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| Image Credit: WelcomeInside |
Notion
by Camden Rose
Keenovation Inc. built Notion A and B to fix all of humanity’s problems, to generate ideas so people didn’t have to, and to solve everything more efficiently so that people could spend their time consuming instead of generating.
But Notion A hadn’t produced anything in three months.
Wesley and his coworkers had more than enough work ahead of them on Notion B, trying to sort the millions of ideas that were already there and delete any duplicates, but he still wondered sometimes if Notion A really ran out of ideas. If running out of ideas was even possible.
“You heard about Africa?” Wesley’s coworker Brian said, popping out from behind the cubicle wall. All sorters sat in a circle around Notion A, as though they were petals on a flower.
They never really talked—each sorter had been plucked from a different profession and many of them didn’t have much in common—but sometimes the more outgoing ones would converse as though they worked a normal job, as though they weren’t helping Keenovation mine ideas.
“No,” Wesley responded. He’d struck up a conversation with Brian the first time they worked together, and it opened doors he couldn’t close even if he wanted to.
Brian smirked as though he knew something special, then leaned forward, his shoulder bumping the cubicle wall. “Well,” he said, “There’s a rumor they found a new idea.”
“Like the whole continent?” Wesley tried to ignore him. He had a job to do after all: plugging away on Notion B, tagging the ideas with possible trademark or copyright categories so that Keenovation’s army of lawyers could monetize them. There wasn’t a cake recipe, dance move, or art style left that Notion A hadn’t churned out already.
The company owned everything.
“No,” Brian laughed. “Like a person in Africa. The article won’t say who. Something about protecting their identity or whatever.” He leaned back in his chair, half of his face now blocked by the cubicle wall. “Pretty crazy, right?”
“Yeah,” Wesley managed to say. He turned back to Notion B and continued tagging away, but all the while, he kept wondering if a new idea had really been found by something other than Notion A.
#
He walked home with his hands in his pockets, as though he had a secret. It was getting colder and darker by the moment. The buildings towered above him, as tall as the gray clouds, and the clocks were striking eighteen.
Neon lights flared above him like streamers, contrasting the darkness of the alley below and the smog above. A cross-breeze blew through the streets, clearing out some of the smog but blowing in debris. Wesley caught what papers he could and stuck them in his thin jacket to throw away later. He shivered.
The green and yellow lights of the KeenMart kiosk glowed up ahead. If he was that kind of person, he could use his employee discount to pick up some gloves and maybe a scarf. Brian certainly would.
“Give us our ideas!” a crowd chanted as he crossed the corner. He looked up just briefly enough to see their signs: Keenovation can’t steal what was ours! Stop Notion! Machine-generated ideas aren’t ideas! We want to do more than consume!
There weren’t many of them—maybe seven or so—and all wore clothing riddled with holes but they didn’t seem to care. They held their signs high, determined and proud. Brave in a way he wasn’t.
He put his head back down and walked faster, past the ghost of a little park. When the last trees had died, the city replaced them with synthetic versions, but Keenovation filed a copyright infringement over their carbon sequestration technology, and now there were only stumps.
When he reached his apartment building, he finally allowed himself to look up. A Closed for Business sign hung on his favorite coffee shop. Everything was closing nowadays.
#
Wesley entered his apartment with a frustrated sigh. The key had gotten stuck on the first try and he had to jiggle it to get it through. He’d been meaning to get a new place for a while now, but everything just seemed to get more and more expensive by the minute, and he and Millie couldn’t afford anywhere as nice and as close to work as their current place.
“Millie?” he said, putting his key down and taking off his blazer.
“Bedroom,” she responded. He followed the noise, shedding his company persona along the way. The nametag, the lunch bag, the feeling of despair.
He found Millie in bed, a cold compress over her forehead. He lowered his voice as he came closer.
“Migraine?” They happened frequently now. Almost every evening, he came home to her incapable of moving.
She moaned in response. Wesley sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed her back. Living in the Central District hurt her. The light intensity, the smog, the way the city seemed to scream even when it was whispering.
A crumpled sheet of paper sat on the nightstand, filled with Millie’s slanted handwriting. “What’s this?” he asked.
She peeked out from under the compress. “Oh, just something that was stuck in my head. I thought if I wrote it down, it would stop the headache.”
“I can make you some soup. Would that help?” he said. She tilted her head, which he took for a yes. He grabbed the note from the nightstand and stood, but she caught his wrist as he moved away.
“How was work?” she asked, her voice strained. It broke his heart that she still tried to hold a conversation when she was clearly in pain.
He sometimes thought about bringing her to the doctor, but it would do nothing. All medical research had dried up, since Keenovation would claim to already own any “new” findings. And, so far, Keenovation hadn’t started their own hospital.
“Good.” He squeezed her hand so she wouldn’t ask more.
In the kitchen, he plopped the can of soup and some water into the pot. The flame ignited as he turned the handle and he couldn’t help but watch it.
He’d been a chef once. His heart had sung when he thought he was creating something new. But that was a lifetime ago before Keenovation’s lawyers had walked into his restaurant and claimed a trademark on every recipe he’d ever developed.
He watched the fire for a bit, letting his eyes focus on the blue flame. The one thing that hadn’t changed since Notion had been built, at least. He could still make soup the same way he made it as a kid, even if while he did, his wife suffered from a migraine in the other room and lights blasted through his windows, showing advertisements of the new Keenburger and Keenlets.
It was funny, even with all the ideas collected, the world still felt as disorganized as before.
Wesley snapped out of it. He emptied his pockets of the trash he’d collected on his walk home. It wasn’t much, but he wanted to make the world a little better and this he could control.
