Pensive 1.0

A Story by sarahwolf

Would you choose reality over a dream?

“Geyo, get off the screen,” a mild voice says. Geyo blinked, giving off an 8-year-old’s genuine bewilderment. The pony stayed within patting distance, a few feet away in the grass. “But Daddy look, he’s right there!” Geyo protested.

The small boy, gangly but earnest, strained to get a closer look at the pony. The shetland grazed calmy in the grass. It didn’t appear to notice him. Tall trees bordered the field and swayed in the distance. A gust of wind blew past and tickled the hair on Geyo’s face. Spellbound, he brushed it aside and reached for the pony’s mane.

When Geyo’s fingers neared the screen, an intense prickling sensation spread from his fingertips up his arm like soft lightening. Geyo yelped and immediately withdrew his hand. The spot where he had touched the screen turned blurry, the pony’s hindquarters briefly swirling in a storm of pixels before returning to normal.

“Geyo, what did I tell you?” His father’s voice, sounding amused. “The Pensive is not made to touch.” He glanced away. “Now let’s go home before we’re kicked out of the electronics store.”

The idea of a Pensive was first introduced a few years earlier, back in November of 2040. A paper was published in National Science by a popular scientist named Ryan Paltos. Deep in his Stanford bio-labs, Paltos had somehow created a new form of life. Close up, it looked like a speck of dust. So small you needed a Leika microscope with 10000x optical zoom just to see it.

The organism had no eyes, no ears, no form of sensory input; just a clear gray gel that simply absorbed. Miraculously, it captured everything. Neuo-records showed a perfect record of all external stimuli emitting like a pulse from the organism’s core. When hooked to a transmitter, the organization could send perfect audio and visual signals to any device. Plop one in the middle of a grassy field, and it could project a perfect view of the surrounding tree. A perfect view into any part of Earth? This was a revolutionary discovery.

So Daddy, can I get one? Pleeease? Geyo was practically bouncing in his ecoseat. The straps on either side strained as the child peered out the car window. Ever since attempting to pat the pony at the electronics store, Geyo had become obsessed with the idea. His father just smiled and maneuvered into their parking space. Geyo was home.

When Geyo woke the next morning, he found a curious present waiting on his bed. Could it be? Geyo shrieked in joy: it was a Pensive of his own. He tore off the packaging and felt the rough wooden edges of the frame. When turned off, the Pensive looked curiously like a block of wood. But an airy voice sounded from its center: Welcome to Pensive, a Ryan Paltos Creation.

Captivated by the device, Geyo watched as pixels swirled and slowly revealed the Pensive’s natural scene. He squinted his eyes, searching for any sign of the pony from the store.

But the Shetland was gone.

Instead, what emerged was a beautiful stream of water, slowly making its way down a grassy knoll and into a river basin. The most gorgeous otter that Geyo had ever seen was sun-bathing on the flat stones. His short fur rippled in the breeze. When a puff blew out the Pensive and into Geyo’s room, it brought with it the smell of damp grass and warm sunshine. The clouds slowly shifted in the sky, causing constellations of light to shine across Geyo’s hands, now folded across his lap. The light felt gentle and warm.

A soft chuckle, now gradually fading in the hallway. “Enjoy your new world, son. Come to me if you need anything.” Geyo closed his eyes, sitting with the forest.

Geyo was dozing in the afternoon sun when a small, high-pitched shrill burst through the Pensive. In a groggy daze, Geyo sat upright and tried to comprehend what was going on. What he saw made him panic. Across the green grassy knoll, now quiet except for the swaying breeze, the frantic otter now dashed, closely followed by an enormous red-tailed hawk. Together they sped like a dotted line all around the cove, first into the corner with the grassy stalks, then splashing into the water. “No!” Cried Geyo. “No! Please, stop! Don’t eat him!” But the hawk was hungry and intent on his next meal. Eventually the otter rounded a corner, and the two of them commenced fighting off screen. Geyo rocked back and forth as the otter’s yelps turned into screams, then whimpers....and then a terrible silence. Geyo burst into tears. This can’t be real, this can’t be real, he reminded himself. Except it was.

