It was almost as if those knocks on the door of his first client’s house gave birth to him, his childhood and adolescence passing in a few reverberating raps on a plastic/aluminum alloy construct painted to look like old wood. Puberty and early adulthood fell like a silk shroud cast away from a radiant temptress as the door creaked hesitantly open. And then, like an angel or a radioactive priest, Dr. Elmo the Traveling Lobotomy Salesman broke into a Cheshire grin and offered the single greatest product the world had ever seen.
The most beautiful thing about the Do-it-yourself lobotomy kit was that it practically sold itself. Never the less, Dr. Elmo peddled his device it like a musician plays his instrument. His pitch was a carefully rehearsed symphony that left anyone who heard it speechless with tears running down their cheeks. The price tag, by no means cheap but certainly affordable, meant nothing after Dr. Elmo had spoke his ballad. No one visited by Dr. Elmo shut the door without a Lobotomy Kit for every member of the household. In this respect, Dr. Elmo was as much a salesman as he was a doctor, since he really didn’t need to work at all to reduce his inventory. Perhaps he reveled in the selling process, or maybe it was somehow a crucial element of what made the kit itself so effective. No one knows for sure one way or another.
Assembly was a breeze. It required no paint, bolts or screws, glue or batteries. It had no instruction manual. Absolutely anyone could put the thing together. The color scheme was tailor made to compliment any household’s existing decoration, and the design was ergonomic and sheik. Once you put it together all you had to do was put it on (one size fits all) and press the only button it had. PRESTO! Flawless results! No further hassle! Guaranteed to work on the first try or your money back! Not a single kit was ever returned of course. In fact once you used it you never took it off. This was fine, since it was also the perfect fashion accessory. All your friends and family wanted one, and all your friends and family could have one! As it so happened, all your friends and family eventually would have one (also guaranteed or your money back).
Most fads are unavoidable as far as hearing about them goes. The news will sing the praises or raise it’s eyebrows over any craze or fashion that gets even close to as popular as Dr. Elmo’s product did. The funny thing was that not even Oprah spoke of it. Where it not for the fact that “everyone was doing it” in a very literal sense, you’d never even know it existed. This probably owed to the nature and effects of the kit, but this is only speculation. Once assembled the device was capable of multiple applications. Though seeing as how you only needed to use it once per person this seemed a tad redundant.
The Do-it-Yourself Lobotomy kit only began getting any kind of media attention when it was being casually mentioned during arguments over which plummeted first; the value of currency, national employment figures or the overall profits of every conceivable industry. The truth of course is that the entire world economy collapsed within a matter of years, slowed only by Dr. Elmo’s refusal to set up a mail order service. The panicked mainstream news frenzy that usually accompanies some sort of disaster was noticeably less powerful this time around. Whether this was because the stations had lost most of their workers or because nightly viewership was so low that the producers saw little point in fueling the invisible fires was never really clear. The military was mobilized on paper, but not only were forces insufficient, but not a single living soul could actually find Dr. Elmo. It was if he only existed when he showed up at your door to take your money and give you his fantastic device. A few theorized he was but a hallucination and that the device either showed up in your home or perhaps the world had built it in a trance and tricked themselves into believing it came from somewhere else.
Phantom or not, the world Dr. Elmo had created by the time he got to Emily Stein’s house was a utopia like no science fiction writer could have imagined. Corporate control had been relinquished, every war had ended, and though the trains didn’t run on time there was no need for them to run at all anyway. No one starved because no one ate. Television was never boring because no one watched it. Nature thrived because no one left the house to destroy it, let alone look at it. Politics were meaningless, poverty was nonexistent, and because it wasn’t produced any more fine art was no longer a parody of itself. The new world order was built on the single biggest selling point of the Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy Kit: once you used it, there was no need to worry about anything else ever again.
…
Emily Stein opened the door already weeping, as Dr. Elmo’s gaze jumped from his feet to her begging eyes. He smiled as he had so many times before and asked Emily if he could take a moment of her time. Though she had never heard his pitch, she had spent the last few years of her life waiting to hang on every word of it. It was as if his tongue was dancing as he relayed the infamous lines that everyone knew but no one could repeat. After a few minutes, he stopped and awaited Emily’s answer. Instead of saying yes she simply sobbed and thrust the wad of cash she had been saving into his chest. Dr. Elmo smiled and told Emily she would not regret her decision.
But as he opened his bag to grab Emily’s Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy kit he paused, then closed it. Dr. Elmo then told Emily that he regretted to inform her that he was currently out of stock, but that he would let her know as soon as he got another shipment. He then tipped his hat, turned around and walked away, never to be seen again.
Emily now cried tears of horror and utter torment, as she convulsed on her front stoop. She was now the most intelligent person on the face of the planet.
