Mind Your Thoughts

I was a loyal follower of the law until I found an old book in my locker. The cover was too faded to make out the title, but the pale hands holding an apple were barely visible. I panicked at the sight of it and tossed it in my bag. I couldn’t just leave it there to be found in the weekly locker checks, so I took it home.

Back in my room, I crouched on my hands and knees, popped open a loose floorboard, and hid the book there. I had every intention of letting it rot beneath my floor. It turns out, I don’t deal with temptation as well as I’d like.

I was cutting it close that night. I kept telling myself, just one more, but I continued turning pages long after I promised I’d stop. Soon, I no longer had the option when I heard the front door open and close downstairs. I rolled out of bed, crouched down beside it, and placed the book back under the loose floorboard.

I replaced the board just as I heard footsteps on the stairs and my dad’s voice. “Alyssa?” I turned off the lamp on my nightstand and hopped back into bed. “Aly?” I pretended to be asleep when he came in to check on me. Guilt rushed through me when Dad walked over and planted a kiss on my forehead. “Sweet dreams, honey.”

I waited until I could no longer hear his footsteps in the hall before I retrieved the book and continued reading. Eventually, my eyes grew heavy, but I was terrified of falling asleep with the contraband. I didn’t know what Dad would do if he caught me with it, but the options ranged from ostracization to prison. So, I put it away and fell asleep with the story unfinished.

***

“It’s another beautiful day,” the television declared as I descended the stairs the next morning. “The high will be a perfect 75 degrees and expect to see the sunshine all day with no cloud cover.” Perfect. Exactly like every other day. I glanced over at the screen as I walked past it to the kitchen. Dad’s co-worker, Kendra, smiled back at me. “Enjoy your day and remember,” She was still smiling, but there was a new edge to her tone, “mind your thoughts.” Her voice carried the subtle hint of a threat.

The World War of 3083 was a turning point in history. Technology had advanced to the point where the world was drowning in information. Each person was free to scavenge through data and come to their own understanding. People latched onto their truth so thoroughly that the mere suggestion of disagreement was eventually considered an act of violence. It didn’t take long for factions to emerge and for real violence to begin.

Technology continued advancing, as Silicon Valley wanted to be the world’s savior. For all their intelligence, they didn’t understand the simple fact that you cannot be healed by the same atmosphere that made you sick. An experiment that was intended to help everyone communicate and discuss their thoughts more diplomatically ended up bringing thoughts to life. Anything that was imagined by enough people became a part of everyone’s reality. The world became a never-ending nightmare.

As a result, books, movies, television shows, paintings, basically all art and entertainment were considered weapons of war. The government had no option but to outlaw anything and everything that influenced thoughts.

Or so the story goes.

“Morning,” I said, giving Dad a quick smile as I headed to the coffee maker.

“Morning, sweetheart.” He was already equipped for the cameras in a navy suit with his dark hair slicked back. “You knocked out pretty early last night.”

“Yeah. Long day.” I stared into my coffee to avoid his eyes. “I have a math midterm today, so I studied all day yesterday.”

“Good for you.” He sounded proud, which made me feel worse. Since Mom died, Dad and I only had each other, and I was lying to him. I walked over and sat down beside him. “I am certain your hard work will pay off.”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “Mind your thoughts,” I joked.

He gave a wry laugh. “I really don’t think the world will mind if my daughter aces her midterm.” He grabbed his dishes from the table and walked them to the sink. “I’ll come home earlier this afternoon. We can play chess or put together a puzzle.

There are rumors that, before the war, people from all over the world could play games together through some sort of wireless communication system. Our options are much more limited these days.

I showed him my practiced smile. “Sounds fun.” It wasn’t easy to keep the sarcasm off that reply.

***

“Everyone put your notes and textbooks away,” Mrs. Johns said, looking around the room to ensure her instructions were being followed. “You will have the entire class period to finish the exam.” She began handing small stacks of papers to the first person of each row. “If you finish early, you may leave. Good luck.”

As soon as the blonde in front of me passed the papers over her shoulder, I began figuring out the first question. I had four chapters in my book left and I wanted to finish it before Dad arrived home.

I hadn’t completely lied to him. I spent half the day yesterday studying for the midterm. This allowed me to move through the test at a moderate speed without too many issues. That is, until I felt someone’s eyes on me. I ignored the burn of the gaze until I couldn’t stand it any longer and whipped my head to the right. A pair of light green eyes met mine. I didn’t recognize him, so I couldn’t put a name to the eyes. Where had he come from?

