Dream Screen

They break into her sixth-floor apartment complex during the commercials of her second favorite show. Men in black-gray jumpsuits, angry faced, coming at her like she's a criminal in her own home.

The commercial announcer enthusiastically informs about the chance to win a cruise at the same time as she's demanding why these people are in her home, she's done nothing wrong.

“Your recent Dream Screen has triggered red flags. You're being taken in for questioning—”

“What? You have to be kidding me!” she yells. “My dreams aren't like that—”

He has her by the wrist and she's too distracted by cool metal to focus on the rights he tells her.

“Just submit your dream and you'll be entered into the drawing!” the commercial announcer says to the empty room. “One lucky person will—”

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“Did you ever see your technology leading to this, Mr. Woolrich?”

Diamont Woolrich stares solemnly at his reflection on the back wall before his eyes drop to his joined hands. He never once looks at the speaker.

“No,” Diamont murmurs.

“What did you want out of it?”

“You know what I wanted. Everyone knows what I wanted.”

Interviews. So many interviews. Being famous, at the time, was exhilarating. One day, a bright-eyed, young Diamont unveiled the success of his work to the world, his ever-silent son leaning into his legs.

“Tell me, anyway, Mr. Woolrich.”

Diamont scowls. “I wanted to connect with my son. I wanted to understand how he thought, how his mind worked, a way to allow him to unlock his voice in a different method.”

“And did you?”

“Yes.”

Yes, of course he did. He watched dream after dream on the prototype like he was watching the series of a show. It was transfixing, these dreams. A look into the mind of his son, something he thought he might never succeed in achieving, but here he was. “Wildest dreams” took a new meaning.

“That technology's come a long way since then. The uses people have found for it!” the speaker exclaims, tone mocking.

Diamont's fingers tighten together.

“I should have never invented that technology.”

“But your son,” the speaker chides.

Diamont looks at the speaker for the first time since he entered and sat down in this small, awkward room, and repeats, his voice cool, “I should have never created it.”

The speaker sighs and relents. He takes a seat across from Diamont, trying to hold the inventor's gaze, but Diamont's already returned to fervently avoiding it.

“Do you think you would pass a Dream Screen?” the speaker asks.

“What?” Diamont replies, startled.

“A Dream Screen,” the speaker says. “Most jobs use them these days alongside a background check. They've rooted out many would-be terrorists that way.”

“I know what it is!” Diamont snaps. “I don't understand why you're asking me!”

“Oh. Well, curiosity, of course.”

“Curiosity,” Diamont spits. When his eyes lock back with the speaker's, there's fury in them. “Any whackjob that thinks they can police and judge a person by their dreams is insane.”

“So you don't think you'd pass.”

“What are you—” He stops and staggers up and out of his chair, facing the mirror that he knows is anything but. “Am I on trial?” he demands at it. “You can't—this is unethical!”

“'Unethical.' Really, Mr. Woolrich? That argument is hard to make in this day and age.”

“I blame myself for making the technology, yes, but where the world went with it isn't my fault! Are you going to try to charge me for that, or are you going to hook my head up to my own damn device and see what juicy dreams are stored there and charge me for those?”

“I think it would be interesting to discover the dreams of the device's creator, truly,” the speaker admits.

“What do you want from me?” Diamont whispers, sullen. He half turns to face the speaker again. “I can't undo all this. The protesters have tried in vain to stop the use of Dream Screening. Their arguments are sound, but it doesn't matter.”

Everything shapes the subconscious. The further a person is from the time they wake, the more distorted their dreams become. And how does one judge nightmares? How could anyone possibly think any of this was a good idea? There's too much they don't understand about dreams, and yet...

“Yes,” the speaker agrees, nodding. “The government ignores their protests, because the government has learned how to manipulate the Screening process, or they simply pay a little bribery money to avoid it completely. 'Let's not and say we did.' That sort of thing. We can never go back from this.”

There's always the risk of tampering. If a person can learn through osmosis while they sleep, what's to stop someone from speaking to them, influencing their dreams? Sabotage a person completely.

“So I ask again: what do you want from me?”

The speaker stands and clasps his hands behind his back, head tilting to the side. He states, voice crisp, “The People versus Woolrich. I wonder how that would go.”

Diamont shudders. “My son, I—I can't leave him. There isn't anyone else to take care of him! He has no family left!”

That young Diamont wants to hold it all in his heart, remember the fascination his son shared at seeing his dreams playing in front of his eyes on a screen. His son. He did this all for his son. The countless nights, failures, criticism.

“What do you dream about, Mr. Woolrich?” the speaker asks.

“Everything I ever dreamed about I obtained and now it's all falling apart,” Diamont answers.

“That is not what I'm asking, and you know that.”

Diamont starts to pace around the edges of the room. “If a person dreams of killing all their coworkers because they had a bad day, does that make them a murderer? If a person dreams of a movie they watched, does that make them a pirate? If a wife dreams of having sex with someone else, does that make her an adulterer?”

“We've had this discussion. I know the arguments. Nothing will change. What do you dream about, Mr. Woolrich?”

“I don't...” He shakes his head and stops walking in front of the mirror, leaning his back against it and staring at the speaker, feeling like a lost child. “I don't remember my dreams.”

“And you've never tried?”

“I never wanted to know mine.”

“Tragic. Shall we find out, now?”

“And then make it so I'm flagged a terrorist,” Diamont says. “That's it, isn't it? This isn't some trial or anything like that. You're just after money. I mean, the headline that would be!” he laughs, breath hitching as something near to hysteria claws at his stomach. “Inventor goes to prison because of his own technology. Exclusive scoop! Watch our footage of his dreams! News at ten.” He feels sick. “You're going to make my son an orphan because you want some extra cash,” Diamont sneers.

“This is the way of the world, Mr. Woolrich. I can't change it, same as you can't. We just have to do what we can with the resources at our disposal.”

“You're disgusting. What makes you think I'd ever submit to you?”

The speaker smiles. “You'll have to sleep again, eventually, Mr. Woolrich.” He heads for the door. “Take as much time as you'd like. I'll have my results. I wonder... how does all your building anger influence your mind? Will you dream of murder? Will the guilt over your son produce twisted nightmares? We'll see, won't we?”

Everything he ever dreamed about he obtained, and now it's all falling apart, plastered over headlines, his nightmares on every screen for all to see. He's paraded through the media as the world's Genius Terrorist, who brought this technology into the world, never thinking it would reveal him as the most dangerous threat, while he sits behind bars eaten alive day in and day out by the guilt.

He did this for his son.

He did this for...

He did this.