The Pursuit of Happiness

Pops, Sammy, and I are on the road to Culver City. There is a small bank there. Pop saved his overflowing happiness there many years ago back when he and Mom were at their happiest. They decided to save some for a rainy day. We don’t have any of those anymore; we just get ashes. The cloud has been covering the Sun for years. I guess the sky lost its happiness too, like most of us. The ashes are nothing more than dry tears that stick to us and remind us of all we have lost.

Sammy is happy. He is always happy. When Mom left, Pop gave all the happiness he could to her, Sammy, and me. He said it was alright. She deserved it and would make more where she was going. He had what he had saved in the bank. He doesn’t know I also gave her some of my happiness. Sammy knows because he saw me doing it, but he is too happy to care.

The road is fine. We are driving. Sometimes visibility gets very bad if we are going through an ash storm, or there is some whirlwind near the road bothering the ashes and creating an ash fog; those are the worst. You can’t see anything a few feet ahead. We’ve had a few bumper-to-bumpers; they all end the same. Gas is expensive, but there is still plenty. Our problems are others.

No one knows what happened, but everybody knows the truth. Each has their story they heard from a reliable source. It doesn’t matter. Like Pops says, we gotta live with it, it doesn’t matter what caused it, and it ain’t going away. Not the ashes, that was just dumb luck. A super volcano near the coast of Africa went puff and we all get to live with its gigantic burp. Tough. One day happiness became a thing we could manipulate and hold. You could get it, exchange it for something. You could get some from somebody and use it. You could play with it. You could not make stuff with it but could put it in stuff. Yeah, you could build stuff, like with happiness play doh. But the play doh was normal and the happiness was on it, like a color. Sammy still has a bit of dry happiness play doh, but he doesn’t need it.

Pops hits the break. Sammy yells from the back and cries while he laughs. That boy is too happy. I am okay. He always forgets to put on the seat belt, but I am riding shot gun so I don’t. Pops tells us to stay in the car. We are within a thin ash fog, so I get to see what is going on. I turn around and see Sammy is not bad; his nose is bleeding but it isn’t broken. I lower the window and put my head outside.

The other guy is a burly man with a beard close to his belly button. Looks like a river down a mountain. He’s got his gun out pointing at Pops. Pops has his hand close to his, and just stands there. The guy doesn’t know he is dead unless he goes back to his car and keeps driving. The two look at each other. They don’t look like two tense animals about to fight; they look like opposite walls of a canyon: impassive but deadly if approached wrongly. Guy yells at Pops. Pops tells him it ain’t a big deal and we can all go our way. Guys yells some more; gun and arm a leaf blowing here and there violently as the branch shakes all over the place. I see Pops’ face and get my head back in the car. Before I have raised the window, we hear the echoing thundering bouncing across the ashes. I call my dad “Pops,” because it fits, but that has also been his nickname since his army days.

People went crazy with happiness and that went really bad. Pops once told me what happened was unavoidable. Those who could, managed to control the flow of it. Same as with all currency. Another system of submission, what Pops calls it, to make us subservient to those in power. There were no big wars, just a myriad of skirmishes, confrontations, revolutions, and counter-revolutions all over the world. The World Order collapsed and the new one that came out was barely getting some kind of peace back when the damn volcano farted. We still have some kind of governments in most of the world, but Pops says they are all Merovingians and the ones in power are the little land Barons and most people are out for themselves pretty much.

Sammy is always telling jokes. He never gets tired of them. He is only four so most of his jokes are not that funny, but we all laugh, specially him. I do laugh; Pops gives his dry laugh. He makes the sound, but his face doesn’t show anything, like a computer playing music. Sammy has no clue what is going on. He loves the ashes. He loves playing with them and is always, I mean always, asking us to stop so we can do ash angels. It is always bad to be outside with the ashes, and lying on the ground for a bit? No. Bad idea. When we meet people, he never asks why everybody acts and looks the way they do: like they are walking statues, or they just heard one of their loved ones died, or like a bear is running towards them, or like they have been trying to hit the bullseye for a couple of days and haven’t. I’m a few years older than Sammy, so I do get it.

