Sin Eater

"Yep, that oughta do it," the installation technician wheezed, sliding a screwdriver into his back pocket and stepping away from the box. Stanley stared at it. Hard to believe one little device could have caused so much trouble.

"Can you post a sign or something, too?" Stanley asked. "I need people to know that there's a camera watching their every move."

"So you've told me," the Tech replied. "Look, man, it's highly unlikely that you're going to get any more unsanctioned drops. But if you do, we'll be able to trace them back. Honestly, it's better if your perp doesn't know we're running facial recognition.”

"Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha," Stanley said, still jittery and sleep-deprived. "But how sure are you that you'll find them in time?"

"The half-life on Anger is at least a week. Despair lasts even longer. Nothing that gets dropped here will go nuclear before we can find the freeloader and return their capsule."

At this point, most people would have felt Relief. Stanley, unfortunately, was incapable. He was in the final throes of a Fear deposit and anxiously awaiting the recovery period in which he'd feel nothing at all. In grade school, it had seemed wrong to have no emotions. Now, it was an advantage. A point of safe return.

Stanley often wondered which of those grotesque sensations he should have felt when the kids in his class pointed out his strange condition. Whether he’d have discovered a new one when others came forward with the same affliction. If the shifting tides of public opinion would have had any effect on him once emotions could be converted into energy and his unique abilities were commodified.

Now that contractors paid him to take unwanted feelings away, he wondered if the unfeeling were the unlucky ones. Surely, the business would have fizzled out long ago if people didn’t see their normalcy as a curse to be escaped.

Stanley trudged back up the long driveway to his house and started trying to piece his home back together. Furniture had to be moved away from doors and windows; hastily boarded windows pried open to let the light of day back in. Newspaper clippings shuffled with every step, sometimes dragged along by bits of string connecting a web of contrived conspiracies that stretched the length of what was once his sitting room. Stanley wondered if he might find an actual tinfoil hat amongst the paper ruins.

Normally, he would have locked himself in the safe room before taking such a hefty dose of Fear. Its adverse effects tended to override any and all logic, and it was better for everyone if he just rode the wave alone. But he vividly remembered reading the word “Jealousy” on the last package he brought in. Someone had been desperate to be rid of the horrible feeling now clawing its way through his mind. Desperate enough to commit a felony.

He glanced at the still-cracked door to the Convertor Room at the end of the hall. His stomach swelled with something icy and vacuous before he could register the state of the machine, but what little he saw looked like scrap. He must have done a number on the room when the Fear kicked in. He shuddered and looked away, resolving to call about the damages once he’d completely leveled out. No number of government bonuses was worth jumping into another disposal contract before this one cleared his system.

Resolute, he snatched a few clippings from one of the less dilapidated piles of newsprint and made his way to the padded comfort of the safe room. Nestling into the softest corner, he shuffled through the grey pages in search of something to read that wouldn’t set him on edge.

UNWANTED EMOTION SURPLUS SURGES, DISPOSAL CRISIS IMMINENT. Pass.

ANALOG PROCESS FOR EMBARASSMENT CONVERSION ON HORIZON, SCIENTISTS CLAIM. Maybe in an hour or two.

NEWLYWEDS TO POWER MCCLAIN UNIVERSITY ‘TIL DEATH DOES THEM PART. Seems safe.

Stanley cracked the seal on a fresh bottle of purified water and sipped it carefully as he met the Thomas family, who had promised to donate a small portion of their Love every month in order to provide clean energy to the campus where they first met. He sighed. If more people were willing to share their positive emotions, maybe the world wouldn’t be sitting on a dangerous reserve of unstable energy.

Of course, he’d probably be out of a job, too. Nobody seemed to want help converting the Good Stuff. And even if they did, it wasn’t necessary. The machines could handle happiness, contentment, and hope without a human surrogate.

Only bitterness, hatred, and shame ever made their way to Stanley’s government-sanctioned delivery box and into his taxpayer-funded conversion machine. The worst of the human experience passed through Stanley on its way to light up homes and brew cups of coffee for men and women eager to forget the volatility of their unwanted emotions.