Unlike most decent people, he didn’t look away when I caught him staring. He smirked at me instead and one side of my lip curled before I looked away. If staring a hole into the side of my face was his idea of foreplay, I wasn’t the one for him. I focused my attention back on my test. I thought I heard him snicker, but I couldn’t be sure.

I rushed through the rest of the test to get out of the classroom that suddenly felt much too small for the both of us. I flipped back to the first page, signed my name at the top, and walked to the front of the room. I tried to seem nonchalant, but I probably didn’t pull it off.

Mrs. Johns accepted the paper from me and smiled. “Thank you.”

“Welcome” The staring boy quickly became of very little concern to me as I reached my car and prepared to spend some time with my story.

***

I had anticipated feeling satisfied, accomplished even, but reaching the last page of the book left me depressed. Even the somewhat happily ever after ending wasn’t fulfilling for me. There were so many questions that the author hadn’t answered. The worst thing was the knowledge that the odds of ever reading another book were slim to none. I would never again fall in love with a story, with characters. I would never lose myself in another book. I found myself wishing I had never opened the thing in the first place.

After a mostly silent dinner, I knew Dad was suspicious. He kept eyeing me as we took turns placing pieces into the half-finished puzzle on our hardwood floor. “How did the exam go?”

I shrugged. “Fine.” I could see he wasn’t satisfied by my answer. “It didn’t go quite as well as I would have liked, but it could have been worse.”

He placed a corner piece and looked up at me. “Is that what has you down? Because there is plenty of time left in the semester to make up for one grade.”

“You’re right.” I faked a smile and pretended to struggle to find the correct place for the piece I was holding. We’d put this puzzle together dozens of times. “I just … I think I would have been more satisfied if I had more time with it.”

“Didn’t you have the entire class period?” he asked, totally missing the subtext.

I sighed, knowing there was no way to talk to him about what was really bothering me. “I will pace myself better next time,” I said, hoping I would get such an opportunity.

“You won’t really need math in your career. If you still plan to follow in my footsteps, anyway.”

I nodded and he smiled widely. It was a decision he made for me a long time ago. “So, just get through this semester and I’ll set you up with a job at the station.” He reached over and placed a hand on my cheek. “Everything will be fine.”

I tried to remind myself that he was only doing what he thought was best. He was trying to set me up with a comfortable, law abiding life. He was only trying to be a responsible father. He couldn’t know that I had stories in my head now.

***

Later, in bed, I was holding the book and contemplating reading it again. This time, I was searching for anything new concerning the book. I took the glossy jacket off the book and noticed a handwritten number written in very small print where the jacket had been. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, sure it was a number from before the war, but I snuck downstairs and called it anyway.

Despite the reassurances I gave myself of how ridiculous the idea of someone answering the phone was, my heart still beat a little faster as the line began to ring. I curled the telephone cord around my index finger. After seven or eight rings, I laughed at myself and hung up the phone. I began walking back upstairs, but when my foot hit the third step, I heard a click and the dim room was lit up by the television.

“Hello, Dissident,” a robotic voice announced. I froze in place, looking around the room, wondering if my house was about to be raided. “We hope you enjoyed your introduction to the forbidden.”

The book.

I walked slowly to stand in front of the television. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to see or, even better, what I hoped to see, but there was only black and white noise there. The voice continued.

“We enjoy freedoms you cannot imagine. We do what we want. We say what we want. And most importantly, we think what we want. We are Dissenters.”

I stood there, unable to move, wondering if I was imagining the voice. They were risking their freedom, their life, as they were saying these things. And they were flaunting their disregard for the law on a stranger’s television in the middle of the night. I had finally cracked.

The black and white noise faded into a person’s face. He had brown hair and light green eyes. He was the staring boy from math class. He smirked that same smirk from before. “You’re already one of us,” he stated with his normal voice and a shrug, “so join us.”

The television turned off on its own and I was left to make the biggest decision of my life.

***

I had barely slept at all when my alarm went off the next morning. I kept hearing it repeatedly in my head, you’re already one of us. I couldn’t help but think it was true, I had broken the rules, but I was far from a world changing revolutionary. I felt my rebellion was more of a weakness than a political stance.

I was ashamed of it.

This shame followed me all the way to school. I felt like everyone knew my dirty little secret. I kept my head and hand down, careful not to draw any extra attention to myself. That is, until I saw him walking in the halls. He walked with his head held high. He acted as if nothing had happened, as if nothing had changed. I walked up to him and shoved him into an open classroom. There were plenty of those these days since they had banned a lot of subjects that used to be taught.

