He sat in his plush-cushioned tattered brown recliner, his glossy corneas reflecting the images he graciously consumed, devouring every image and his ears every sound. His gut was filled with copious amounts of sugar, carbohydrates, and fat that kept him glued to his chair, feeling winded and tired any time he attempted to rise out of his coma. He lay there, eyeing the luminescent screen which displayed images that drew out brief but frequent drips of dopamine from his hypothalamus that kept him glued to his recliner and content in his life, or his non-life.
As the pictures danced across the screen, relieving his mind of the burden of having to create happy and pleasurable images, they had slowly come to replace his mind entirely, depicting every bit of happiness, sadness, memory, and creative juice it was once in charge of creating. His mind had happily regressed as all the torturous activities of laughing, crying, thinking, and speaking were done for him. The easy dopamine drip was effortless and made the instant pleasure an easily chosen alternative to delayed earned accomplishment.
He had outsourced his mind’s work to that of a select few, a few he’d never seen or met but had been told to trust since he was young but was never made aware of or questioned their intentions. He was filled with sugars, sweets, instantly gratifying images, and in exchange was relieved of the pain of having to think or the ability to do so. His forefathers possessed this ability but he’d long forgotten their struggles, their triumphs, or their warnings. Rather, he let them fall away, dribble out like the saliva that ran from his lip onto his clothing made of billboards.
He sat in his plush-cushioned tattered brown recliner, his glossy corneas reflecting the images he graciously consumed, devouring every image and his ears every sound.
Drew Schroeder 