all that I’ve been hearing for so long that it’s ingrained, and that’s no longer what I think about anymore as I look down on the clipboard before, my thoughts in a clear, black font and spaced out. They’re all so simple-looking, and it’s hard to appreciate my own importance. I have been squeezed dry and will be again soon, so that others may develop and pursue my own dreams and plans. I have a deep sense that these things should not be there unless I put them there myself. They’re mine, and I should be the one to pursue them myself. They belong to me. But now they’re taken.

                And maybe it is better this way. Maybe what the officials and the pamphlets say is true. Maybe I can’t be trusted to follow my own thoughts and make them a reality myself. Maybe my artistic mindset is too unpredictable and inefficient. Maybe it’s better to preserve and extract the fruits of my brain waves for the people who have experience and enough drive to follow through on them. To make them come to be. Maybe it’s them who should make my dreams come true because they are more efficient.

                Maybe I should get over this “They stole them from me!” mindset. It’s selfish. But even if I did, I have to wonder, what if I wasn’t done with what’s on this document? What if they get passed over because I couldn’t think them through before they were harvested from me?

                What if I don’t like what I came up with?

                What if… What if… What if…

                My whole purpose in life, according to the government, is to come up with What ifs. I’m special, after all. What comes from me can end up determining so much; how money is spent, what is invented, what laws are made.

                I am so powerful, yet so powerless.

                I give the world its intelligence, its raw materials for progress.

                I am a Creative