“But I don’t want to do your laundry!!!!” Jayden whines, throwing a temper tantrum that is the mother of all temper tantrums.

“Too bad,” I sigh, pulling the remote out of my pocket. He visibly flinches at the sight of it. I laugh. “Tough break, kid.”

I press the button and he suddenly smiles although there’s pain in his eyes.

“Do my laundry,” I command whimsically, chortling at this marvelous little remote.

A single tear rolls down Jayden’s cheek, but he never stops smiling. “Gladly.” He says through clenched teeth. He almost robotically makes his way towards the laundry room, taking hold of my basket. He starts to fold the clothes in solid motions with sad eyes.

I chuckle, and shove the remote back into my pocket. I turn to walk away but then remember one more thing.

I walk back over to Jayden and hand him the chore chart Mom and Dad gave me earlier. “If you’re not too busy,” I say with a smile.

Jayden whimpers but is still smiling. His face muscles must hurt. “Of course I would love to do those for you.” His monotone voice is colorless, and suddenly he starts to turn gray.

It’s a trade secret. You can’t tell anyone. When you become a doctor you take this oath, and The Remote is bestowed upon you.

You enrol patients into your clinical trials, but they aren’t assigned to the group receiving the drug that will save their life. You know they will die without The Remote.

So you click click click, and they change. They take care of themselves, they’re optimistic, they eat well, they exercise, they socialise with their friends. They believe they will survive.

Of course you can’t save everyone, but The Remote makes a hell of a lot of difference for the patients who you’re not allowed to treat with medicine.

And the public look on, thinking how crazy it is that the placebo effect actually works! But you know it’s really The Remote.

At last! My invention is complete. Months and month of trail and error, and having to secure the parts needed. The stress of having to hide the invention. But it is complete. I am ready.

The woman enters the room first. I press the button, for “happy.” She pauses, shakes her head, and looks down at me. She smiles, “Hello, Fluffy! Who’s a cute kitty cat? Huh huh?” She kneels down and scratches my ears. That, I like. The baby talk, not so much. Let’s change that. I press “Fear.”

She jumps away as if she saw a spider. She shakes, and looks to me near tears. Interesting, but this doesn’t get me any ear scratches. She darts away before I can press another button.

The man walks in next, probably wondering where his mate ran off to. He looks down at me, with a slight air of disgust. When he moved in, he wanted to be rid of me, but the woman refused. Okay, I can play with this.

Who knew “worship” was an emotion? He scoops me up, and sticks his face in my fur. My ears are scratched deliciously. Despite my apathy towards him, I purr.

He takes me to the kitchen, and places me on the table. Usually, I am not allowed here. He gets me a bowl of tuna. Lovely! The invention works, and I have gotten tuna. He strokes my fur, and I allow it.

He stops mid-pet, and looks at me in anger. Shit, this will not end well. He raises he hand as if to strike me, and I jump off the table and out of the room.

I pass the women on the way out, she had my remote. Curse her curiosity! She talks to the man in their unintelligible human speak, and hands him my remote. He is still angry, I guess she was pressing buttons on it. He looks at it, and presses a few buttons. What is it with humans and buttons? I knew I should have hidden it better.

Oh crap, they hit love. I watch, fascinated and disgusted. That’s how humans mate?

I leave, go to my cat bed, and plot my next invention.

Disclaimer is you don’t feel comfortable for self harm. Inappropriate language

So here’s the background of this story. Greg is an asshole. He’s my moms boyfriend and he suck mad balls. Luckily me tho I happen to find a crazy remote that controls emotion. So that’s dope. Anyway I used it twice to get some free food and get mad head for a girl. So one night Greg gets hella drink and beats my mom. That pisses me off. So I thought why not fuck with him. I used it and made him depressed. Then I told him to kill him self and he did. He took a knife and stabbed himself repeatedly. And that’s how I was framed

Parenting was never hard for me. I was told ‘babies don’t come with a manual.’ No, they don’t, but mine mysteriously came with a remote.

