Thoughts Recorder

For his 8th birthday, Owen received a thoughts recorder. He always was partial to high-tech gadgets. At first, his parents were quite puzzled by his request. "How are we supposed to find you a thoughts recorder? It's only the beginning of the 21st century!" Owen's reply to this remark was: "But I'm your only child! Please, be more supportive of my whimsies!" And they complied.

Owen may look like a child, but he's an old soul. For example, in the morning, during a short break he has between his breakfast—which typically consists of oat cereal—and school, one can occasionally catch him thinking about fractals and how history repeats itself or speculating on why the Old Testament contains so much cruelty. In the evening, he loves to enjoy a glass of good fragrant fermented cider. The one that smells a bit of horse stable and vomit combined and tastes almost like a vinegar–piss cocktail. Owen's dad is picky with beverages, and his son absorbs all these high standards like a sponge. Or maybe he's inherited them genetically. Not that it makes much of a difference.

Now let us return to the thoughts recorder. Of course, this gadget inspires your curiosity as hell. The contraption was patented by a renowned scientist Dr. G. some few years ago. Surprisingly, the above-mentioned Dr. was able to find sponsors to help give life to the creation of his imaginative mastermind. What's even more astounding is that his theory indeed worked in practice, and, after some extensive testing and magic of engineering, the mind-cracking thing was about to be mass-produced and released in the market at a price of just $ 1,000 or so; but then at some point, the government and the police interfered, the project was shut down, and the product was buried to never see the light of the day. The whole story never went public, and just a few people close to this peculiar case were aware of the very possibility of the existence of such an incredible gadget.

Owen's parents weren't just somebodies; they were close to the higher ranks of the society. They had access to all the rumors and stuff. That's how the thing got wrapped into crunchy shimmering paper, with a four-leaf-clover-like red bow atop. It was Owen's 8th birthday, and he was so happy, so delighted, and also, as a matter of fact, very surprised to get what he desired so badly.

He is a smart kid. His thoughts are like frisky fawns, and there are many of them. Owen may be an old soul, he may be smart, but he's still just a child. These thoughts, these ideas he sometimes has—they are bewildering. They are often beyond his comprehension. They intertwine, align, realign, interfere with each other, and make ripples. He hasn't heard of the game theory or Heisenberg's uncertainty principle yet. He heard something about Newton's laws but couldn't really understand them. He is just 8 years old, after all. At the moment, he is mastering the multiplication table. He's stuck at 6s now. With the thoughts recorder at his service, he could save the strange and complicated ideas his brain comes up with for later until he becomes old enough to understand them. Also, the device comes in handy when Owen has a whole bunch of parallel thoughts swarming in his head at the same time. Who hasn't experienced the cacophony of thoughts and emotions that make one's head dizzy and heavy like a fridge full of beer cans? Owen knew this feeling damn too well. Post factum, the majority of these intrusive mind visitors were absolutely unimportant and stupid and useless—but he wouldn't know that for a fact if he didn't have his thoughts recorder and couldn't look through the structured and catalogized list of thoughts he'd had.

The way this device works is pretty simple. You put it to your forehead, about at least 5 centimeters close, and it starts reading your mind. It has the size and shape of a shank button and can be connected to your smartphone or laptop via Bluetooth or Wi-fi. Its work is accompanied by a quiet yet quite annoying droning. Therefore, the device often records certain signs of irritation alongside the unbiased thoughts of the thinker.

What the heck is this humming? So distracting!

The device user manual mentions this issue and refers to it as noise-induced white noise.

But it is possible to tune the gadget in such a way that it filters out this irrelevant noise. Also, one can enable a function that erases all the swearing words while recording the subject's thoughts.

***

It's 10 a.m., and here I am. Mom is again busy with her work, even on Sunday. Where is dad? Well, at least, they don't force me to go to church with them. Although I like how the candles smell.

Owen was aware that it was rather a dangerous toy that he had. First, it was addictive. Second, Owen suspected that the thoughts recorder was collecting data on his thoughts and transferring it not only to his smartphone but also to the device inventor, or the manufacturing company, or the government. He calmed himself down by reasoning that he was not a genius, so nobody was gonna steal his brilliant ideas, and his parents wouldn't have to spend a fortune on suing the thieves; also, he was too young to have erotic thoughts of any form, so he wasn't ashamed to showcase his thoughts to nosy strangers if there were any. Finally, Owen reasoned, if he happened to be in trouble, for example, if he was kidnapped or attacked by a rabid dog, somebody eavesdropping on him could potentially save his life.

The other day, Owen indeed got into trouble. There is this girl in his class. Lisa. She has large green eyes and a small delicate nose. Her parents are communists, but still, Owen likes her. Before that day, Owen had never had a conversation with Lisa. There were several reasons for this: he didn't want to look like a ladies' man in the eyes of his friends; he had little experience in talking with girls; finally, and this one was by far the most important reason, he didn't want to get disappointed. It happens so often: you see a beautiful human being, but then you start talking to them, and all the charms suddenly dissipate. But that day, Owen finally decided to put an end to his young heart's sufferings. They were about to have a 15-minute break between classes. It was late spring, so naturally, as soon as the bell rang, all the kids leaped from their desks and ran off to the schoolyard to play tag.

Lisa stayed at her desk, reached for her backpack, and pulled out a brown yarn ball.

A skein? A hank? A twisted hank? Or maybe a cake? Hmm, my favorite is Hankenskein. It sounds almost like Frankenstein. Any connection between them?

"It's my chance!" Owen thought to himself and approached Lisa: "Hey, Lisa! You look lovely today. Do you wanna know what you're thinking about right now?"

So very awkward! Such a stupid way to start a conversation!

"Why? Yes—" Lisa hummed and smiled absent-mindedly. Obviously, she wasn't paying much attention to Owen's words but was focused instead on the rhythmical movements of her cable needles. "It's my chance!" Owen thought to himself once again. He quietly stepped behind Lisa's chair and covered her eyes with his left palm while holding his thoughts recorder with the right hand close to her forehead. "Guess who's behind your back?"

Then, right of a sudden, the events started unfolding with a terrifying speed. Lisa shrieked "Ah!", her whole body jerked backward, and Owen felt his chin catch a blow; Owen winced as he bit his tongue; then he saw blood on Lisa's fingers; then the bell rang: the classmates and the teacher were to enter the classroom any moment. Automatically, Owen threw the thoughts recorder in his mouth and swallowed it—choked and started coughing. Lisa, who by the time had regained self-control, started patting Owen on his back, leaving blood stains on his white shirt.

Silly! Back slaps are not helpful at all! Statistics show that—ugh, I gonna choke to death, am I? Try Heimlich maneuver! Punch me right between my ribs!

The rest of the day was total chaos. Later in the evening, when he returned home from school, Owen managed to extract his mind-boggling gadget from his stomach before it got digested. All's well that ends well.