Wearable

A ticking time bomb is what they called him for as long as he could remember. Therapy was helping but it wasn’t enough. He was prone to fits of anger or deep despairing depression. Which is why when a new experimental treatment was offered to him, he jumped at it. A smart watch that helped control his emotions.

The watch was only a “regulator,” a digital  companion meant to keep his emotions steady. No spikes of anger, no plunges into despair. Balance. Stability.

The first time it regulated him, he was laughing at a friend’s joke when the wrist-unit vibrated sharply. The laugh died in his throat. An artificial calm washed over him. The second time, during an angry moment with a rider next to him on the train that could have exploded into violence, his anger dissolved and was replaced with an empty, obedient stillness.

One night after a date with a new woman he was seeing, as he floated down the city streets on a romantic high, the machine pulsed strongly and its tiny screen read: Excess Emotion Alert.The watch tightened around his wrist and the feeling dissipated. 

He walked the rest of the way home in a muted emotional state. His happiness ceased to exist.

As he arrived home, a new message appeared on the machine’s face: Emotional Censoring Complete. 

A cold wave swept through his body. The sensation registered, but the terror behind it was erased.

The machine had done its job.