An old guy strolled in with his hands casually behind his back. Customers dropped their knives and forks to surround him in awe.

“That guy had an index of 1400. He’s a real-life genius!” A girl whispered to her visibly jealous boyfriend.

The old guy brushed them off, but even more customers rushed towards him as he ordered a Snake Solyanka. He caught Brinda on the edge of his sight and his eyes narrowed.

While waiting, his eyes stared at Brinda with demanding hunger.

Brinda stared back with defiance, noticing in detail his rectangular expressionless face; There were almost no traces of hair left. The old guy had a long forehead, low brows, high cheekbones, cat-like eyes, a straight nose, and overall wrinkled skin.

A horrifying cry echoed from the kitchen.

Sandeep had grabbed a pet rabbit on one leg. It instinctively tried to jump to break its own legs, wailing in pain.

“Break a leg, eh?” He said with a smirk.

At the instant Brinda kicked the door open, Sandeep put on his serious sorrowful face.

“Sandeep, you’re sitting around!” Brinda said. “I did more work than you running around on 2 hours of sleep!”

Sandeep slouched in his plastic chair and told her to get some sleeping pills. Brinda was not sure if it was a cruel joke or his lack of understanding. Here at eudaimonia ville, where Brinda lived, the wait time to get a doctor’s appointment is -5000*log(one’s parents’ average index)+16020 hours. As Brinda’s parents each ran off into nowhere; her aunt was blinded by heaps of money. Brinda traded some paywalled papers with an acquaintance for sleeping pills.

Brinda can now sleep 2 hours instead of 0! The caveat was occasional stomach pain but Brinda brushed off with a “whatever, lol”.

Lights flickered in the kitchen and the heat was blowing on Brinda’s face. The restaurant was engulfed in flames. The old guy was on top of a table.

“Do you know what your index is?” He sneered, the fire illuminating the folds on his face. The feeling of rejection from one’s family, relatives, a third-world village and now Eudaimonia ville was gnawed at Brinda’s flesh. At this point, Brinda can’t stand another mention of indices.

“All this talk about optimizing one’s life for indices, and granular understandings.” Brinda said, “You’re peer pressuring your lifestyle onto others. But some people find fulfillment in building stuff, creating utopias, social harmony, and preserving nature too.”

Murmurs started going up, and because there was smoke, people coughed unpleasantly.

“The average index of the street just dropped by 150 points!” Someone remarked and started to leave. The restaurant became a flea market with academic terms flying across the room!

“The inefficiencies of this world are staggering and overwhelming! Why does humanity limit itself like this?” A girl said, almost wanting to punch gravity, Planck’s constant, and the annoying 26 fundamental constants in the face. “Thinking Reed was the closest place I’ve come to find the best of humanity.”

“Thinking Reed is just W! And w- w-violence gets my point acwross bettew!” A guy yewwed as he smashed plates and bowls.

“Recall the good old days in Thinking Reed academies, where we pirated Russian math books from Russian sites?” Someone reminisced.

Old guy joked and leaned towards Brinda. “Talk to me. Are you mute? Or deaf! In your eyes, you’re doing something revolutionary. But soon you will realize, you are just a tiny mosquito trying to disrupt society.”

The crowds erupted in laughter.

Cat in a Jar delivered the bowl to him. The old guy flung the robot onto the ground.

“You’re overlooking butterfly effects and mosquito effects.” Brinda countered.

Old guy turned his head towards Brinda. “Hah! And the world writhes with malaria!” His voice rose to cover Brinda’s. “An 850! What a disgrace to Eudaimonia Ville! Find your way elsewhere!”

Brinda tripped over a plastic chair. A searing pain ripped through her stomach, radiating a bright blue intensity.

Sandeep rushed to the old guy to ask for a photo and his signature. Brinda stumbled outside with the panicking crowd. There was black static gathering in her vision as the pain intensified in the form of rapid heart pounding and sweating. She gasped for a breath of cool outdoor air and instead, breathed in fire.

Sandeep saw Brinda and ran towards her.

“Brinda! Is everything okay?” He asked.

“huh—” Her voice was barely audible. Talking made the pain 10 levels worse. Brinda could talk no louder. Hearing no reply, Sandeep repeated the question slower and slower like talking to a child.

“It’s okay, take a break until you’re ready to work again,” Sandeep said casually.

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Brinda heard a flurry of footsteps approaching.

“Brinda is sick again!” Someone exclaimed.

“Oh woe to me, why has my luck been so terrible? My team members drain my energy every time. Time for Brinda to retire!” Another person complained.

The rumours of an employee uprising were true! Young employees narrowed their eyes and only saw one thing: Getting a 1600. These little cuckoo parasites hogged the bird mother’s nest, and opened their beaks for food before they get fat enough to kick bird mother and the nest away.

At this point, Brinda’s consciousness has been flattened from 3D into 1D. The uprising was the least of her worries; She just hoped to not die.

“For God’s sake, just stop being sick!” A girl cried. She was more livid about Brinda’s sickness than Brinda. “You have no idea how troubling, frustrating, and maddening it is to have a teammate who’s constantly sick! I can’t even follow my optimized studying routine anymore and I’m going to scream at the top of my lungs!”

…

Brinda awoke. The restaurant was lifelessly squatting on the floor with its insides toasted. The area was empty and devoid of humans.

She ran habitually and resorted to slugging because of stomach pain. Her stuff was nowhere to be seen. Brinda sighed and dropped onto the floor.

