Dismemberment of Things Past: The Unifier Chip Renders 72% of All Novels Pointless

IN THE FUTURE, great strides will be made in solving the (possibly primary) problem of romantic love.

Science will learn at last how to shock the Proustian monkey out of his funk.

Romantic love isn't per se a problem to society...when it's working.

When it's not working, however, it eventuates in all sorts of social ills, from lost work time and productivity to shooting sprees in shopping malls and amusement parks.

That's amore, as the song goes.

Better living through chemistry didn't work, so future scientists will decide it's time to chip the malfunctioning chimps.

The critical moment in the solution of the problem of romantic love will be the invention of the Unifier Chip.

The Unifier Chip is a microchip surgically implanted in the brain which creates consonance out of cognitive dissonance. It was first created to solve the problem of "lost love"....also known as "love lost" to the more poetic among you.

Scientists noticed that lovers tend to romanticize their first love relationship (or an earlier one) and dwell obsessively upon the ways in which their current romantic relationship does not measure up to this earlier--usually impossibly idealized--relationship.

Scientists created a microchip which brilliantly fuses and melds the image of the previous, idealized lover (who probably never existed in the near-divine form which the nostalgiacally cruel brain is "remembering") to the present, less-than-perfect lover.

A cognitive overlap is created and then the two lovers (past and present) are fused. The earlier lover collapses into the present lover as into a blackhole. The chip sorts for chronology and erases all the particulars of the previous lover, such as image, physical characteristics, personality, name, etc.

All the positive traits and feelings of deep and long association, of abiding love, are transferred to the new lover.

The divorce rate plummets to near zero with the invention of the Unifier Chip. (Some people run off before they can be chipped.)

Sometimes "chippees" being guided by the wisdom of their unifier chip will make little errors (due to chip glitches) in speaking to their current lover, but the current lover will know enough to keep his or her mouth shut.

For instance, here is a typical exchange:

Chippee: "You play the piano so beautifully."

Lover: "Thanks."

Chippee: "I wish you would play something for me. Play that Delibes piece..."

Lover (who couldn't even play a kazoo): "Uh, not today, I have a headache..."

Chippee: "How does it go again?"

Lover: "How does what go?"

Chippee: "That beautiful Delibes aria you played for me when we first met. Remember?"

Lover: "Hey, I have a great idea for something we can do instead of that. Let's go bowling."

But such misunderstandings are a small price to pay for finally abolishing the problem of eternal and pointless yearning.

Unfortunately, this means that approximately 72% of all novels written before the advent of the Unifier Chip will now seem really whiny and stupid to a populace used to having their cake and eating it too.

These books--classics for centuries--will sink into oblivion very quickly.

And the ghosts of all our former lovers will finally get the clean sweep they deserve, that sweep out of our brains and souls, with the final Whoosh from the Unifier chip....the final broom push we spent our lives being too timid or quixotic to give them.

Thank You, Unifier Chip, for making a Brave New World!

Goodbye Great Gatsby & all you million other desire-mongers!