He wrinkled his brow and stared at the photo of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, adorned in their formal wedding attire and wearing that strange, radiant expression he’d seen on so many other faces but never quite approximated on his own. Stanley wondered where smiles like that were born. Why he couldn’t seem to force his muscles to create one, even when he positioned them in a near-perfect facsimile. Sleep took him before he could force his face through that terrible dance again.

ø

The drop-off alarm was soft but incessant. Stanley groaned and rolled over. This was the only notification he wasn’t allowed to disable before settling in to finish his current dose.

He checked the camera feed in time to see a hooded figure slip out of view. Wound the tape back, swapping between three different angles. Another unsanctioned visitor. A bandanna covered in printed Emojis blocked her face from the nose down, but her eyes were innocent and the skin above them was unbroken by wrinkles or blemishes. She was young; probably disposing of her first crush. He reached for the phone that connected him directly with his agency, installed only hours ago, and prepared to report the first of many emotional freeloaders.

That’s when he noticed the faint glow of the capsule in her hand.

Even the mildest emotions Stanley had ever processed seemed to steal light from the air around them once they were packaged. The capsules were cold and intimidating from the moment they arrived until the moment they ran through the machine and into his being. This was different. Strange.

Curious.

Cold tendrils of Fear crept up from the pit of Stanley’s stomach as he made his way to the delivery box. He pushed them down, knowing they weren’t his own. Nothing about that capsule could hurt him. This was a reconnaissance mission. As soon as he knew what he was dealing with, he could report it.

The receptacle stood patiently at the end of Stanley’s driveway, unimpressive in the chilled twilight. He stopped beside it, checking over both shoulders to verify that he was, in fact, alone. Satisfied, he punched in the security code and slid back the metal door, his hands trembling as the mechanisms whirred.

Pink light emanated across the night and onto his face, striking it first on the cheek and spreading from ear to ear as he pushed the door wide open. The capsule warmed his fingertips, then his palm as he rolled it around for a brief inspection. It was a cheaper model, thin plastic with a flimsy frame that threatened to give out at any moment. The kind of thing you’d get over the counter at a drug store. But its mere presence was intoxicating. So much so that he couldn’t release it, even after slipping it into the pocket of his robe.

Stanley shuffled back up the driveway, trying to contain himself so as not to arouse the suspicion of an imagined audience and nearly stumbling as he forged a path to the Convertor Room. His fingers flew across the dials on the machine, guided by years of ingrained instinct that couldn’t be bothered to register the tremor of his pulse.

Any lingering concern about the state of the machine was swept away by a tide of curiosity. He leaned back in the chair, drumming his fingers as an array of tubes and sensors descended toward his face. There was a churning, humming sound and a slow burst of radiant light. The mechanical tendrils withdrew, leaving behind an emotional tourist wearing a foreign accessory.

Stanley smiled.

ø

Hours passed before Stanley felt the need to move. He sat and enjoyed the silence of the Convertor Room, drinking in every moment of the strange buzzing sensation that seemed to ricochet around his body and flow into every passing thought. Finally, he opened the machine and pulled out the spent remains of the capsule. For the first time, he noticed a handwritten note curled around the edge of its frame:

            Saw your story online. Thought you deserved a little Joy. – Alice

Joy. He thought. How marvelous. No wonder people are so keen to hold on to it. He rolled the slip of paper round his index finger, pausing at the name. Most people, anyway.

He wandered back to the security monitor, bouncing with every step. Brought up her face again. Why would someone give this wonderful sensation away? Surely it was a precious commodity. Something one must protect at all costs. He could already feel it fading; tinges of Fear battling to reclaim his mind. There had to be a way to hold on to it. He stared at the now-empty capsule, then at the clock on his computer. Ninety-seven minutes until the pharmacy closed.

Gravel crunched and churned beneath the tires as Stanley reversed down the long driveway, past the delivery system and the hidden camera outposts. He spun out onto the road, his mind racing. He’d never tried to strip an emotion before. It would have been a violation of his contract to put anything back on the market. In fact, he might need to pay cash to keep from having to show any identification when he bought a kit. No one could know what he was planning to do.

At the pharmacy, Stanley found himself restraining his steps for the second time in as many hours. How do people hide these feelings from each other? He was radiating from head to toe. He clutched at his sleeves, subconsciously pulling them down to cover his arms. It dawned on him that he’d never bothered to change out of his pajamas. Every step sent his wallet bouncing forward and back in the pocket of his robe.

