The old souls’ chronicles 6 : the great calm restored
15 November 2025

Tony caught Aron’s body just before it hit the ground. He had not thought it would be a good idea to leave Aron all alone but he had had to agree to give him the possibility of processing his grief fully on his own. Although most of the youngsters after his generation had foregone their right to experience fully emotions, especially the negative ones, he had felt that Aron was different and deserved a chance to process his feelings fully even though it was grief. Tony had never thought that the chancellor’s suggestion of a new world without too many emotions was a good solution. The chancellor had made it seem like it was the heightened feelings, especially the negative ones that caused all the problems in the world like wars, distorted enactments of feelings such as with psychopaths or sociopaths, all the terrible things that criminals would do, animated by anger, hatred and all other negative feelings.

With the first generation, it had been a mass administration of drugs coupled with lobotomy-like procedures in order to dull the new generation’s feelings and reduce their emotional responses. A generation later, it was mainly drugs and after that, it was through processes akin to eugenics. Tony and his wife Hegat were one of the couples that had chosen to stay the way they were, able to emote freely and increasingly getting a select status of being called “the old souls” because they were the last of the old generation that was able to freely feel and express their feelings. They never gave in to all the solicitations of lobotomy or drug use to make their emotions softer, but preferred to stay the way they were, capable of feeling the whole range of emotions up to their most extreme levels. In fact, not only did they retain their feelings but they also developed the skill of conveying such feelings to others through touch and worded expressions.

Tony looked at Aron. So much for creating a generation of youngsters who did not feel too much or seek to have negative feelings he thought. Here was one of those youngsters, one of the first generation that had had negative emotions removed both by procedures and drugs, yet he had some of those negative feelings left and wanted to experience one of the stronger more negative ones such as grief. The remainder of his generation only felt a sense of justice and equanimity and the chancellor had created generations of obedient fun-loving youngsters who only lived for the mild fun of a certain series of acts but did not care for what was happening at the top nor ever want to contest any of its rulings. This was how you governed easily a population, he thought, by creating them incapable of strong feelings.

Tony pressed his palms against Aron’s temples and started massaging them while speaking to him soothingly about love and how it alleviated all negative emotions. He told him that even though his wife had died, the love she had for him had never died and was present all throughout their home. He told him to try to gain access to these feelings. With a small swipe of his hands around the room, Tony collected the feelings of love that were still present throughout it and passed them onto Aron’s temples and his occipital region. Aron reacted with a shiver and a smile started spreading across his lips before he opened his eyes, slowly gathering the scene around him. His eyes met Tony’s eyes and tears welled in them as he realised Tony had saved him. He felt the love swarm into his chest and fill him with a sense of relief and happiness. This was not the fun feeling that most of his generation experienced but a full blown sensation of happiness. Inside him a great calm was now replacing the relief and happiness he had felt. It was as if nothing could ever break him again and he felt like he had evolved in such a short time into a different kind of being, stronger, more resilient, more capable of feeling things almost like the old souls.

"Once again" - Short Dance Film / Stefano Terrazzino & Paulina Biernat / Music: Abel Korzeniowski