“Whoa!” He was taller and bigger, so it wasn’t lost on me that he was allowing himself to be moved. I shoved him away from me and shut the door behind us.

“What the hell is going on?” His calm demeanor didn’t make sense and made my voice carry an anxious tone. “I could have you arrested for at least three felonies and you are acting like nothing happened.”

“You could.” He leaned against the teacher’s desk and crossed his arms. “But you won’t.”

“You don’t know me! You don’t know what I’ll do!” I had a horrible thought and gasped. “That’s why you put the book in my locker. You made me an accomplice!”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Calm down, Nancy Drew.” He ignored my confused expression. “No one is trying to incriminate you here.” He bounced off the desk and took a few steps towards me. “If I wanted to do that, I could have told someone to search your locker after I put the book there.”

“So, it was you!”

He shrugged as if to say of course. “As for your threat” He leaned down to put his face closer to mine. “I think, if you were planning on selling me out, you would have done it already.” He stood back up and began to walk past me.

“Why me?”

He stopped and turned around to face me again. “I mean, you could have put that book in anybody’s locker. So, why me?”

“We put a couple of books in lockers at random.” he replied quickly. “You were the only one that actually called the number.”

“Oh.” I must have sounded disappointed.

“Look, this isn’t about you being special.” His previous teasing and casual tone suddenly became very serious. “This is about changing things and either you’re in or you’re out.”

“And I have to decide right now?” I asked. “Betraying my government, not to mention my dad, isn’t a choice that I can make on a whim.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Betraying your government,” he repeated in a condescending manner before laughing sarcastically. “You know what, I think this was a mistake. You clearly aren’t on the same wavelength as the rest of us.”

He tried to leave again, but I stepped in front of him. “The rest? How many of you are there?”

“That information is reserved for people who are in. And it’s a limited time offer.” This time, he did leave the room.

It was an impossible situation. I had to make the biggest, ugliest decision of my life in a split second. I couldn’t help but think he had made a horrible mistake. Was I really the kind of person that could change the world? Or maybe that was the wrong question. Maybe he was right, and this wasn’t about me. Maybe it was about something bigger. Maybe the question was, did the world need changing?

I hurried out into the hallway and jogged to catch up with him. “Okay,” I whispered, “I’m in.” My voice shook slightly as I said it.

“You sure?” I nodded and hoped I sounded more confident than I felt. “Okay, but if you utter phrases like ‘betray your government’ around the others, they will eat you alive.”

“Good to know.” I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. “I’m Alyssa, by the way.”

“Jay.”

“That short for something?”

“Nope. Just Jay.” He stopped by our math classroom door and looked down at me. “Look, no offense, but this doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. I didn’t think that.”

“Good. It’s probably best if we aren’t seen together too much in public. It might draw attention.”

“Right. Got it.” He stood there looking at me without replying. “Oh, right.” I walked into class and sat at my usual seat in the back. He took his a few rows away and we both pretended the other didn’t exist.

Well, I may have faltered a time or two.

After class, he covertly dropped a note on my desk as he walked by. I walked to the bathroom before opening it. 308 River Road at 11 o’clock was scrawled in the same handwriting that I found in my book.

***

I spent the rest of the day cleaning my room. It was my favorite way to procrastinate difficult decisions and I had a very big one to make. It was one thing to say I was in, but it is another thing entirely to actually be in. And, Jay wasn’t exactly the warmest person to put on any kind of welcoming committee, so maybe the other members were even worse. But, one thing kept pulling me back. Living in constant fear of other people and their beliefs was suffocating. There had to be a better way to live.

I washed and dried all my laundry that had been piling up in the corner and then organized it by color in my closet. I even swept and mopped the hardwood floor. Dad came in and caught me crouched in one of the corners cleaning the dust from the baseboards.

“Uh oh.” He chuckled as he leaned against the doorway. He was still wearing his work suit. “What’s on your mind?”

I stopped cleaning and stood up, imagining how ridiculous I looked. “Nothing,” I lied.

He walked into my room and sat on my bed. “Come on, Aly.” He patted the empty spot beside him. “Talk to me.”

“I’m fine, Dad.” I protested by staying put. “It’s nothing worth discussing, really. It’s just, final exams are coming up and then graduation–”

“I told you that you didn’t need to worry about the future. I’ve got it all worked out for you already at the station.”

“What if I don’t want everything worked out for me?” My mouth dropped at my own words.

His eyes widened as his eyebrows lifted before he composed himself. “It took me years of networking and crappy jobs to get where I am.” His tone became disciplinary now. “You could do a lot worse than a nationally respected, government supported news station.”