“Geyo, what happened here?” Geyo looked up to see his father’s concerned face. Mumbling through shaky breaths, Geyo unfolded the morning’s events. “And I was telling him to stop, Daddy, but now the otter is dead.” Geyo’s whimpers turned silent as he saw a shadow of fury cross his father’s face. The Pensive was swifty lifted and carried away.

Geyo, still a bit shaken, crawled back into his bed and burrowed in the covers. He looked out the bedroom window and into the garden below. Outside, birds of all shapes and colors were crowing in the trees. Geyo wondered what would happen if a large hawk decided to pursue one of them. To the birds, it would mean death, but the hawk it would be another meal -- another chance at life. Was it really so bad? He buried his head underneath the sheets.

“June 27th, 2042: an important announcement by the California Board of Children’s Welfare, section 501(c). The Board and its Regents, with all the powers they due possess, announce the mandatory introduction of “Serenity Locks” for the Pensive, which may be turned on to protect our children from witnessing horrors and natural disasters.” Ryan Paltos finished reading the executive order and slumped in his lab chair, feeling torn and a bit defeated. What was the point in reality if everyone wanted to avoid it?

“Geyo, are you in there?” Geyo tentatively peered above the covers. His dad emerged from the door. “Don’t worry, everything is fixed now.” He held out a package. It was the same Pensive as before, or at least it looked the same. The only notable difference was a large pink knob that looked like a glowing lollipop, protruding from its side. “This is a Serenity Lock, son. It blurs out all monsters and scary things so you don’t have to see them.”

“But the hawk’s not a monster, Daddy. He’s just an animal looking for food.” Geyo said.

His father stopped short and looked confused. “Geyo, I thought the hawk made you cry. It scared you, did it not? You’ll be happy now, just wait and see.”

Geyo nodded, still comprehending what it meant. He placed the Pensive against his bedroom wall and did not touch it for a month.

Light streamed through the trees, piercing their branches like sabers in the blazing afternoon. At the center of the scene, a male iguana basked on a magnificent rock, slowly soaking up the day. Blazing sunlight poured through the Pensive, making the bedroom covers hot to the touch.

It was a few months since Geyo had been gifted his first Pensive. His new one, now showing a desert instead of a forest, lay propped on his desk. Geyo would glance up periodically while reading his new textbooks. The lizard shifted positions and followed the sun as it arced throughout the sky. It was a fine clockwork of nature.

His dad entered the room just as a large black snake entered the frame. Slimy and oily skin glinted in the afternoon sun, looking like an impossibly smooth knife as it slowly curved through the sand. “Geyo!” His dad exclaimed in alarm. “Why is that snake here? Where’s your Serenity Lock?” His dad searched frantically for the pink knob, only to find it missing. In panic, he searched in the room for something to cover the Pensive, maybe an old blanket.

“I took off the lock a long time ago,” said Geyo, “See? It’s alright.” Within the Pensive, the snake slithered past the iguana’s rock and continued on his way. “No animal is a monster in real life, Dad. They’re just searching for the basics, like water and food.”

“But why tolerate such horrible things?” His dad protested. “Please let me reinstall the Serenity Lock so you don’t have to see this again.”

“No,” said Geyo firmly, “You don’t understand: I don’t want that lock. I chose to remove it and will never put it on again. The Serenity Lock removes problems so we don’t have to look at them. But I want to look at them, dad. I want to know how our world works. I want to understand animals, and natural-selection, and nature." I’m reading all about it right here,” and he gestured to his biology books, laying across his desk. “The mainland iguana is a temperate animal that loves sun and trilobites. The African snake is a nocturnal creature that subsists on desert fauna and is currently endangered in parts of Northern California. I’m reading about them, and I want to be able to see them too. Real life is beautiful, dad. Even with all the pain and struggling and death. When I removed the Serenity Lock, I chose to be awake instead of dreaming. And I’m happy with that choice.”