Tales From a New World

Chapter 7: Heart Shaped Lockets

 I think I should explain more about our lockets. Sense in the future they might not exist. You see in 2076 after the war there was a great depression but not the old World War II great depression, I'm talking people committing mass suicides because they believed the human race didn't deserve to live. Chronic Depression was wide spread and the human race itself was on the brink of destroying its own existence. Then in the face of hopelessness and self doubt. Psychologist Dr. Paulo Bree turned to the power of love to end the depression. He built a heart shaped locket that had the ability to read a person's brain waves. With them distributed to the entire country the lockets would detect very similar brain waves and would then glow having a profound effect on the person wearing the locked. The wearer would experience elevated heart rate as the locket slowly heated up the closer you got to a person with matching brain waves. This was referred to as the other lockets soul mate and the closest match to perfect you could get.

The idea of the lockets were to inspire people to search for their soul mate and find love. The idea was first thought as a joke, but as the world started getting more and more depressed, the leaders of the world got desperate and thus, tried the lockets. The result pulled the world out of depression and stories of people finding "true love" were everywhere. People started traveling the world to find their perfect match. Every new born baby is given a locket from the moment they leave the hospital. Nowadays they have a unique pitch depending on your brain waves that only the wearer can hear. Mine matches the pitch of a wine glass vibrating when you rub wet fingers around the opening at the top. I myself have only felt this once in my life and I never met the person again. It's a sad thing to say that it happened but it did. Now that life has stabilized we keep the lockets as a fun way to find love. Believe it or not the lockets help everyone with their self esteem. I guess the feeling that there really is someone out there for everyone and that someday they might find that person, helps people get out of bed in the morning and look their best.

One of these people was Ellen. You see Ellen has an obsession with finding her soul mate. So much so that every guy who has asked her out has been turned down because they were not her "perfect match". If you ask me I think it's gotten a little out of hand. When she felt her locket go off at her cousin's party she went ballistic. She no longer slept the same, every day she would wake up and search the city for her soul mate. She wandered the streets of New Haven searching for something she didn't even know she would find. This is the story of how she found her soul mate, and it's not what you might expect.

"Joker!" I look around and try to find the voice that calls my name.

"Joker!" "Joker up here you idiot!" There is only one person that calls me idiot on this earth. I look up to find Jo sitting on a fire escape.

"Hey Jo!" "Sup" Jo had a nasty habit of sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

"Joker where you off to?"

"I'm going to meet Ellen at the hospital." "Oh damn. Is she ok?"

"Yea she isn't hurt or anything she just told me to get there as soon as possible." I said with a giggle.

"You want to come." I ask Jo

"Yea sure sounds like fun."Jo and I have a bro relationship and I tend to be the more sensitive one of both of us.

"So is Ellen still crazy about finding that guy she met?"

"Yea she is. And she has never met the guy."

"Joker sometimes I worry about that little lady."

Jo and I walked to the hospital just down the street. We stopped in full view of the hospital and look for Ellen, which didn't take long to find her with her lime green hair. She was sitting legs crossed under the hospital sign inspecting her locket. She notices us and waves for us to come over.

"Joker this is it!" she tells me with egresses.

"who ever it is they are in there." she looks up at the hospital while gripping her locket with her hand.

"Are you sure Ellen? remember what happened last time." Jo looked at her with an annoyed expression.

"Look Jo that bell hop was close." "Not to mention cute." Jo said this with an alarming amount of girlyness. I turn to look at her in surprise. She blushes and looks away.

"What are you guys talking about?" I ask having never heard of this.

"Thats not important." Ellen blushes, turns around and runs into the hospital almost knocking someone onto the floor.

"Sorry!" she yells back.We follow her into the hospital.

"Where did she go? man she is fast." I think to myself.

Jo grabs my arm "This way!"

After running for about 5 minutes we catch up to Ellen. She is standing in front of a door into the coma therapy ward. The look on her face was like nothing I have ever seen before. She looked somewhere between worried, disappointed, confused, and angry. Jo looks at me with a face that says "what now?"

I grab Ellen's shoulder and say "Are you sure about this?"

She looks down at her glowing locket, then up at the door and grabs the handle.

Ellen pauses and twists the handle to enter the room. In the room there are a number of people in comas, about 15 or so. ellen searched the room for another glowing locket. Slowly she walks through the room, as she reaches the end she stands above a young woman. The Womman is light skinned with black hair she looks by my estimate about 5'4 or so. Ellen reaches for the blanket covering her and pulls it down enough just to see her locket. The locket is glowing bright just like Ellen's. I pick up the clipboard at the end of her bed and flip through it.

"Her name is Robbin Twain. She suffers from a coma due to blunt force trauma from a car accident. also suffers from internal bruising, fractured rib and wrist, and whiplash." I look up at Ellen. She is looks frozen, almost as if she had seen a ghost. Jo goes over to hug her.

"But this can't be right." she starts tearing up.

"This can't be right!" She collapses to her knees and starts to cry.

"There must be something wrong. Its wrong! Wrong!" She runs out of the room.

To Be Continued