His hand paused as it grasped the piece of paper Millie had written on. He knew he shouldn’t read it, but he couldn’t help himself.
It was full of half-formed sentences and half-way nonsensical in only the way Millie could be when she was having a particularly bad migraine, but there was no mistaking what it was.
An idea.
#
Early that morning, he looked at the note before getting up for the day, reading it over and over. An idea. A new, fresh idea. Something Notion A didn’t create.
He’d thought about asking Millie where she came up with it, but she’d been asleep when he left for work, and he couldn’t bring himself to wake her.
He walked past the protesters, the bright lights, and the grime that always stuck to the sidewalks. The protesters’ eyes stayed on him, as though they knew what he had. As though they wanted to use it to bring down Keenovation Inc. once and for all.
#
“Guess it was all a fake,” Brian said, as they packed up for the day.
“Hmm?” Wesley said. He didn’t really want to talk to Brian. He’d survived all day with the idea in his back pocket, with no questions being asked of him, and he’d rather not change that.
He’d even looked up the idea on the system—or rather manually sifted through all the possible ideas it could be related to just to make sure—but there was nothing.
This idea was completely original. Completely new.
“The Africa thing. It was all a hoax. Some north-wing thing to stir up trouble for the company, I’m sure.” Brian laughed and slapped Wesley on the back as though they were friends. “Like anyone else could come up with an idea on their own faster than this baby.” As they walked out, he gestured to the mainframe of Notion A. Behind the fans and vents, lights blinked at Wesley. Almost like they knew knew he had a new idea and wanted to claim it.
Wesley looked away and followed behind Brian. The idea just waited to burst out. He could say it to Brian, and that would be it. The weight would no longer be on his chest. Brian would have him turn it in and Wesley could move on.
But no matter how much he told himself to confess, he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. The idea was insurance: the one thing not locked behind Keenovation’s wall of trademarks and copyrights.
“Damn,” Brian said as they entered the lobby. Rain poured down the building, painting the glass walls in clear streaks. “Hasn’t rained this hard in a while.”
Wesley felt the paper in his pocket like a stone. If it got wet, the words would bleed into meaninglessness, and while he would remember what it said, the idea wouldn’t feel real. It would be intangible, trapped inside his mind until he let it out.
“I think I’m going to stay here for a while,” Wesley said. Brian raised his eyebrows, but when Wesley didn’t move, he shrugged.
“Okay, suit yourself.” He pulled his jacket over his head and ran out into the storm. Wesley watched him leave, then pulled out his idea.
He knew it was a risk, opening it up in a public space, but it wasn’t like they knew the treasure he had, and there was no one nearby. He rubbed his thumbs over the paper, and sighed, feeling relief come.
#
Millie still slept when Wesley got home. He rubbed her back and when she moaned in response, he got up and went to make dinner.
As the oven heated up, he walked over to the window and stared at the city below and above him. Neon lights started around his level and they blocked much of the darkness and smog below, making it seem like he lived at ground level even though they were on the 10th floor.
He looked up above, at the skyscrapers, all metal, all dark, except for the bright signs on them advertising new products and services. One of them was from Keenovation Inc. and featured a woman holding her head in pain.
Tired of thinking? Let us do it for you!
Wesley looked over at the bedroom where his wife slept. He’d always thought her headaches were from the smoke or smog or lights that streamed into their apartment no matter if the curtains were closed. Could it be that she was just thinking too hard? Filled with too many ideas?
If he turned the paper in, would he get paid for it, and would he be able to help Millie?
If he gave it to them, Keenovation would use it to prove that Notion A still had ideas; they could use it to stop the rumors. Surely that would be an advantage to them. Or would they just act as though they always had it and never pay for him and his wife to move to a better place that was safer for her?
He honestly wasn't sure.
He took out the piece of paper in his back pocket and rubbed at the words as though they would give him an answer, as though they would tell him what to do.
As though simply her idea could save them.
#
Wesley walked to work past another closed business. A newsstand this time, and over top of the closed sign was a new one: Coming Soon! KeeNews! All the Latest in Innovation, Right Here!
He played with the idea in his pocket. It was the one thing Keenovation didn’t own.
As he entered the office, Brian noticed him and gave a wave, which Wesley barely managed to give back. Before his coworker could start up a conversation, he sat down at his desk.
For the next hour, he chugged away at the ideas, tagging them one by one. It was mindless at this point, and he found his brain wandering to his wife. She was getting sicker by the minute and he couldn’t do anything to change it.
The idea still sat in his back pocket, the paper worn where it had been folded. Maybe he could turn it in on his lunch break in exchange for Keenovation finally starting a medical branch to help her.
As if Notion A read his mind, Wesley saw a new idea pop up. His wife’s idea. His idea. Their idea.
There it was, on the screen, almost word for word. Somehow, maybe, Notion A saw him when he pulled the idea out of his pocket yesterday.
Wesley looked around him, but everyone clicked away, not paying attention. He looked at the idea again, just to make sure. He rubbed his hands down his face.
Nothing mattered now. Keenovation Inc. would do nothing for him. They already had the idea, after all.
It was too late. He hadn’t acted. There would be no saving Millie, no starting an uprising, no hope.
Wesley put his hand in his pocket, feeling the soft paper between his fingers. Then, he went into Notion B, flagged the idea as an error, and deleted it.
He smiled. There was no telling what might happen after this, but for once, he felt brave.
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| Camden Rose |
Camden Rose is a queer author who loves seeking out magic beneath the everyday world. She can often be found at the ocean's edge taking notes on the local mermaid population. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her spouse, black cat, and collection of books and board games. You can find her online at www.camdenscorner.com
