Temper
This story is one of four in a series written as a projection of a world in which collecting emotion data is commonplace — or mandatory — and the disregard of the golden rules of designing for emotion.
Jay grabbed the handle on the driver‘s side door and pulled hard. The old Prelude shifted its weight ever so slightly but the door didn‘t give in.
Are you fucking kiiiiiiddding me?
The fire in his chest continued to well up.
His girlfriend of three years had just broken up with him over a beer. To be honest, he kind of saw it coming. Still, that didn‘t stop him from knocking over some chairs on the way out of the bar. All he wanted to do now was go for a drive. A nice long drive with the windows down and the cool night air rushing into and around his face. But that wouldn‘t be in the cars tonight. He wiggles his phone out of his pocket and taps the screen.
It‘s no longer safe for you to operate a vehicle.
We suggest calling one of the following:
It gave him a list of his frequent contacts. He rolled his eyes and let out a long sigh.
It seemed strange, with all of his antique knick-Knacks and old fashioned mannerisms that he would have it too, but it was mandatory. Everyone had to have it. They think it made them safer.
I think they‘re full of shit, he thinks and lets his body weight fall against the car door. His forehead smushed onto the roof of the car.
He had been locked out once before, but that was from his mother‘s house and the situation there was his thankless brother-in-law. Chad and his sister visit about once a year and it‘s almost surreal how useless he is. Most of the details should be spared, but Chad just opened his mouth up one too many times and the next thing Jay knew is that fists were flying. It took both girls to pull them apart and Jay got shoved out of the house, tumbling down the porch stairs. The house wouldn’t let him in for two straight days.
The funny thing about it all is that you can‘t even get someone to open a door up for you. It‘s like it knows, somehow, the intention of the person before they even touch the handle. And anyway, doors weren’t the only problem. Pretty much anything that had an enclosure was subject to be controlled if you were, to them, out of control.
He‘s also heard of other people who had other enclosure-and-emotion issues. Like eating when they‘re bored. The local paper had a story once about a guy who was locked out of his kitchen cabinets and fridge for almost a month. Yeah, he‘s a weighty guy, but he could starve, you know. They had to come out and make a public apology for that though. Turns out the guy was perpetually bored and the system wasn‘t designed for cases like that.
People try and game it but it’s pretty obvious that we‘re not all that good at controlling our emotions. More often then not you‘re able to only kind of fool it. If that happens you end up with an almost unlocked door. And that’s irritating. You know like a “maybe”is worse than a direct “no.” You‘re still standing outside of whatever door like an idiot, squinting your eyes like Matilda and trying to will yourself not to be angry so the door will open.
One time he went to this support group for people who wanted to control their emotions a bit better. And man, you heard all kinds of stories in there. There were a couple people who would get locked out of their computers. One girl who had that problem said it was because she would get this deep sense of jealously and then almost instantly fall into a depression whenever she saw her friends doing things she wished she was doing. Another girl constantly got locked out at night because she was afraid of the dark. It was trying to teach her that there was nothing to fear, but instead it was giving her panic attacks and she’d started feeling suicidal. One guy had been locked out of bars ever since they invented this thing because of his past history. His dad was an alcoholic and this guy felt extreme contempt for him. Problem was, he wasn’t an alcoholic, and didn’t even show signs of it. But it was decided for him that he would never step foot into a bar again.
The whole thing made the world kind of stale in Jay’s opinion. Everyone was so scared to talk about their feelings for fear that there would be an automatic consequence. It basically meant that no one opened up to each other. It also meant the news and radio broadcasts were only full of the most upbeat stories. We were only allowed to post public content if it was positive (which really doesn’t help people that like one girl in group with the jealousy problem). Anyway, if you did post something that was negative, critical, or deconstructive, it would immediately be deleted and you would be locked out of any accounts for at least 24 hours, depending how many previous content-offences you had committed.
A lot of these things made people of course just want to disconnect. If you got caught without your phone on you, you were issued a pretty hefty fine. In any case, it‘s pretty hard to leave your phone at home when you need it for starting the ignition of your car, getting access to your work place and paying for anything (we’re cashless now, can you believe it?). You had to pretty much go Christopher McCandless on the world — and hope to never be found. But one one hand side, it was amazing how efficient the system made life. On the other hand, many things became less personalized and unique. Cars were pretty much the only thing left that we‘re allowed to choose ourselves and keep. Jay‘s Honda Prelude was from ’89 and he dreaded the day he would have to give it up.
But it would be nice to have one less door to lock me out, he thought, trying his door handle again. No go. He checked his phone.
Looks like it’s going to be a long night for you, brother, if you don’t get your anger in check.
His slid down the door on his back until he was on the ground sitting and settled in.
