Chapter One
 
I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t happy… I don’t say this to sound conceited, it’s just the way my people are since my earliest memory.

Every day like clockwork I’d wake up and find myself with a smile on my face, going through the motions of my life as if on a permanent loop blissfully unaware of how empty my rooted happiness was or how futile my purpose was at this point.

Until one day, on my way to work I found myself waiting for my train at the local Muni station, like I always do, when suddenly a young woman bumped into me out of nowhere. As she pushed past a paper fell to the ground from her backpack and I instinctively went to hand it back to her until I realized she had continued her path running in the opposite direction. 

Why was she running? I thought. No one runs anywhere any more, there is no need, and what was she wearing?

 I continued to stare in her direction intrigued by her movement until I realized I now was becoming the distraction in everyone’s path to work and began to go on my way thinking how strange this instance was. Still holding that single paper in my hand unaware yet of its significance in my life.

It wasn’t until I was sitting on the train, in my regular seat, that I realized I was gripping on to that very paper. Like a shock to my senses, I felt that curiosity spark inside me. I don’t remember ever being this curious before…

I uncrumpled the paper to find a single sentence written plainly in the middle of the otherwise blank piece.
 
Why are you so happy?
 
Why are you so happy? I laughed to myself as I read such a simple question thinking how odd of a thing to just carry around, until it hit as I sat there frozen in fear with the predominant smile on my face quickly fading as I found I had no answer. Why am I, so happy?
All I could muster for an answer is just that everyone just was happy. Since the dark days when my parents had passed over thirty years ago, I felt as if I might have been in this very moment the only person in my society who had questioned this. Well, except for that girl... Who was she? Was she happy?

During the dark days our people found so many stresses in their daily life, so much pain, so much unnecessary sadness blanketed our society or so I remember from the propaganda slogans plastered all over our city when I was a kid...

So funny I had not recalled that memory until now…
It sounds stupid I’m sure but before this piece of paper. This crumpled up piece of paper that could have easily been ignored and discarded at the perfectly accessible waste bin next to every train entrance, I never found myself questioning my life… questioning this society. It just wasn’t something that was done.

Or at least from my experience it wasn’t something that was discussed. Everyone was just happy the way they were. It never seemed odd to me really because it was our standard of normal. Until this stupid piece of paper ruined my life.

Made me an outsider, made me question everything that I was perfectly happy with moments ago. I felt a strange surge through my body like a warmth running through me that wasn’t welcome and a narrowing of my sight as I stared blankly at the ground until I realized what I was doing with my hands clenched and my face down towards the floor. It wasn’t until I lifted my head that I noticed my strange nature had also surprised the people around me with the many faces of spectators looking at me in confusion then looking at a poster on the train above my head that I never really noticed before.

It read:
Happiness is a standard. If you are unhappy, we are here to help. With a number following the message.

Why had I never noticed this before?
My whole life I never felt this way or had been looked at so questioningly as If I am sick.

You can’t be sick.
Why did this frighten me so much? I thought to myself... If I was sick, I could get help…That’s what they taught us.

Like a battle in my head, I fought the idea of whether I should tell someone, but fear overpowered me. I sat there and found myself faking a smile in response to their stares and like clockwork they smiled back and went back to what they had been doing previously. I felt sick, fake. Hidden. Behind this now pretend façade.

I spent the rest of my trip to work with a smile on my face and a busy mind trying to understand, trying to force out this confusion hoping it would pass, still holding the piece of paper that so taunted my reality.

As I looked around, I kept finding myself wondering if they were all happy too. Why are they so happy?

Why is this a bad thing? My subconscious tried to ask me… but it was so strange now after I had been asked why I was happy. I now found that since I did not have an answer to this question that my mind tried to find the most logical step forward. That maybe if I looked at others, or asked them, I might find an answer. The right answer… the needed answer.

No, that’s too much of a risk.
And then I thought… What if they aren’t happy?
 I mean they had to be right? They were all smiling.

I’m not happy and I’m smiling.
I’m not happy…  Like a shock wave to my reality, it hit me. I never meant to think such a horrid thought… not happy… This cannot be true. That would mean I am sick.

You are not sick.
But I must be…
You can’t be sick.

It felt as if I was handed a key and then a door for that key appeared that I never knew was there and as I went to open the door the key disappeared from my hand, yet the door remained. Locked, taunting me, begging me to open it.

What was on the other side? Why am I on this side of it? Which side was free?
 
I tried my best to be reasonable, to get myself to stop questioning the purpose of my happiness because it only brought me sorrow not having an answer, but once the question is asked it becomes impossible to forget, especially such an intriguing one…and once you begin to look for something you notice it everywhere. Moments in your everyday life that make you question. That force you to remember the mystery hidden inside… Why am I happy?

Jeez I do not remember this commute being so long… and so boring.
 

Michaila Oberhoffer was born and raised in the foggy San Francisco Bay area, a place she is still happy to call home. Satisfied with a great meal, a refreshing drink and a bit of nature, Michaila wishes to live life simply doing what she loves. A lover of all things philosophy and science, she believes that being human isn't about being intelligent enough to know but wise enough to question. She can easily be found sitting at a patio table at a coffee shop or at a local brewery, trying very hard to allow the thoughts in her head to become coherent enough to publish, settling for the comforts of humor and speculation. THE ROOT OF JOHN'S HAPPINESS is her debut novel.