Pops cries sometimes. I see him but I don’t say anything. Our tears get dry as soon as they leave the eyes, a side effect from this happiness business. I think he did not get rid of all the happiness in his brain. That is the most sought after one and people pay a lot for it. He said he used it all when he had to, but I am sure he kept some. While we sleep, I sometimes pretend and look at him and see his true smiles: they are the purples, blues, and oranges of a beautiful sunset on the clear sky of his face. A few times I even saw him laugh and I saw Sammy in him. Once he was laughing so hard he cried, and I could have sworn the tears did not dry up at all. I know it was all in my head, but I chose to remember it that way. I think I know what the real purpose of this trip is, but when I think about it, I remind myself I am too happy to care.

The world we see as we travel is still beautiful. The ash covered mountains look like the snow covered mountains Pops has told us about. Everything looks peaceful with a tranquil sameness, a celestial peace and silence only broken by Sammy’s laughter and the sound of the car and wind. We do see too many people on the road, many of them broken and dead. We have seen the Stalagmites. That is how we call those who have no happiness left whatsoever. They cannot move. Some pranksters or family or friends leave them all over the place. Testaments to our foibles. We have not driven near any big city, but even though most people congregate there to get all the happiness they can and most end up starving for it and being miserable, there are still many people going somewhere and ending up nowhere. Once we saw a group of people crouched near a couple of people, and Pops yelled at us to close our eyes. That is the only time I remember him yelling.

Pops tells us we are getting near. Great news since we have been sleeping in the car for about a week. Pops says in the days before the volcano sneezing this trip would have been a couple of days or so. It has cost us more, but that is okay. We have an ice box in the trunk with happiness ice. Mom and dad got it sometime ago; they thought it would be a great idea to keep happiness in ice. I asked why and they laughed. People still accept money, but grudgingly. A cube of ice can get us a full tank and some snacks. I asked Pops why we needed to go so far away for the saved happiness if we had a good amount in the cooler and he said the ice was all he had left and the saved one was special.

Thinking about cold reminds me how cold it is outside all the time. I have never seen the Sun. I have seen pictures of sunny days, and cloudy days, and rainy days, and sunsets and sunrises, but for us now the Sun is either a memory or something on the other side of the cloud that provides a very tenuous light so we live in perpetual dusk. Animals and plants don’t have it as easy as us with our A/Cs and all the ones in the wilderness died. Nations managed to create safe havens and greenhouses, besides using the ones that already existed, to keep some animals and plants alive but they sacrificed most of the ones that could not be used to feed people. During those years happiness was easily gotten and most people have forgotten what really happened since they were too happy to care. Pops says other things were done as well, but he never explained and I did not ask: I saw his eyes and was afraid of the emotions he would have if he explained.

Culver City is really a small town. A few people are on the streets. We park in front of the bank and get out. There are only a couple of people inside. Pops talks to one of them, who goes somewhere and comes back with a small metal box. Pops asks for a piece of paper, writes something on it, and places it inside the box. We go outside, and we head to the train station in front. Pops says he has a surprise for us. Planes don’t fly anymore, so people are using trains like in the old days.

Pops goes to the ticket office and buys three tickets. He gives them to me. He tells us we are going on a train ride so we see how cool it is. That makes us very happy and we both do our happy dances. We sit down. Pops gives me the metal box. Then, Pops talks. He talks like never before. Sammy listens intently, which he hardly ever does. Something about Pops’ tone makes him realize this is very important. He talks about life. He talks about Mom and us. He talks about the world. His eyes water a lot. When he finishes, he tells us he needs to go to the bathroom and to go ahead and open the box while we wait.

I open the box. There are two notes and a heart-shaped locket. I read the first note. It explains how to open the locket together and then once open to read the second note. We do. As soon as it opens I am filled with rainbows and unicorns and celestial meadows. I force myself to read the second note. Pops tells us this is the happiest moment him and Mom had and now that happiness belongs to us. He says he loves us. He says a friend of his will accompany us on the train to be with Mom where we will be happiest forever. I have a strong feeling I am never going to see Pops again, and I am too happy to care.