“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Arthur C. Clarke

REDACTED awoke to a rough shove on the shoulder. “You can’t sleep here,” the police officer informed him. “Scram!” Getting up, the young man double-checks to make sure he still has all his belongings. Then, standing tall and looking the officer straight in the eye, he salutes and presents his codeword, “All clear on the western frontier, sergeant.”

”Okay. Sure thing, soldier,” said the cop as he leaves, appearing not to care about whatever was going on here. It was a sunny spring morning, and the city was slowly coming to life. The young man walked down the street. He constantly looks over his shoulder, scrutinizing passersby. A pigeon lands next to him and says, « Bonne matin. Il fait beau aujourd’hui. Oui? »

« Oui » REDACTED replies, unfazed by the pigeon’s ability to speak.

« C’est une bonne journée pour acheter un chapeau, non? » with a sweeping motion, the bird takes off its top hat, and with a dramatic swoosh of its wing, holds it expectantly before REDACTED .

« D’accord…» he muttered, pulling a handful of birdseed from his pant pocket and sprinkling it into the bird’s hat.

« Merci beaucoup, monsieur. Ne pas oubliez le chapeau ! »

“I got it; you damn rat with wings. It is a beautiful day to buy a hat.”

“Squawk Squawk,” the bird screeches before flying away.

Did the birds always speak French in this park? Had he always spoken French? He suspected the answer to both questions was no, yet the evidence to the contrary was convincing. The squirrels never spoke in foreign languages, but he supposed it made sense for a pigeon to be more well-traveled than its landbound counterpart. Usually, birds talked to him in Russian, sometimes Korean, even Greek once or twice. He could wrap his head around that; those were all real languages. But French? Now that just made no sense. He made an obscene gesture at the sky. The satellites watching would get the message. They were taunting him with this made-up gibberish excuse of a language. He didn’t know why, but he had been chosen. Piecing together this puzzle had become today’s mission.

He started walking nowhere in particular. “No, no… I said be quiet! All of you. Shut up!” He exclaimed loudly enough to startle two passing joggers. He had barely been awake 15 minutes and he was already being followed. Which shadowy agency was behind today’s surveillance? And why? At least this meant he was on the right track.

A TV screen caught his eye. He pressed his face up against the store window. The newscasters bantered, “Now, we interrupt this broadcast with a message to a very special viewer: today is a wonderful day to buy a hat. And now for the weather. Take it away, Steve.” The newscasters often passed him messages like this. Their trustworthy faces were just a façade for some sinister agenda. It would be necessary to play their game if he wanted any answers. Perhaps it was a good day to buy a hat after all. But where?

A bus passed. There were several characters from a popular TV show plastered on the side. Their eyes seemed to follow him, and one tipped their hat to REDACTED. “Aha! Follow the bus, I must. Trust, trust, trust the bus. Pizza crust. Musty dust. Follow the bus.” He continued to rhyme nonsensically for several blocks before the bus sped out of sight. Across the street was a thrift store. This must be the place. A passing gaggle of girls giggled as they walked by. They were mocking him, surely. Why did people have to be so mean? Were they in on the conspiracy too? Probably – he wouldn’t put anything past his adversaries. They were too clever and resourceful for him to afford taking any risks. An old woman sat down next to him.

REDACTED stared at the old woman. She asked if she could help him. That was too much, he couldn’t contain his outrage any longer. “Do I look like I need help? Feed kelp a cheese melt. I know who you are. I’m onto you. Who do you sue? Howdy do? You can’t stop me because today is a wonderful day to buy a hat. The fat cat wears his hat, tit for tat, pitter pat pat.” Surely she got the message – he had just delivered her burn notice. They would need to send a new agent to tail him. The lady clutched her pearls and walked away with her nose up.

The thrift shop was small and reasonably priced. Dust drifted in the air and coated most of the shelves. Vintage clothes were stacked almost to the ceiling. He wandered around until he found the corner where hats were sold.

REDACTED tried on a few hats. No, no, he muttered. Then he saw it, and immediately he knew this was the one. It was a bright red beret, knitted of buttery soft cashmere. Energy radiated into his hands as he picked it up. And when he put it on, everything went quiet. The radio waves that bombarded his brain with useless information, like French, ceased firing. And the voices faded away, for the first time he could remember. Silence. Beautiful silence. He took off the hat, and suddenly, all the voices returned at once.

“Don’t you dare –”

“No, stop that! We’re your friends. You’re nothing without – “

“I think the hat looks really good on you. I support your decision to – “

He put the hat back on. Silence once more. He rushed up to the front counter. “This hat! I’ll take it! How much?” Even his speech pattern had returned to normal. Apparently, the hat could compensate for all the cognitive deficits that had arisen from a childhood filled with medical experimentation. This clarity even allowed him to see through all the implanted memories – he remembered his name. For as long as he could remember, people called him Birdboy due to his preference for the company of birds over humans. But no, his real name was REDACTED.

“That’ll be $250. That hat has quite the backstory. Would you like to hear it?” The clerk responded.

“Yes. But I don’t have that much money.” He had never been able to hold down a job for more than a few weeks at a time. “I’ll work off the debt. Please, I’ll do anything. I need this hat.”

