What happens when all emotions are controlled with a Pill in the "New Age"?
The Lullaby Pill
I remember crying...
Three maybe four years old, and there was my mother taking me from the room. We had guests and I was being a problem. Perhaps you could say I was being a child?
My mother had a way of tugging me along that made it look like I was walking, but if I picked up my feet, I would have been moving just the same.
When we got up stairs to my room, mother did something she had probably done a thousand times before… She gave me a pill and boy was I glad.
You see, I was scared, I had never cried before.
Well, not that I could remember. Ten minutes later all the tears were gone and we joined the guests down stairs.
My Aunt Sue asked me if I was okay. I said with a big smile “Yes!”
Then she said something that to this day I’ll never forget
“Thank heavens for those pills. I don’t know how we ever raised children without them.”
The next day we went to the doctor and he was happy to give me some new pills. Something for a “growing young boy”.
At age thirteen I got angry and threw a baseball through my bedroom window. The next day I got pills for a “growing young man.”
I was a third generation zombie. My parents had become convinced like so many others that your child simply didn’t have a chance in this world without a little help from the “lullaby pill”.
This is my version of the Lullaby.
Take a pill baby, there don’t you cry.
Keep you cheeks smiling, mom never lies.
The government loves you and daddy too
Just do what we say and your dreams will come true.
After all, how else could a child be expected to do calculus by age five or sit still why studying neuro-chemistry on a beautiful spring day in the sixth grade?
Oddly enough the one emotion that I clearly remember as a child is shame or embarrassment. It seems some emotions proved to be useful tools. Accomplishment could certainly be felt but never to the point of satisfaction. You were always left with the need to do better. And since doing better not only applied to yourself but to your children, any child that behaved in a manor resembling a child was quickly placed on a strict regimen of pills “for there own good.” It’s a shame I had to go ahead and cry on the day I was born.
The “Age of Oblivion” meant almost nothing to me. I was taking pills.
I wish I could say that I lived through it, but at the time I wasn’t living.
Friends, neighbors, and even family members fell ill. I just kept taking pills.
Who would have thought that humans really could not survive without emotion? It seemed so perfect.
No one even considered the fatal consequence as a bad outcome. In my sedated state I would have told you “My friend got sick and died” just as easily as I say “good-morning.” I was oblivious in the “Age of Oblivion.”
We all knew that, eventually, the pills would kill us… But we were all addicts.
Who could handle the emotion and all the vulnerability we had without tranquilizers?
When I was fifteen, my mother fell ill to the tragic form of apathy caused by pills. No one really thought much of it at the time. It’s what happened to everyone sooner or later.
Still, my mother managed to leave me one last request after she passed. It was in the form of letter. On the outside she wrote, “Take no pills for a week then open”.
For what must have been the longest day of my life. I took no pills. As the emotions slipped back into my consciousness, I wondered why my mother would punish me with such a harsh request. When the pain became too much, I opened the letter.
The letter read, "I love you".
I had feelings I never had before. I cried for hours. With each tear I felt more liberated. I was free from the nothingness of an emotionless soul.
To this day, I’ve never taken a pill that would improve or depress my mental state. Some days are good and some days are bad.
I love them both.
The Lullaby Pill
I remember crying...
Three maybe four years old, and there was my mother taking me from the room. We had guests and I was being a problem. Perhaps you could say I was being a child?
My mother had a way of tugging me along that made it look like I was walking, but if I picked up my feet, I would have been moving just the same.
When we got up stairs to my room, mother did something she had probably done a thousand times before… She gave me a pill and boy was I glad.
You see, I was scared, I had never cried before.
Well, not that I could remember. Ten minutes later all the tears were gone and we joined the guests down stairs.
My Aunt Sue asked me if I was okay. I said with a big smile “Yes!”
Then she said something that to this day I’ll never forget
“Thank heavens for those pills. I don’t know how we ever raised children without them.”
The next day we went to the doctor and he was happy to give me some new pills. Something for a “growing young boy”.
At age thirteen I got angry and threw a baseball through my bedroom window. The next day I got pills for a “growing young man.”
I was a third generation zombie. My parents had become convinced like so many others that your child simply didn’t have a chance in this world without a little help from the “lullaby pill”.
This is my version of the Lullaby.
Take a pill baby, there don’t you cry.
Keep you cheeks smiling, mom never lies.
The government loves you and daddy too
Just do what we say and your dreams will come true.
After all, how else could a child be expected to do calculus by age five or sit still why studying neuro-chemistry on a beautiful spring day in the sixth grade?
Oddly enough the one emotion that I clearly remember as a child is shame or embarrassment. It seems some emotions proved to be useful tools. Accomplishment could certainly be felt but never to the point of satisfaction. You were always left with the need to do better. And since doing better not only applied to yourself but to your children, any child that behaved in a manor resembling a child was quickly placed on a strict regimen of pills “for there own good.” It’s a shame I had to go ahead and cry on the day I was born.
The “Age of Oblivion” meant almost nothing to me. I was taking pills.
I wish I could say that I lived through it, but at the time I wasn’t living.
Friends, neighbors, and even family members fell ill. I just kept taking pills.
Who would have thought that humans really could not survive without emotion? It seemed so perfect.
No one even considered the fatal consequence as a bad outcome. In my sedated state I would have told you “My friend got sick and died” just as easily as I say “good-morning.” I was oblivious in the “Age of Oblivion.”
We all knew that, eventually, the pills would kill us… But we were all addicts.
Who could handle the emotion and all the vulnerability we had without tranquilizers?
When I was fifteen, my mother fell ill to the tragic form of apathy caused by pills. No one really thought much of it at the time. It’s what happened to everyone sooner or later.
Still, my mother managed to leave me one last request after she passed. It was in the form of letter. On the outside she wrote, “Take no pills for a week then open”.
For what must have been the longest day of my life. I took no pills. As the emotions slipped back into my consciousness, I wondered why my mother would punish me with such a harsh request. When the pain became too much, I opened the letter.
The letter read, "I love you".
I had feelings I never had before. I cried for hours. With each tear I felt more liberated. I was free from the nothingness of an emotionless soul.
To this day, I’ve never taken a pill that would improve or depress my mental state. Some days are good and some days are bad.
I love them both.