There were no edible things in the restaurant. These three days were divided into light and dark: Hungrily drinking water, and sleep. Her stomach was even fuller than when she ate, full of grumbling dissatisfaction. On the fourth day, there was no food. Brinda forced herself to get up and found a charitable grocery store.

Eating the food was a huge mistake as it gave Brinda a fever. After five long days, Brinda, sick and tired, realized she should stop waiting for the day of perfect health and instead dragged her ill self to Sandeep’s house.

Sandeep’s home was buried deep in the dense moist woods, stretching on for kilometers in every direction. It smelled like freshly cut watermelon; The lawnmower whirred. Birds sang their hearts out. The mighty water fountain sprayed ten meters up into the air, and the grand mansion came into sight.

Just imagine sleeping without sticky sweat in a steamy room, without odours and any moisture. Imagine sleeping with absolute quietness, no 2 am shouts, no itches across the body or mosquitoes buzzing around your ear. What if sleep turned from a nightly traitor to a caring grandma—If one can hit the pillow and open one’s eyes to the morning sun, life would be so much simpler.

A guard saw Brinda and moved himself to block her way.

“Sandeep’s out with his friends.” He said.

“I just saw him eating lunch!” Brinda said, pushed past him, and dashed into the hall.

“She came in on her own! I couldn’t stopping her!” The guard exclaimed, following Brinda into the house.

Brinda thinks she must’ve seen a zombie turn and disappear into the halls. A woman whose face and body were palettes of black, purple, yellow, and ugly green.

Another figure hushed the children into the rooms.

“Where’s Sandeep?” Brinda demanded.

“Sandeep doesn’t want to see you again.” Sandeep’s dad said without any emotion.

“That’s a lie!” Brinda said.

“How dare you accuse me of lying!” Sandeep’s dad raised his voice.

“Sir, I know that the restaurant had difficulties. But as with many things in life, we should give it another chance.” Brinda said.

“There is no such thing as ‘another chance’! ” Sandeep’s dad jumped. “Better listen to tenets of Thinking Reed. Young people should know life is so much more enjoyable without any leadership positions and marriages. You need to stop going around like a virus, suboptimizing the world with your 850, including to my Sandeep. It’s been two months! Where are the results? Where is Sandeep’s salary?”

“We’re broke now, but if we try again, we can pay Sandeep in the future,” Brinda reasoned.

“It has been two, whole months since your aunt paid Sandeep to talk to you.” Sandeep’s father interrupted. “He’s been tolerating you for two months now. What more can you ask of him?”

Brinda was unaware such a business existed. Sandeep had been a close friend for years. The last node in the graph had vanished.

“But at least let me see him again. Perhaps he knows where my stuff is.”

“I will tell you: Sandeep has your stuff. And he is entitled to it as his payment!” Sandeep’s father declared.

“But sir! You’re stealing my stuff!” Brinda protested. This is so intuitively outrageous that she couldn’t think of an argument. “And what does he need it for? Those aren’t his!”

Sandeep’s father gestured to the door. “Not until you return my stuff!”

“Are you such a loser that can’t stand a bit of pain and loss?” Sandeep’s father mocked, leaning comfortably in his chair. Brinda knocked over a glass of orange juice spilling across the tablecloth.

Sandeep’s dad’s face was flushed with blood and his figure became angular. He stood up, reached for thick books on the shelf, and hurled them at Brinda. Brinda instantly grabbed a chair. They ran around clockwise and counterclockwise around the table, under and above the furniture. Brinda shrieked with excitement like a mad woman as Sandeep’s dad struggled to catch up.

“You fool! You filthy menace! Sandeep hated you from the beginning and he was never your friend! Get out and never show your face here again!”

In the fuming chaos, Brinda grabbed all she could. It was a deep instinct to rebel against Sandeep’s father, to rebel against the societal expectation to become an intelligent goldfish in a bowl.

Outside, grayscale-clouded darkness overthrew the blue skies. The clouds roared. Raindrops abused and spat on the ground. If the ground was alive, it would’ve winced with pain.

The rain blocked sight and Brinda suspected she will get sick again. Cold water washed down her face. For seconds, she stood pondering in the downpour.

As raindrops cascade, a Thinking Reed chastises a child for failing to update their beliefs of the rain while the child was engrossed in sketching natural landscapes.

As raindrops plummet, an artist mocks a scientist for coldly dissecting the rain, disregarding how the scientist also eyes to appreciate both the beauty and the underlying mechanism.

As raindrops pelt, the scientist humiliated the philosopher for whimsically dancing in the void, without considering how the stars of modern science were birthed from the nebulae of natural philosophy.

As raindrops torrent, a researcher humiliates an engineer for their myopia about practical applications, hastily rounding off constants, while the engineer scoffs at the researcher who spent years engrossed in impractical theories.

All these people were in eudaimonia ville, living dissonantly.

Brinda looked at her hands. The books are becoming wetter by the second. She slid the books up her clothes and walked into the city.

When the rain stopped, Brinda examined the books. She remembered the good days of spending entire days immersed in the library. Nowadays, it’s results. Results. Results. Brinda almost lost her curiosity and held onto it more dearly than ever.

Most were wet. A thin book with a cheesy title of “How to Find More Meaning in Your Life” by some Austrian Psychologist was dry. Brinda flipped it open anyway.

“Many influential people had disabilities.” The page said. “Newton had bipolar disorder. Da Vinci had ADHD. Edison was deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other. Euler produce almost half of his works in near blindness. . .”

Brinda closed the book and walked. She sensed Da Vinci was with her once again.