Author Thomas McDonald publishes a work entitled "Blurred Lines" May 25, 2025

May 2025 Blurred Lines by Thomas McDonald

[Thomas McDonald is a young science-fiction writer based in Quebec, Canada. He focuses on creating captivating ambiences that enthral the reader. His most recent short story, Blurred Lines, explores the universe of a society starved for genuine happiness, where the illusion of manufactured bliss is a lie maintained through the exploitation of unwilling individuals. In the end, in their twisted economy, real death is just another form of entertainment, and the line between reality and illusion is forever blurred.]

A TV buzzes and clicks on.

“Yet another has escaped confinement from the Experiences Corporation laboratories this fine Friday morning,” says a smiling news anchor on a beaten-up television. “We’ll now go to Jerusha, who is on the scene with many others witnessing this current

hostage situation.”

A man with tubes hanging from his neck holds a cloaked scientist hostage, with a piece of broken glass at his neck. He has a certain uneasiness and sadness as he laments his story.

“Have any of you ever discovered your life was a lie, that your perfect life was an illusion? Have you! HAVE YOU!” he yells to the crowd of armed enforcers and laboratory technicians, as tears stream down his emaciated face. He threatens to cut the scientist's throat with a rapid, jerked movement.

“Woah there,” says a hostage negotiator trying to defuse the situation and potentially save a life. “Don’t do anything you might regret.”

“How would you react if you discovered that your entire existence was fabricated with the sole purpose of harvesting YOUR happiness? What would you do? Because I don’t think you’ve ever thought about that—by that bottle of pills that’s assuredly waiting for you on your nightstand.”

“We’ll listen to any of your requests if you just put down the man,” he reaches forward as if to calm a wild beast.

“I want to speak to the people. I want to have a live audience with the world. I—I,” he stammers, “I want to tell the world who they’re benefiting from. Who do they exploit with their precious pills that they need for their pathetic, sad lives?” The camera, which had been recording the whole time, pans to a news reporter.

“That’s what has been happening over here, Jill. Back to you.” The two news anchors look at each other with a smirk, and one starts talking to the

other.

“Well, as long as I can still get my pills, I’m happy. My Joyestra—” he says while holding a pill bottle as if to show it off to the audience, “—keeps me joyful. Thank God for all the emotional architects who work day and night to curate the happiest of scenes.”

The TV that had been playing the news broadcast shuts off as a remote gets flung into it.

“Fucking national news,” mumbled a bald woman covered in geometric head tattoos.

“Always pushing Joyestra. Not everyone can afford it, you know.” Nobody was in the dingy room to hear her whining. Anyone could see that Estra didn’t particularly appreciate big commercial fabricators of

artificial emotion drugs. She had been working in the illegal emotional chemistry market for a couple of years and was known in her district as one of the best. Her workspace was covered in various glassware apparatuses filled with gels, liquids and gases. Every car that drove by made the sulphur-smelling room rattle precariously. Any sane person couldn’t handle her work environment for more than a day: fumes and aerosolized particles of pure epinephrine entered her bloodstream daily. She was far from the “mentally sound” magnates of the major conglomerates. As she was titrating various solutions to create her latest batch of pure adrenaline, the thunderous rumble of a massive truck shook the floor beneath her. One of her largest volumetric flasks, filled with a murky amber-yellow solution, rattled and teetered to the edge of her messy workbench. Realizing that she was moments away from disaster,

Estra sprung to catch the falling glassware—but her effort was in vain. She had miss edit by a finger and shards of glass exploded across her cramped, inhabitable den of misery. Upon contact with the air, the suspension began to off-gas a faint vapor, and the

poor low-life chemist tried her best to not inhale the pure emotion-laden gas. After trying her best to not breathe in, the innate need took its place and she gasped for air, despite the nauseous atmosphere.

