Exercise 4?

When was the last time you changed your mind? This question is plastered above every front doorway of every home. The government puts it there as a reminder. Ideally, they would like us to go to the Bureau for Minds, or BM for short, once a month. But they make it clear they aren’t making us go; it is merely strongly suggested.

I have not been to the BM in almost three months. I know they know because every time we go to work, they read our minds by scanning our eyes and ears. If a mind is too full, then thoughts will pile up and start to cloud the eyes. I keep telling myself to go because I know it’s only a matter of time before they bring me in for questioning and ask, when was the last time you changed your mind?

This is how the BM works. The BM is government run, kind of like a post-office. It looks like a library. All the shelves are stainless steel because minds have a lot of gunk on them. The minds are sectioned off into categories. Some of the categories are: Intelligent, Silly, Dirty, Naïve, Street-Smart, Maternal, Rude, Arrogant, Simple, Loving, Slow, Active, Paranoid, Depressed, and Clueless. Everybody is allowed to pick out there own mind, but until you turn fifteen, a guardian must accompany you, not because they are worried you are too immature since maybe the mind you have that the time is very mature, but because kids always touch everything. That’s natural, regardless of what mind you have.

Once you pick out your mind, you take it to the clerk. Only women are allowed to be clerks. These women are chosen before they are five to be clerk. Any girl who exhibits a mind that naturally categorizes things, like blocks, is taken from their family and trained to be a clerk. They have their original minds, and many parents push their daughters to show signs of clerk-hood. She checks to make sure the mind you picked isn’t like the mind you have now. Then she changes your mind.

For the most part, people like changing their minds. Sometimes really smart people don’t want to be smart anymore because other people always ask for their opinion and they feel too responsible. And who wants to be depressed all the time? Dirty minds can be fun, but after a while, it gets hard going to work and only noticing your coworker’s breasts rather than the stack of memos on your desk. Normally, I’m like everybody else. Changing my lets me see things from a different point of view. Sometimes I get lucky. Once, when I was mugged, I luckily had a Street-Smart Mind and managed to avoid getting my wallet stolen. But for the past three months I have had the mind of a loving person and during my time with this mind, I have fallen in love with somebody else with a Loving Mind. We went on picnics, flew kites, held hands, shared kisses, had sex, had sex, had sex, went to the movies, ate dinners, sat in silence, fought in anger, and made each other laugh.

When we hit the two month mark, she asked me one night when we were lying in bed if I was going to change my mind. She wanted to because she was scared what would happen to her. What will they do to us, if we don’t change our minds, she asked me. I don’t know, I don’t know. All I could think about was the day we flew the kites. The sky had never looked as blue as it did that day. The grass felt softer and the breeze blew in more coolly. I wanted everyday to feel like that day. I told her, I will not change my mind.