Joel Pedersen
My name is Mark Dunder, and I was one of the first people to get the ZNexus. For
those of you living under a rock, the ZNexus is a revolutionary brain implant. It’s like a
smartphone, but installed in your head, and it interfaces directly with your brain! How crazy is
that!? No need to carry around some piece of metal, plastic, and glass anymore; everything
right in your mind! Leave it to a genius like Theo Funk to come up with something like that.
The man’s a genius! I know, I know. He didn’t really come up with the idea himself, just
bought it from someone else and called himself the inventor. Some of you hate Funk, and
that’s your prerogative, but he’s always been a hero to me. Seriously, no one else has the
billions of dollars and the willingness to risk it all carrying these transformational ideas to
market.
When the ZNexus first came out I was so excited. Of course, I was a little bummed too.
Like all of Theo’s other products, it was way too expensive for me. See, I’m a security guard,
and, sure I have a nice uniform and I get to carry a gun on the job, but I’m not paid much;
definitely not enough to afford any of Funk’s amazing stuff. Still, I kept my eye on the
development of the ZNexus anyway, just because I thought the idea was so awesome, and
who doesn’t want to be on the cutting edge?
Then one day I saw the announcement: Theo was going to make the product available
to a small group of users for practically nothing. They’d have to be willing to put up with some
tracking and marketing, but it really wasn’t that different from the tracking and marketing they
put on smart-phones. That stuff never really bothered me anyway, so of course after my shift I
was on the website filling out the application and putting down a little money for a deposit.
Okay, if I have to be honest, it was still a lot for me, but it was way less than what they were
going to charge for an unlocked, unencumbered device.
Lo and behold, a few weeks later I got an email telling me that I had been approved to
have the procedure. Man, I probably bugged the heck out of my coworkers talking about it
constantly! I was barely able to stand still at my job from being so excited! My appointment
was set for a few months down the road, and it seemed like an awful wait at first, but the
weeks passed, and before I knew it the next day. Of course that night, I wasn’t able to sleep.
Worse still, I wasn’t to eat for 24 hours before the operation, and I was so hungry. Oh, another
thing! I had to take a car from a ride-share, because I couldn’t drive myself due to the
anesthesia. Anyway, it was all inconvenient, and uncomfortable, and annoying; but this was
such a small price to pay for what I was going to get.
On the day, after taking my vitals and having me fill out some last minute paperwork, I
was put under. To me, it seemed like I just closed my eyes and opened them, like no time had
passed at all. I remember looking around, all groggy and confused, and people talking to me
and not being entirely sure what they said. I was asked to sit around for a few hours, to make
sure I wasn’t going to have a seizure or die or anything, and I snapped out of my stupor. Once
it seemed like I was completely stable, with-it or whatever, they told me to call for a ride home.
Here’s the thing, when I grabbed my phone for the ride-share app they pulled the phone out
of my hand and told me to just think about it. I paused. Looking somewhat confused, I thought
about the service, the doctor’s office, that I wanted to go home. A second later my stomach
dropped when it just occurred to me that my car was on the way. My eyes began to water,
and I almost wept from the miraculousness of it! I pushed that embarrassing prospect down
by laughing too much. They must have thought I was crazy. It was absolutely amazing!
Let me tell you, if you thought that smart-phones changed everything, the ZNexus
blows them out of the water. Suddenly you just know stuff. My coworkers would ask me
ridiculous math problems, and I’d spit out the answers. They’d ask me questions about
literature, or physics, about obscure historical events, or about anything really, and I’d just
know it! Here’s another thing, I’d be driving someplace I’d never been, even after only having
glanced at the address for a second, and I’d already know how to get there. If I started going
down a road and there was an accident or construction traffic way up ahead, I’d feel a mild
sense of dread and immediately take a side road I’d never taken before, never even knew
about! No maps, no weird voices cutting into my music telling me to turn this way or that, just
pure, unobtrusive intuition. Like some sort of freaking superpower!
All this is life altering, obviously, but it’s nothing compared to what I discovered next:
Yesterday I was having a conversation with my boss. He was telling me about the gourmet
dinner he cooked for his wife, asking me little bits of trivia as everyone did, and getting me up
to date on where I was going to be posted in the coming days. It was just normal workaday
chit-chat. Then, all of a sudden, it occurred to me that I really needed to tell him something. It
was odd, because I personally had nothing on my mind to say to him, but the feeling that I did
was overwhelming. So I just leaned against the desk, relaxed my jaw, and let the words come
falling out. When I did the most amazing feeling rushed through my body. My eyes rolled back
in my head, my eyelids fluttered, and I said: “Fresh Foodie thinks that to have a happy,
healthy life, you need to know what you’re eating. Their Fresh Foodie meal kit delivery service
lets foodies like you skip the meal planning, and get right to preparing quick, healthy meals at
home for way less money than going out. Sign up now, and receive up to $50 off your first
order. Fresh Foodie, for fresh foodies!”
Oh my gosh! It took me, like, five minutes to recover, and I had to sit down because my
legs were trembling so bad. My boss didn’t look too happy, in fact he looked kind of disgusted
and angry, but, man, I didn’t care. Speaking those words out-loud was the best feeling I had
ever experienced in my life! It hit me right there and then, how dull and pointless everything in
my life had been up to that moment. I felt like a magic door had opened, and some heavenly
kingdom shined through: A place where there was no boredom or loneliness or pain. It was a
spiritual awakening, and I knew in my pounding heart that all I needed to do to get to that holy
land again was just open my mouth and let my ZNexus deliver its divine truth!
Thank you, Theo Funk! Hallelujah!
Before completing his degree in Sociology, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of Arizona in 2009 (later in life than most) Joel Pedersen floundered around in film colorization, animation, and pre-digital photographics. After graduation, he floundered around in graduate school, computer programming, cgi, ceramics, writing, painting and sketching. Though he envies people who have had a well-defined and focused career arc, he really prefers to flounder. He lives with his partner of 20 years, two cats, and a very cute pug in the California desert.