I was knocked out; drugged as the pain was just too much to handle; I’d been naive to think I could handle childbirth because ‘women were the stronger sex’. We might be stronger but pushing a fireball out your lady parts certainly broke me.

I awoke to a fuss of midwives in my room and a screaming child. And a small remote tucked into my hand; I thought it was for pain relief so I hit that shit hard. The baby stopped fussing; the midwives didn’t.

The baby didn’t nurse well, but when I tried skin to skin contact along with a tap tap tap on this small USB sized remote, all went well. The baby ate. I was still in pain. But the baby did what I and it needed.

Step forward 20 years, and I’m back in the hospital; a different one but still with fussing nurses.

I’m dying.

And my daughter is beside me, distraught; she’s too young to lose me.

She’s never learned to think for herself or stand up for herself. Whenever she became a ‘handful’ I’d find the remote and tap tap tap.; she’d fall into line. Whether it was as a toddler, a teen or now a young adult, if she did something I didn’t like, I’d take the easy way out. Tap tap tap.

I tried not to use it. I really did! But there’s no reasoning with a toddler; who wants to listen to a toddler scream in the grocery store because I won’t let her eat her boogers. A tap made shopping easier. A tap made puberty a walk in the park, and the first boyfriend, who was a definite loser, was easily dispatched.

I was commended for what a ‘great kid’ I raised alone; for how ‘close we were’ and what great decisions she makes!

The truth is that I was a terrible parent and took the easy way out ALL THE FUCKING TIME! I didn’t teach my daughter anything.

I’m dying; I should be dead within days. Should I give her the remote?

If I were to control peoples emotions , that would be fun ! First, I will grab the remote and press happy. But before I would do that, I would design it how I want. Yellow ( happy ), Blue (sad ), Red ( mad ), Purple ( curious ), Orange (calm) . Then I would make everybody’s silent. Muahha ha ha ha!!!!!!!! So that’s what I would do !

“It’s like whatever I do... you just don’t listen!”

He stormed towards the kitchen.

Clattering. Smashing. The hiss of a can.

“What am I meant to do! How can I explain myself!”

I grabbed the remote. Silence. He stumbled through, handing the can to me.

I sipped at it.

He fell into my arms. Silent. Quiet. We kept watching the tv.

I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

If I had a remote control to manipulate people’s emotions I would use it make everyone happy I hate seeing people unhappy Would use it to make others more loving Instead of hunting We all are the same inside and out Why is love begging to drought We all want what we want No matter whose font We need to start sharing Most of us need to share our words and be more daring We all have one life And people will stab you with a comment knife My remote control would make the world better So no one feels in fetters I want the world to be a better place So we can communicate better face to face For God left us this gift And it cannot be a thrift ❤️

If I had a remote control that could control people emotions I would use it on myself. I would make myself more confident, more carefree, maybe I wouldn’t be so sad all the time if I could control it with the click of a button. I don’t know. I don’t think it would be fair to manipulate other people’s emotions. It would be like cheating but as for myself, I feel like it would be easier. I wouldn’t cry so easily, I wouldn’t get mad so easily, and If I did, I could just turn it off. Hopefully there wouldn’t be a catch.

      I don’t know what I’m doing any more. I don’t know who my friends are, who I can trust, who I can love anymore. Before the remote life was so much easier. I knew people liked me for me instead of the remote. I knew that they can feel real emotions and actually knew what they were doing. But then the remote fell down from the sky.

      I didn’t know what it was for but when I fiddled around with it I figured out it changes people. For instance, my mom walked in when I was fiddling with it, she suddenly became very disinterested in everything. I brought it to school and pressed some buttons while pointing the remote at the school bullies. They started loving me and they became my lackeys. I was over come with ideas on what I could do with this.
    
      That brings us to where I am today. I became the president of the world by over throwing every government in the world. Not one person was untouched by the remote. I love it and hate it now. On one hand, I’m the most powerful man in the world. On the other, I have no one I actually trust. As someone once said, “You have everything, but you really have nothing.”