Imagination Factory
Creativity at any cost
It wasn’t until he read the writing on the cake from his coworkers that Lou became compelled to walk into Mr. Reginald’s office and finally say it:
“I’m done. I quit.”
Mr. Reginald sat stunned but, without much emotion, shook Lou’s hand and wished him well. He did not get up out of his chair to do so.
Lou returned to his desk to pack up his belongings. A 2021 “Originator of the Year” plaque, a miscellaneous collection of loose-leaf papers, and an old copy of The Alchemist. Lou thought he would have accumulated more to remember his tenure at Somnium and was briefly overcome with a pang of grief for a significant chapter in his life.
The natural adrenaline that accompanies any impulsive decision waned as Lou approached his reserved parking space for the final time. “There’s a beautiful indifference required to walk into the unknown,” he thought as he tried to convince himself of the soundness of his decision.
Driving off the lot, Lou passed under the familiar overhang that bid farewell to employees as they left every night. “Historiis narratae, alias inspirant.” Latin for “Narrated stories inspire others.” He always felt it was Somnium’s listless attempt to remind its colleagues of the supposed value of their work.
Somnium broke ground as a company in 2023, lauded by economists for its revolutionary approach to design and storytelling. Led by visionary founder Jeff Reginald, Somnium began partnering with school districts across the United States in search of the next great artistic jumping-off point. “Originators,” as they would be deemed, sought out the country’s precocious young students. Their role was simple: collect the literary and illustrative works produced by the highest-performing students and expand upon their creativity by way of input through algorithmic extrapolation. A series of novels, a collection of paintings, or the next summer blockbuster—Jeff Reginald’s Somnium intelligence programming could take any idea and expand upon it. He would go on to cite his basis for creating the company as a service to humanity. “We have lost our greatest artistic value—originality,” a point Reginald would belabor on earnings calls and summits alike.
Lou’s commute home was one of silence. No music, no podcasts—only the space around him. Attempting to process sound wouldn’t have allowed him to sit with the gravity of the decision he had made.
His apartment was modest and unassuming: one bedroom, one bath (though Lou liked to consider it a two-bedroom, as his kitchen doubled as his office). Where many of the neighboring residents surrounding him were married, some with children, he enjoyed the peace that came with an existence marked by solitude. He had a few romantic flings in his twenties, but that was a lifetime ago. The ends of his relationships were often characterized by “misaligned priorities,” as his partners would say.
He slowly meandered into his doorway and set his surprisingly small amount of belongings down before making his way to his desk. Opening the leftmost drawer, he sifted through stacks of old papers and notepads until finding an old green sticky note toward the bottom, folded in half.
“WE are the next great artists — J.R.”
Lou and Jeff Reginald first came up with the idea of Somnium together in 2019. Jeff was a charismatic and brilliant computer science major, and Lou an imaginative English major. Lou was a gifted storyteller who had a talent for identifying something that worked, and Jeff was a skilled programmer with a vision. Jeff would emerge as the natural leader of Somnium, but their partnership facilitated its success.
Their shared mission was inclusive of Lou’s desire to lift up original storytelling alongside Jeff’s savvy identification of a hole in the entertainment market. Lou was the first Originator, collecting artistic infrastructure to feed to Somnium’s intelligence program. Somnium had revolutionized what it meant to tell a story. Their program successfully identified three movie franchises, a series of sci-fi novels, and twelve of what are now considered the most influential pieces of contemporary art of the twenty-first century.
Lou threw the green sticky note back in the drawer, filing it underneath his complimentary copy of Galactic Chicken IV: Battle for the Farm, by Somnium.
Where Lou saw an exploitative numbers game of ideas across a generation less familiar with artistic tropes, Jeff saw the new creative frontier. “We’re ushering in a new era,” Jeff would reiterate in board meetings. Lou had trouble knowing where to place his sense of artistic self-righteousness—with Jeff or himself.
Lou and Jeff grew apart over the years, Jeff having started a family and becoming the de facto face of Somnium. Lou struggled to come to terms with Somnium’s success and questioned his role in influencing art.
It wasn’t until earlier that day, celebrating Somnium’s ten-year anniversary, that he walked away from the life he had known. He thought back to the writing on the cake:
“Thank you for telling Somnium’s story.”