Aisles marched around him. Candy. Shaving cream. Cold and Flu relief. He stopped and grabbed a box of generic medicine, trying to set his face as though it had been tortured by a week of sleepless nights. Maybe he could sell himself as nearly bedridden.

Something strange bubbled up in his throat. A giggle; his first ever. He forced a cough and threw a low-end Emotion Stripping Kit into his hand basket. The capsules looked as ramshackle as the one he’d received, but it was all he could afford with the wad of cash in his wallet.

The box tore a little as Stanley slammed it down on the counter, startling a cashier who had been eyeing the clock on the back wall.

“Is this it for you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need a receipt?”

“Not today… do you sell a lot of those?”the

The cashier followed Stanley’s finger to a miniature turnstile that sat on the countertop between boxes of mints and a rack of $5.00 sunglasses. Decorative bandannas hung in color-coded patches from metal clasps at the top. Pink ones with red hearts, black ones with hot rod flames along one edge. And a few covered in emojis.

“Definitely not,” the young man snorted. “One of my coworkers bought one on her way out today, but I think it was a joke gift for her mom. She bought one of these, too.”

He hefted the Emotion Stripping Kit and gave it a shake, its contents rattling around like plastic shavings in a broken toy. Stanley forced a laugh and snatched the bag as soon as it was offered, catching himself just on the edge of looking desperate.

“I’ll let you know how it goes,” he said, stepping out into the cold.

ø

It did not go well. Within a week, Stanley was running on fumes. The first dose faded before morning, and the hint of Joy that he managed to extract with the kit was a dim peach in color. Lukewarm to the touch.

It lasted until noon, and each successive attempt at stretching the supply saw its color drained and its glow diminished. The hollow sensation of everyday existence was setting in, and Stanley couldn’t afford to try a more expensive kit without taking another disposal contract to cover the cost.

For the first time in his life, the idea of processing someone else’s anger or disdain seemed irrational. It was his job – his responsibility – but none of it mattered if it meant leaving this feeling behind. Certainly not if it was to be replaced with those awful, torturous things he used to see as the only emotions in all creation.

Desperate, he returned to the pharmacy and waited, parked at the edge of the lot, for a woman he considered to be both his savior and his tormentor. There was nothing in him but a hunger to feel that fleeting energy once more.

Alice arrived just after lunch, coasting up to the store on a worn-out mountain bike, the emoji bandana pulled tight across her face to shield her from the brisk winter air. She chained her bike to a metal signpost and waltzed into the store, her shoulders dipping in time with music only she could hear.

Stanley waited.

Another woman left the store ten minutes later, a uniform peering out from beneath her scarf as she zipped up her coat. Stanley drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, only now realizing that he had no idea what to say or do when he finally came face to face with Alice. Or whether he had actually found her at all.

He had to do something.

Stanley stepped out of the car, slammed the door, and marched toward the store. The doors seemed to hiss as they opened. He looked away from the counter, afraid to make eye contact too soon. He wandered the store, his mind racing. Finally, he grabbed another Emotion Stripping Kit and made his way back to the front. There was no line. No time to think. He slid the box across the laminate, then, at the last minute, grabbed one of the bandannas from the turnstile and threw it down, too.

Her hands stopped atop the fabric that now shrouded the box, her finger tracing the toothy grin of a character emblazoned on it. She lifted her eyes to meet his. The same eyes he’d seen a week before, this time tinged by a crease in her brow. He saw something familiar in them; something he’d seen in his own. Not fear, exactly, but something like it.

“You ruined everything,” he said, before knowing that he thought it.

“I don’t –”

“If I never knew what I was missing, I could have just kept living the way I always have. Now, all I want is to feel it again. I can’t do my job, Alice. All I want is Joy.”

“Have you been trying to keep it alive by yourself?” she asked.

“Of course,” Stanley whispered. “How could anyone ever let something like this go?”

“Because that’s the point of it,” Alice said. “You don’t cling to Joy. You share it.”

She smiled. Instinctively, impossibly… Stanley smiled back.

---

This piece originally appeared on my old blog, a product of the marvelous prompts provided by @writing.prompt.s on Instagram.