Upside Down Frown
By Jarred Thompson, first published in FIYAH
In a world where all trauma and memory are erased, a woman endeavors to make people remember, even if it hurts.
Author
Published in
Year
Words
Plot Summary
The woman looks at the photographs on her table. She rubs her back and notices that her pain is gone thanks to an electroceutical. One photograph has a monk on it, who is self-immolating to protest the Vietnam War. She picks it for her photographic series, along with others showing the brutality of the world. She knows that such images don’t comply with the recent electroceuticals developed in order to promote happiness and social cohesion, though she’s thankful for how those technological advancements have helped her in the past. She tells her coworker that she wants to move forward with the gallery nonetheless.
The woman bikes past the Department of Happiness, a place where people’s lives are analyzed, after which they’re recommended a life path to take. She intends to go here after her museum closes, following her final gallery. Now, in her commune, with her lover and his polycule, he expresses her trepidation about having to change life paths. She thinks about how she and her lover, who works as a surgeon, used to be exclusively together before he came out as polyamorous. Now, he talks about how electroceuticals can solve addiction, though the rest of the polycule debates whether addiction is merely a neurological process or if it’s something deeper. The woman goes to run a bath.
While everyone sleeps, the woman stays up and thinks about her museum. She thinks about how the Department of Happiness told her that, with electroceuticals, the past wouldn’t need to be remembered, and people won’t have to suffer the trauma of having suffered histories of violence. Therefore, museums like hers won’t be needed. Slowly but surely, her museum’s things are transferred to other museums, in other countries, which are still operational. She wonders if she should re-traumatize people with her final gallery, but she insists, believing that it’s important to remember humanity as both brutal and enduring. She can’t believe that the Department of Happiness, once a small organization, has commanded so much power now.
The woman and another person in her lover’s polycule, a woman, smoke together in the house. The others are helping operate a surgery on a neighbor suffering with addiction. The woman laments that all of her work in museums has been for nothing, now that history is going to be forgotten. The polycule woman, who has an electroceutical implant for social cohesion, says she feels like people have already learned from their history. Later, as people go to bed, the woman thinks about how she’s been in remission for HIV, but doesn’t want to tell anyone in the community of love.
The final gallery debuts. People, wearing VR glasses, move through exhibit after exhibit depicting humanity’s tragedies inflicted upon one another. Slowly but surely, people get restless and agitated. They start to barf, and even the woman gets a little sick. An official from the Department of Happiness expresses her dismay and leaves, seeking to reprimand the museum. The woman thinks about whether it was all worth it, the punishment, in exchange for memory.
The department forcibly closes the museum. The woman is asked to show up there to find a new life path. There, she happens upon people protesting outside of it. When she gets to them, they say that they loved the final gallery and felt like it was important to experience. Someone tells her that they’re trying to arrange a national tour of it, and everyone shows enthusiasm for the idea. Quickly, the woman goes inside to gather her things, as she moves out of her office, and rejoins everyone outside.
Read if you like...