The best of all possible worlds

It was a traveling fair attraction at first. Free for everyone. Called the Best of All Possible Worlds, people at first thought it would show them some sort of utopia.

They were wrong.

You entered a booth, attached to your temples a couple of electrodes which were linked to a computer, put on some VR glasses and discovered why yours was the best of all possible worlds. Everyone's experience was unique to what the program gathered from their minds. And it was an experience, lived fully, not a vision. Though mere minutes passed, it felt like hours, days, months, years, depending on the person. People stumbled from the booth and fell to their knees, kissing the ground in absolute joy to be there and not...elsewhere. It didn't matter if they lived in a mansion, a shack, out of a car or on the street: the responses were all the same.

Theirs was the best of all possible worlds and they should be grateful.

The catch was you couldn't talk about your experience.

Some people thought it couldn't hurt to tell a spouse or a best friend.

They were wrong.

It only took the investigation of a few cases of spontaneous combustion to find the connection and for most to realize silence was the price of admission.

Of course, that realization meant the booth quickly fell out of favor at fairs, people not being very good at keeping secrets. Even so, various entities recognized the value of the program. It was sold for a very respectable sum, the inventor retiring to a private island in the Pacific.

Or so the story goes.

Public psychiatric hospitals began to use the program to cure depression. The world seemed so much brighter after a visit or two in the BPWC (as the Best of all Possible World's chamber came to be known). The incurably suicidal merely shared their experience. The rest went on to lead happy lives.

Prisons used the BPWC and found behavior improved in 99.% of cases. (The outliers were executed, so one could argue behavior was universally improved.)

Public schools had multiple booths installed. They were used at the beginning of each school year and throughout the year with students who found it difficult to follow the rules. Or who came to school hungry or bruised. Or who had lost parents to any number of violent occurrences. Even teachers unhappy with administrative mandates took a turn in the booth.

Results are unclear at this time.

The most effective use of the program has been by countries struggling to maintain order in their own lands or in those they are endeavoring to enfold within their borders. BPW camps have been established all over the world.

It has been nothing short of miraculous how docile people become when they realize how good they really have it.

Our government's three-year plan includes providing personal BPWC's for every home in the country. For free.

It really is the best of all possible worlds.