The New Magnet School

I fear a future of silence. When I see our children in distress, I note more than anything else the unwillingness to communicate-- the downcast eyes, the small gestural responses, the tiny voices heard only if summarily called upon as final necessity. These are the soft-shelled hermit crabs scuttling backwards for a borrowed place to huddle. Why huddle? To better take Orders, because doing what is told is "comfortable." Silence allows for that smooth glide through Society. The slide that leaves a residue behind of unintended Consequence for which we in our safe-cased anonymity cease to feel responsible. I used to fear a Global Myopia, but now there is Lasik for that; So maybe the boys-in-the-back are already working on something to make the tongue automatically wag?

"Open wide. Wider," he leaned in, those small dual jeweler-like magnifier dental loupes making him look bug eyed and hypercritical, "A little wider, wider," there! he popped in a bite block as a precaution, lest I renege on my release statement and swallow a finger. Unintentionally, of course.

I had curtly dared asked, "Will it hurt?" And he had said, only a little. After a while.

By now I was so swelled up from the horse-dose of local anesthesia that I wasn't sure if there even was enough space around my tongue to continue with the procedure. I was convinced that the already weak natural apparatus for speaking would never again function on its own. This operation was taking on all the more importance. To be honest my brain was feeling the brunt of the lidocaine, and thoughts were thick and heavy. When the Orthodontist motioned to his assistant for a wad of gauze, and then another, and yet another, all quickly drenched in blood, I was ill equipped to respond.

Recognizing only that I was being spoken to, I nodded slowly, automatically, with all appearance of self-assurance, to the unrecognized question that "Yes," I was perfectly "all right." Though that ought to have been questionable from the beginning...

The surgeon had just inserted the major metal plate behind my palette and was now injecting small pellets of nickel into critical points of the epiglottis and superior longitudinal muscle. The projection of magnetic fields from the Operation Tower would trigger precise up and down movement in such ways as to choreograph speech patterns. According to the projected theory, all I, or any subject, would need to do, is breath-- and the desired sounds would be emitted.

It was a test procedure of course, and I was being compensated for my time--- automatic parole on success of the operation.

Reference source:

'Magnetic illusion' can create magnetic fields at a distance – Physics World

https://physicsworld.com/a/magnetic-illusion-can-create-magnetic-fields-at-a-distance/