When her eyes opened, a torrent of energy rushed into her anemic body. Her heart pumped rapidly and her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her head. Estra grabbed onto the closest ledge to prevent her fall, Razor sharp pieces of glass pierced her skin but she wasn’t close to feeling the lightest prick. Indeed, even the biggest animals shouldn’t receive such a strong dose of pure neurotransmitters. Moreover, this wasn't a clean product—she used countless mystery chemicals to try to cut corners. However, this is what low-lifes, such as waste management specialists, synthetic pleasure chemists and resource extraction “slaves” could afford. It was extremely detached from the pure, human-extracted dopamine one could get in pill form at expensive pharmacies.

Pushed by a drug-induced motivation, Estra barged outside, pushing her street-level door open to reveal a sordid and degrading city street. Prostitutes, lesser black-market emotion dealers and fallen businessmen littered the streets. As she ambled, people called out to her, “HEY! Joy-Estra”, she hated when people used this name, "when's the next batch” or, while scratching their arms with rat-like movements, “I need some more man. I j–j–just need a bit. Please Estra…” These hollers seemed to pass over her, her nervous system was shot and her only objective was to keep walking in order to stay conscious. Suddenly, she blacked-out and had a vision. She could see people trying to get into a building and guards covered from head to toe in white gowns tried to tackle them. An overwhelming aseptic chlorine smell burned her noses. She could see hopeless people with tubes attached to their necks and IV solutions percolating into their lifeless bodies. Advanced sensory helmets, filling the room with a monotonous hum, adorned the patients heads. The visions seemed so real, as if this was an actual

experience of hers. Places she may or may not have been, things so detached from reality that no one person could have experienced all of them. In her current drugged state, these hallucinations pushed her to question whether her entire world was real or

constructed. A total state of derealisation.

After meandering in the desolate roads of the distraught megolopolis, she stumbled upon a towering high-rise. Business men and women walked in and out with assurance, passing in front of her as if she wasn’t even there. Even though she didn’t exactly belong there, Estra sauntered into the gold-plated lobby to be amidst the dream architects and emotional engineers who worked in the Experiences Corp. building. Quite strangely, nobody seemed to notice her presence, despite the polarity of her and the other's origins and looks. People could have almost walked through her, as if she was a ghost. In her altered state, she seemed drawn to the stairwell—the impending sense of doom and urgency seemed to talk to her. “Climb to the top”, it whispered, “seek the thrill, seek height.” It was disconcerting. Estra started ascending the long winding staircase to the summit of the superstructure. Each step she saw a flash—a vision of a divergent past—one filled with rebellion against a company that profits the rich and extracts the poor.

Eventually, when she had scaled the hundreds of floors separating the ultra-rich from the vermin on the street, she pushed the peeling gray door covered in warning signs and a blinding flash of light flooded her. When her eyes eventually got used to the light that rarely reached her in her habitual environment, she was awestruck. She had never been blessed with such a vast and expansive view. Anyone having seen such a view could never, ever return to the gray depressingness of the lower city, to her dingy, humid

lab still filled with gas. Her new vision of reality, of what she could have but will never attain, tainted her,

stained her mind and she could never recover from this. Slowly teetering to the edge, the reality of her situation showed—living a life like hers was assuredly worse than dying—it wasn’t worth spending an ounce of energy to continue. Putting one foot in front of the other she looked down onto the small ant-like people on the sidewalk and the fast cars rushing by. Suddenly, it was all over and one foot fell over the other. Falling, falling fast…

Darkness, darkness again, far from the blinding light of the city skyline. Drip, drip, drip—a faint dripping into a shallow puddle on the floor resonated in the humid room. As Juliette woke up, everything was dark except slowly pulsing red text on a curved screen. She tried to move her head and a surge of pain shot through her bloodless, gray body. Lifting her head, heavy cables connected to her main arteries pulled her back down. As she just started gathering enough energy to lift her arms, everything shut off, there was a blinding flash of light, a deafening screeching noise filled her head and she lost

consciousness.

A TV buzzes and clicks on

“Yet another has escaped confinement from the Experiences Corporation laboratories

this fine Friday mor…”

On a TV set in a luxurious living room, in a massive house, only in the richest neighbourhood, an advertisement played, “Have you been feeling down recently—maybe suicidal,” said a man with a dead and soulless smile “Try Ultra-Death, now with an improved formula! Feel the thrill of death lived by others in the comfort of your living room.”

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