The secure room is no larger than a storage closet and lined with acoustic panels to absorb sound. As per protocol, I enter blindfolded and take two steps forward. The client now stands inches from my face. Stale air carries scents of coffee and a synthetic, woodsy fragrance that threatens to hijack my attention.

Is he a person of influence? A government official or CEO? Someone’s secret lover? Does his labored breathing indicate nervousness or a hasty arrival? Has an illness prompted his urgent need to retain my services? I will never know, and I’ll soon purge these scraps of curiosity. But concentrating on such details allows me to ease open our brief connection.

The client slips a standard-issue GPS tracker into the palm of my hand. Rigid and cold to the touch, it’s programmed to guide me to a specific location where I’ll release the thought at the predetermined time, thus unlocking my payment.

Transporting and deploying a high-value thought requires a specialist, and demand for my talents, along with the few other thought couriers who haven’t burnt out by now, has surged. Years ago, when we could still ignore the gradual shifts in society, we lived as monks, rejecting earthly desires. Today, the most successful of us are proficient in compartmentalizing and distancing our minds, and though we still embrace emptiness, it no longer provides the comprehensive overview of a boundless “not-self” we once sought.

Now replete with lucrative employment, I circulate clients’ thoughts in crowds or nestle them into private quarters. I slip them into lectures, and drop them into the ears of the unsuspecting, the susceptible, or the adored. As a person now vulnerable to reproach, I refrain from judgement, and I tell myself I’m only a messenger.

Once I’ve set the thought free, I won’t recognize it, and its consequences are not my concern. But in the quiet moment before I accept it, I wonder if it will bless or harm, change a single life or many, be accepted, rejected, or soon forgotten.

“Are you prepared to receive the thought?” the client asks.

It’s a question I’ve heard many times, but my memory for those instances, those clients, and their thoughts has eroded.

In preparation I inhale deep belly breaths of the small room’s stagnant air, in and out to the count of three, to slow my heartbeat. Drawing my personal musings into a bundle, I push them aside, providing a bare, placid substrate where the thought can settle into my frontal lobe.

I lean in, presenting my left ear to the client. “Whenever you’re ready.”

As the client whispers, I cradle his every word, keeping each separate and suspended in an ordered string.

Upon completion of the thought transfer, I exit the cramped room without further interaction. The tracker vibrates, alerting me to its activation; precise scheduling is compulsory and detours are unacceptable.

As its sole guardian, I nurture and protect the thought from deterioration with the fervency of a doting parent. A vague recognition surfaces, but I resist the urge to peek into it. I must not infuse my own contemplations with it during transport.

Each subsequent payload craves more mental territory, yet poses less and less of a challenge, as I’ve been forced to discard most memories of my former life to make space. Should that make me sad or liberate me? These days I neither remember nor care enough to chase the answer.

The navigation device requires only superficial attention to follow its guidance on the stipulated schedule, so I experience the journey on cruise control. Nested within the frayed edges of my consciousness, the thought jostles for additional real estate, seeking to soften the boundary between where it ends and I begin. With all sensory input relegated to the gauzy periphery of awareness, I focus on containing the thought and ensuring its safe transport.

In due time, I arrive at the designated location and liberate the thought without delay, scraping along the margins of my cognition to leave no remnants. I sense its immediate expansion as it flutters away. In the nearby plaza, a crowd of people whip out their phones in unison.

Unburdened but depleted, my own compressed perceptions — or perhaps a diminished version of them — expand back into the vacated space unrushed. I allow myself one last indulgence, speculating about the thought’s significance. Should I feel important, liable, or incendiary?

But with a long trip ahead and my mental capacity spent, an all-too-familiar fatigue sets in and erodes such concerns. I glance at the tracker to verify my earnings before starting toward home.

By the next morning, I’m rested and relieved of all concerns, but devoid of purpose. I scan the news apps with mild interest, reluctant to depart the comfort of my bed. A trending topic originating from the epicenter of my travels catches my eye.

Is that the thought I delivered? Is it propaganda or truth?

Rolling over, I close my eyes and rally the final dregs of my intellectual fortitude, grabbing with futility at wispy recollections blurred and bleached of color. I try to reel them in, but they’re slippery and tattered and escape my grasp. It takes more energy than I care to expend, and they vanish from my airy brain.

I return to scrolling, letting others’ thoughts once again fill my empty head.