Blissful Doom: A Science Fiction Story

The little ball was like nothing Will Daniels had ever seen before: it glowed dimly, and it pulsated gently, slightly expanding and contracting in size. The ball also had a mysterious alluring scent. It was the scent that had attracted Will from thirty yards away.

Will and his teenage friend Bob had found the little ball in a field they were walking through. Will picked up the ball in his hand. Suddenly Will felt a surge of pleasure unlike anything he had felt before. It was as if he having the best sex he had ever had, and the best meal he had ever had, and the best swim he had ever had, all at the same time. But it was more than just physical pleasure. It was a mental pleasure better than anything he had experienced, better than he might feel if he had won the lottery and fallen in love and signed a movie contract all on the same day.

“You got to try this!” said Will. He gave the ball to his friend, who then felt the same all-encompassing ecstasy that Will had felt.

“This is mine: finders keepers!” said Will.

“No way, you got to share it!” cried Bob.

Then something very strange happened. The ball started to pulsate more strongly than before, and then it split into two. Both balls were about the same size as the original ball. The two teenage boys were delighted. Now they each had their own pleasure ball. Each went home to his bedroom, and began spending hours stroking one of the pleasure balls.

After several hours Will heard a knock on his door. It was his Dad, who came into Will's bedroom.

“Will, what are you doing spending all afternoon goofing off in bed?” asked Dad. “Look, I was a young man myself, and I know how it is, but you have to study for your midterms.”

“No, Dad, it's not like that,” said Will. “It's this.” Will showed his dad the pulsating pleasure ball.

“What on earth is that?” asked Will's dad.

“It's a ball I found in the field,” said Will. “All you have to do is touch it, and you'll feel more pleasure than you ever felt before. One hour rubbing this ball is a hundred times better than a trip to Disney World.”

“What kind of damn fool nonsense is that!” fumed Will's dad. “Give me that thing. I'm going to throw it away.”

Will gave the pleasure ball to his dad. As soon as Will's dad touched the ball, his face lit up like a lottery winner.

“My God, this is better than anything!” enthused Will's dad.

The father and son started fighting over who would keep the pleasure ball, but then the ball split into two. Now both Will and his dad could stroke a pleasure ball all day long.

Will stopped going to school, and his father stopped going to work. They stayed home, and spent all day rubbing their pleasure balls. The balls kept replicating inside their house.

By the time the self-replicating balls had grown to a set of twenty or thirty balls, Will felt a strange urge he had never felt before. It was almost as if someone was whispering in his ear: give away the pleasure balls, give away the pleasure balls. Will went around giving the balls away to other people in his town. Each time he put one of the pleasure balls in someone's hand, Will thought to himself: “Yes, yes, spread the bliss!”

All across the United States, the same thing was happening in other places, from California to Maine, in towns and cities all over the country. The pleasure balls had been discovered in every US state. Since the balls split into two after someone had rubbed them a while, and since people felt a strange urge to give the balls to other people, soon a large fraction of the population had their lives taken over by the pleasure balls. Students stopped going to school, and parents stopped going to work. Everyone who had touched a pleasure ball just wanted to spend most of his time at home rubbing the pleasure balls, and the rest of his time giving the balls away to other people.

Over a few weeks the number of self-replicating pleasure balls kept growing exponentially. When Will had found his pleasure ball, there were only 50 in the country. But a week later, there were 6000. A week after that there were almost a million of the pleasure balls. A week after that there were two pleasure balls for every person in the United States. Before long they were almost everywhere. With their pleasant, alluring scent and their mysterious, glowing pulsations, the pleasure balls lured in more and more people to touch them, and all who touched the balls became addicts. Once someone rubbed a pleasure ball, he was hooked for good, and wanted to do nothing else but keep rubbing the pleasure balls, and keep giving them away to other people.

The government organized groups to search for the pleasure balls and try to destroy them, but the effort was a waste of time. As soon as someone picked up one of the balls to dispose of it, he would become hooked on the ocean of pleasure supplied by the ball.

On a hilltop two beings with thin gray necks looked down on a community that had been taken over by the bliss of the pleasure balls.

“We see, Randorf, how easy it is for us to conquer this weak, pleasure-loving race,” said Alzon. “All we had to do was to drop off in about 500 places some of our self-replicating pleasure balls. The Earthlings happily allow themselves to be enslaved by the ecstasy of the pleasure balls.”

“Yes, Alzon,” said Randorf. “Soon the space ships from our planet will arrive, and we'll be able to conquer this planet without firing a single shot.”

A few months later a glowing disk-like craft finally landed on the White House lawn. There were only a few people left in the White House. Almost all of the White House employees were at home, rubbing their pleasure balls all day long. There were no soldiers nearby to defend the White House. They too were at home or their barracks, blissfully rubbing their pleasure balls. 

The invaders entered the building and placed pleasure balls in the hands of the few employees left in the White House. Then the invaders gently led the employees out into Lafayette Park overlooking the White House. The employees continued to blissfully rub their pleasure balls, and offered no protest or resistance.

The invaders took over the planet without directly killing anyone. Carrying out their construction plans, they vaporized the Washington Monument, and replaced it with a glowing 1000-meter tall statue of their god Rordrak.

None of the humans in Washington D.C. noticed the change in the skyline.