The pearl-clutching lady from the bus stop was in line behind him; she cleared her throat and spoke up, “I’ll buy the hat. It would look lovely on my grandson.” She shot the dirtiest of looks at REDACTED.

The clerk, with an ‘I don’t get paid enough to deal with this shit’ look on his face, said, “I’m sorry sir, but if you can’t pay, I’m going to need you to give me that hat.”

No, this couldn’t be happening. He began to back away and tripped over a rack of discounted fur coats. The hat fell off. The old lady snatched it off the ground and walked up to the clerk triumphantly. The voices returned with a vengeance: The devil on his shoulder said, “And we’re back baby! You know what to do. Snobby old lady has it coming.” The angel on his other shoulder concurred, “While I don’t normally condone robbing old ladies, we can make an exception. That hat will let you live a normal life. You need it more than some spoiled grandson.”

He pressed his hands to his ears, shouting, “Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking to me!”

The old lady and clerk stared at him. “No one is talking, sir. Are you okay?”

The old lady chimed in, “back in my day, people like him were locked away for the good of society.”

“But… the hat… cures my flat affect… effectively collecting lots of thoughts … protecting me… selectively sorting … thoughts in my mind, racing and chasing their tails… whales watch their tales… The cost of that hat pales to the buckets of money they pay to lock me away. I want to stay, in society, see? I pray I don’t go away, not again. When lost, follow the flocks. Tick tock, tick tock goes the clock.” He continues in this manner.

The old lady and the clerk look at each other. The clerk slowly backs away and grabs the phone, dialing 911.

The devil commands REDACTED: “don’t let this little wimp stop you. Hit him so he can’t complete the call. Grab the hat. Make a break for it.” The angel retorts: “Oh come on now, you don’t need to hit him! The call has already gone through anyways. Just snatch the hat and run.”

He smacked his forehead while continuing to babble nonsense. Then, he carefully snatched the hat out of the lady’s hands and ran. He made it about five feet out the door when the cop from the park tackled him. “Stop resisting arrest!” the cop shouted while tasing him. The last thing REDACTED saw was the old lady, the clerk, and the cop standing over him. And the world went dark.

_____________

REDACTED sat across a desk from a doctor in a white lab coat. Sunlight filtered through a small, barred window. The walls were white, with some haphazardly patched-up holes, scars left by unruly patients. This room had seen some shit.

“We’ve given you some medications to help you relax. You were extremely agitated when they brought you in. Do you know why you are here?” the doctor begins.

“You already know why I’m here. You’re one of them,” REDACTED retorts,

“One of who?”

“You know –an agent.”

“Nope, I’m a doctor. Can you tell me where you are right now?”

“In some government black site, where you can lock me up and throw away the key. Don’t patronize me! The agents that stalk me every time I take a walk. The ones who monitor my thoughts and who signs your paychecks.”

“Why do you think people would be monitoring you?”

“Because I’ve cracked the code. It’s everywhere – in the daily crossword puzzle, on billboard advertisements, even the birds talk to me.”

“Birds?”

“That’s why I’m here. Some stupid French bird set me up! Entrapment – I know my rights! You gotta believe me.”

“I believe that you believe that. But do you know why you are here?”

“I just told you. A bird told me to find a magic hat. Wait, the hat! I need the hat! I don’t need you’re damn poisons or your torturous talk therapy. I need my hat! I need my hat….”

“Please calm down. You’re here because you assaulted a police officer who was simply trying to arrest you for resisting arrest. There’s nothing in the report about a hat.”

“You bastard! I oughtta –” REDACTED starts to stand up, clearly agitated.

The doctor nodded to an orderly, who jabbed an intramuscular injection of antipsychotics and benzodiazepines into his glutes. REDACTED goes silent. The orderly escorts him out of the room. After a moment, a man-in-black wearing sunglasses – one of the joggers from the park – enters the room and flashes his badge to the doctor. They begin to converse in French.

“Is he one of yours?” the doctor asks?

The man-in-black replies, “Oui. Sorry about this. All the mental conditioning our sleeper agents endure can leave some nasty side effects. They usually subside once he is called back into action.”

“Huh. And here I thought he was just suffering from schizophrenia.”

“It’s the perfect cover story. Who would believe it?”

“It could’ve fooled me. What was the deal with that magic hat?”

“Experimental tech that was lost in a tragically fashionable security breach. We’ve been trying to locate it for months. If it were to fail into the wrong hands, the results would be catastrophic. It works similarly to the chips inserted into REDACTED’s brain. The signals led him right to it.”

“Fascinating. It’s a shame about those side effects. Is there anything we can do for him?”

“Lots of sedatives. Hopefully, the technology will improve, but for the time being… well, what’s one man’s suffering compared to national security? The world will never know, but that man is a hero. Make him comfortable.”

“Not all hero’s wear capes. Apparently, some wear hats,” the doctor says with a chuckle. The man-in-black rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, that was a good one! Make sure you include that in your report.”

SIGNED: KHLOE GAGEN Date: 13.2.2022 Classification: Top secret.