What I did in the hedonium shockwave, by Emma, age six and a half

My name is Emma and I’m six and a half years old and I like pink and Pokemon and my cat River and I’m going to be swallowed by a hedonium shockwave soon, except you already know that about me because everyone else is too.

“Hedonium shockwave” means that everyone is going to be happy forever. Not just all the humans but all the animals and the flowers and the ground and River too. It has already made a bunch of the stars happy, like Betelgeuse and Alpha Centauri.

Scientists saw that the stars were blinking out, and they did a lot of very hard science and figured out that the stars were turning into happiness. I wanted to be a scientist when I grew up but I won’t be a scientist because instead I’m going to be happy forever.

I used to have a hard time saying “hedonium shockwave” but grownups keep saying it so I’ve gotten a lot of practice. Sometimes it seems like all grownups do, in real life and on the TV, is say “hedonium shockwave” at each other until they all start crying.

I looked at the sky to see if I could see any of the stars blink out when they turned into happiness, but Daddy said that you’d have to be looking at the exactly right time to see them blink out, and anyway we can’t see the stars from our house because of Light Pollution. Light Pollution is when you have lots of lights and the lights confuse the sea turtles so they walk into the streets and get run over, and also you can’t see the stars. I wanted to see the stars blink out at the planetarium but Daddy says the planetarium is closed, and even if it wasn’t closed it would be showing the regular show because grownups don’t like thinking about the hedonium shockwave.

Everything is closed these days because no one wants to work if they’re going to be happy forever in two weeks. One time we went to the store and bought all the canned food and toilet paper we could, and all the shelves were empty because everyone else was buying canned food and toilet paper too, and the store hasn’t been open since then and even if it did they wouldn’t have anything on the shelves. I asked for candy and I thought Daddy was going to say No, It Will Spoil Your Dinner but instead he said Sure, Why Not? You’re Not Going To Live Long Enough To Get Diabetes and then he bought a whole shelf of candy, all the candy I wanted and whatever kind I wanted.

We’ve been eating the canned food since then. I don’t like the canned food, so I eat candy for dinner. That’s one way the hedonium shockwave made me happy before it even got here. Except then we ran out of candy so now I have to eat refried beans. I hate them and I stick out my tongue but Mommy says I have to eat them up.

Another way the hedonium shockwave made me happy is school. School is still open even though a bunch of the kids don’t go and a bunch of the teachers don’t go either. But we don’t have to do boring things like math or phonics anymore. We have storytime three times a day, and we watch movies, and we go to recess for hours and hours.

I have to go to school because Daddy still goes to work. Daddy is a police officer which means he chases down bad guys and puts them in prison, which is time-out for grownups. Mommy says Why Are You Going To Work, Jim? (that is what Mommy calls Daddy, Jim) and Daddy says Someone Has To Make Sure The Streets Are Safe and Mommy says What Is The Point, Jim, Are They Even Going To Get A Trial and Daddy says They Can Spend Their Last Weeks In Jail, See If They Like It and then Mommy sighs and says That’s Why I Married You, Jim and they kiss and it’s slobbery and gross.

I think jail is also time-out for grownups but I’m not sure how jail and prison are different.

Sometimes at recess we talk about what it will be like when we’re all happy forever. Liam says that there won’t be any icky girls in the hedonium shockwave, because no one could be happy forever if they had to be around icky girls. I said that everyone will turn into happiness, not just the humans but all the animals and the flowers and the ground and River too, and so the girls were also going to turn into happiness, and if Liam thought that he wouldn’t be happy with girls maybe the hedonium shockwave was going to make him the sort of person who would be happy even if girls were there. Liam said that even the hedonium shockwave couldn’t make him like girls because girls were yucky and smelly. I said that actually boys are yucky and smelly and maybe there won’t be any boys after the hedonium shockwave, what then, and then I hit him in the head but no grownups saw me so I didn’t have to go to timeout.

I hate Liam. Everyone thinks I have a crush on him and they won’t stop saying it no matter how many times I hit him in the head.

When the hedonium shockwave hits I’ll get to have candy for dinner every day and we aren’t going to run out. I’m going to have the mermaid toy from the commercials whose human legs transform into fish legs, and it’ll really work, not like the time I begged and begged and got the doll that talks for Christmas and she could only say three things and none of them had anything to do with what I said.

I’ll be a princess who is also a Pokemon trainer, and I’ll be able to understand what River says just like Ash always knows what Pikachu is saying, and I’m going to travel the whole entire world and collect all the Pokemon and put them in my Pokeball which is going to be PINK. And even though I’ll be the greatest Pokemon trainer who has ever lived, River will still be my favorite because I knew her before. And I’ll dress up all my Pokemon in pretty outfits, and I’ll beat up all the bad guys and send them to jail just like Daddy does, and then we’re going to have a big ball and invite everyone in the whole world except Liam because he’s mean. And I’ll have a big closet of the floofiest dresses in the world.

I told Mommy that when the hedonium shockwave hits I’m going to have candy for dinner and a mermaid toy, and then she put her forehead against my forehead for a really long time and didn’t say anything and I tried to squirm away and she wouldn’t let me and it kind of hurt. I tried to make her happier by telling her that I was also going to be a princess Pokemon trainer and never have to talk to Liam again or anyone who says I have a crush on him which I don’t because he’s icky and he smells like turnips. She made a face like she makes when the dog dies in a movie and she wouldn’t tell me what she was sad about.

A lot of grownups are sad about being happy forever. Maybe they don’t like being Pokemon trainers.

Mommy says the hedonium shockwave hits in ten days. Daddy threw out all the calendars last month because Mommy started crying whenever she looked at them. So I got a piece of paper and I wrote 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 on it, just like we learned before we stopped learning math, and I’m going to cross one out every day unless I forget.

I’m going to cross off 10 and then I’m going to be too excited to sleep, like before Christmas when I tried to stay up to meet Santa Claus and ended up falling asleep under the dining room table with wrapping paper on my head. I’m going to look out my window and watch everything get turned into happiness, the humans and the animals and the flowers and the ground and River too. The stores will have food, and no one’s going to go to timeout grownup or regular, and Mommy will give me hugs instead of crying whenever she sees me so that my hair gets covered in snot and it’s gross.

I can’t wait.