The Von Neumann Link

Him

When I started my therapy, the Von Neumann Link had just been released for healing purposes only. It took more than one year before it became popular in the entertaining business. I remember it well: the second pandemic of coronaviruses within one lustrum was phasing out. Most of the survivors had spent the last five years locked within the walls of their homes. Human interactions were based on augmented or virtual reality. Anxiety and depression were affecting to different extents the majority of the population, including myself. I was down in a hole so deep I could not even see the light from above.

My psychiatrist knew very well how I would be willing to experiment the Von Neumann Link because, as a theoretical physicist, I had spent my twenty-plus year career dwelling in the artificial intelligence and quantum computing fields, while closely following the progress of the research groups whose work led to the development of the so called Von Neumann Link. And the idea of being one of the first human subjects to benefit from this fringe technology really excited me.

It was one of those days when I could barely leave my sofa to use the toilet. Eating was not my priority. Drinking was, and I do not mean water. I was done with my work for the day, so I was lying on my sofa reading some horror novel when my smartphone informed me that a package had just been delivered at my doorstep. I put down my phone and got back to my reading until I realized it could be the kit. So, I slowly got up and walked to the door. Looking through the peephole, I ensured the delivery guy was gone and no one else was around. I was wearing a protective mask covering nose and mouth and a pair of rubber gloves anyway. I cautiously opened the door and retrieved the package, then disinfected the cardboard box and its contents before proceeding to the unboxing.

The slogan under the brand's logo went The Computer and The Brain. The box contained a device with an antenna, similar to a network access point, a headband similar to those used by runners or tennis players, and some documentation. I set up the device according to the instructions and connected to the web portal using my unique set of credentials. My psychiatrist had already created a therapeutic profile in advance, tailored to my needs: Anxiety, bipolar disorder, and depression was its friendly name. After accepting the longest ever series of license agreements, terms of use, and limitations of liability, I was eventually allowed to download my therapeutic profile to my device. I put the headband on and pressed the Start button. Nothing.

My smartphone rang. It was my psychiatrist. He had instantaneously been notified that my kit had been activated. He instructed me to immediately suspend all my medications and call him after 24 hours to let him know how I was feeling. I was terrified at the thought of suspending my medications: even though I was taking antidepressants, anxiolytics, and mood stabilizers in massive doses, I was still unable to conduct a normal life. Daily panic attacks, constant diarrhea, chest pains, and retches, without anything in my stomach to be thrown up, were only a few of the symptoms I was constantly struggling with. However, he did not say anything about alcohol, although he knew very well I had more than a thing for cocktails and, at the end of my working day, since the lockdown, I had replaced my daily training with my daily drinking. So, I decided that a few drinks would help me forget about my medications. In contrast to the experimentation of such a futuristic technology, I decided it would have been an "old fashioned" night, and, for the occasion, I opened a new bottle of my favorite Japanese blend.