Communal Thought
Author : Patrick Condon
Do you remember what it was like before?
No.
I don’t think so.
Do you?
We knew our civilization had peaked. The few world leaders left concluded that Communal Thought was the only solution. It is the one thing preventing our demise.
I go through life hearing thoughts that are not my own. Everyone does. I hear the non-contextual ramblings of those around me every hour of the day.
…coffee…
…twenty-two…
…May 13, 2117…
I came from the facility with a new spark in my eyes. I could feel the emotions of millions at any one moment: an infant’s cry, a lover’s kiss, the striking epiphanies of modern philosophers. Our link to the world is unimaginable.
…power can be…
…population is stable…
…substitution for…
Grand ideas and solutions came forth from seemingly unfit minds. We are in a new age of boundless progression. Communal Thought has been the greatest independent advancement for mankind in hundreds of years.
William is…
Fourteen dollars and…
I don’t care for…
Maybe it’s not right.
…truth in the—
What’s not right?
Our thoughts were once our own. Should we allow the Commune full input and output on what we do?
Hm?
I don’t understand.
What do you mean?
We weren’t always like this. We used to live in a world of life and freedom. Communal Thought was established to bring us into the Golden Age, where we would thrive as the Commune of Humanity. The Human Being.
We are progressing.
We are thriving.
We are surviving.
We used to be free.
I concentrated on the word. Free.
Free.
Do you understand? In our effort to move forward, Humanity has lost it’s… humanity. We are being monitored by familiar overseers; the entire world is an audience to everything we do. We aren’t free.
Once again I let the word fill my mind.
Free.
I felt the world fall out of motion. A wave spread from person to person, town to town, country to country. Thoughts felt more and more distant and foreign as the regions of the world gained my individual awareness. The world was my audience.
Silence.
Free.
Free.
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