“I respect your job, Dad,” I said with all the emotion I could muster. I didn’t know whether that was really the truth anymore. “And I know you are just trying to do what you think is best for me.”

“So, come to the station next week.” He stood up and walked over to me, placing his hands on my shoulders. “Look around. Meet everyone. Watch how we put it all together.” He shrugged. “And maybe you will agree that it is the best thing for your future.”

I stood there for a moment, wishing I could tell him about the book. I wished I could find the words to explain the world that it opened up for me. I wanted to be able to dig it up from the floor and hand it to him, so that he could experience all the emotions and imaginings that we weren’t supposed to.

Instead, I only nodded. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll give it a chance.”

He smiled as he stood up straight. “Great. I’ll talk to Kara and see what day works best.”

I forced a smile. “Great.”

***

The alley was almost pitch black except for one small yellow light beside a dark green door. Every window in the two-story brick building was grimy and dark. I wondered if this was the right place.

I grabbed the silver knob and attempted to turn it, but it didn’t move. I laughed a little at myself for thinking it was going to be that simple. The longer I stood there, waiting in the dark, the more I became convinced this was all some sort of cruel joke.

“You actually showed.” I jumped at the sound of the voice and turned to see a shadow at the end of the alley. “I’m surprised.” I relaxed a little as I realized it was Jay.

“Yeah, well, I’m here.” I crossed my arms as a chill ran down my spine. “Now what?”

He began walking towards me, pulling a key from his pocket. He opened the door without answering me and I followed him inside. He took a small red flashlight from his back pocket and I could make out one wall of the room as the light moved across it. We had come through the side entrance of an old party shop. There were noisemakers, balloons, cups, plates, basically everything you can think of that would be at a birthday party. They were all covered in long settled dust.

I followed him to the back of the store, and he slid a rack of party hats away from the wall. He knocked in an unusual rhythm, three beats, then five, then two, and the wall opened. It appeared to be another room of the shop, but it was completely bare. I followed him in.

“Close your eyes and don’t open them until I tell you.”

I rolled my eyes at him, “Seriously?” He raised his eyebrow at me, and I did as he asked with a sigh. “If you are playing with me—” I almost fell but he moved his hand to my shoulder and steadied me. It felt like the floor was falling away beneath my feet. I began to hear music with so much bass that I felt it in my chest. It became louder and louder. At its loudest, I felt the floor come to a stop beneath my feet.

“Open your eyes!” Jay had to yell it.

I opened my eyes and found myself staring at another world. It was a huge, open, underground space of concrete and brick. It looked like a shopping mall that was abandoned many decades ago. People were everywhere, dancing to the illegal music. There was glowing spray paint on every inch of the walls and floors. It was mostly used to decorate the walls with quotes about freedom and revolution. Some guy named George Orwell painted, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” on the wall in neon orange. Up and to the left of that quote, someone named Huey Newton added, “You can’t jail the revolution” in pearl white.

The bass continued to pound.

Jay grabbed my hand and led me through the dancing people to the back-left corner of the room. I followed him down more stairs. The music began to fade again as we continued to descend.

He opened the door at the bottom of the stairs. I walked into the room to find row after row of books. There were old armchairs and sofas pushed up against walls. There were a few posters in different sections of the room, which said things like, “Open a book and grow your mind” and “reading is a superpower.” There wasn’t any paint on these walls. The space almost seemed sacred.

“Maybe this is more your speed?”

I grinned and walked to the first row, running my fingers across the spines of the books. “I can read one?”

“You can do whatever you want here,” he said, looking me in the eye. “All that stuff about thoughts being dangerous…It’s a lie, Alyssa, to keep us all from being free.”

“How do you know that?”

“You saw all the people up there and there are plenty more rooms here. All kinds of thoughts are going on here and we have yet to cause a catastrophe.” He shrugged. “You could always hang out for a while and make up your own mind. It can take a while to learn to think for yourself because we aren’t really taught to do it anymore.”

“And if I decide I don’t agree with you. If I decide all this is dangerous?”

“You can leave anytime you like. And, even if you told someone, you don’t know how to get down here by yourself.” He smirked at me and began walking back towards the door. “I’ll be around if you want to talk.”

I stayed down there for hours reading stories of mythical creatures. I allowed myself to really think about them and purposely try to bring them into being. No matter how many times I tried it never worked.

I told myself that it was okay to stay there because I had proof now that it was all a lie. Even though I knew one person probably never had the ability to bring anything into reality by themselves, I chose to ignore that fact.

I wanted to stay with the music, the books, and the dancing people. I felt free there. I even went back up and danced among the glowing paint.