CRISIS #DE5T1NY

This is a short story giving a possible reason for the absolutely insane level of coincidences that had to occur for my wife and I to meet. I gave it to her as a gift on our 10th anniversary.

“Boss, we have a problem!” The big man in gray slacks and a white polo shirt came through the office door without knocking. He dropped a folder on the old man’s already cluttered desk.

“When do we not, Michael?” The old man didn’t even look up from his computer monitor as he replied. His eyes were glued to the screen, his right hand moving the mouse in small, precise motions.

“I’m serious, sir! Earth is literally going to come to an end! There will be a huge war, famine, starvation and death! Humanity will die out and…”

Michael trailed off as the old man raised a hand for silence and continued what he was doing for a few moments. He suppressed the urge to fidget as he stood in front of the desk, his body longing to be in motion. His massive shoulders flexed as he glanced around the room, eyes taking it all in but never resting on anything for long. The window was open, letting in mid-morning light and the smells of spring. His eye flicked over the shelves around the room, filled with mementos and experiments. It always seemed there should be books on the shelves, or maybe a sword or two, but when you could…

Finally the old man sat back in his chair, his long white beard settling on his chest.

“What’s on your mind, Michael?” He waved for his subordinate to sit down.

The office chair creaked under Michael’s weight as he settled into it. Even sitting down Michael felt his body craving to be in motion.

The old man’s stillness was always a little unnerving to Michael. When his boss sat, he could have been a statue except for his breathing. When he moved, the movements were precise, deliberate, with no wasted effort. He was fit, but not massive. And where Michael seemed to always be moving, the old man seemed to always be at peace.

“Well, just the minor problem of the timeline ending many, many years before it should. Not a big deal,” Michael said, trying to feign nonchalance.

“Like yesterday, when the timeline ended, and all we had to do was introduce Julius Caesar to Mark Antony?”

“Similar,” the big man admitted. “And look at how that ended! He…”

“They were great friends and accomplished much, and the rest is the machinations of men.”

“Yes, well this time we can’t just introduce someone, Boss. I looked! The war itself is the problem. It can’t be there. Once the war starts in 2050, everyone is committed and the timeline just peters out.”

“So stop the war.”

“Don’t you think I tried? I tried everything I could think of. The point of no return is when the American Congress takes a vote and commits to the initial attack that starts the war. I worked on everyone involved in that vote and I can’t budge any of them. I did find one small chance to exploit, but I'm not having any luck.”

“And what is that?”

“One of the senators just went along with everyone else and didn’t vote her conscience. That one vote tipped the balance. I've been working on her and everyone around her to convince her to vote against the attack, but nothing works.”

The old man steepled his fingers and gazed at the ceiling, deep in thought. Finally he spoke.

“What would cause someone to not do what their conscience tells them is right?”

“Peer pressure? A bribe?”

“Go deeper. What would cause them to not trust themselves?”

“Could be anything. But she needs to be able to think for herself. She needs more confidence. You need to give her confidence.”

The old man smiled. “Give her confidence? Just like that? Just ‘poof’, she’s confident?”

“Well,…”

“Oh come on, Michael, you know me better than that. Knowing what people will do is not the same as making them do it! When have I ever just ‘poofed’ anyone into being different?”

“Well, what about when…”

The old man chuckled and waved away the objection. “Yes, yes, I hardened that one guy’s heart. That did not make him different. His heart was already hard and the suggestion I gave him was tiny. Any others?”

Michael hesitated for a moment, thinking. “Not to my knowledge, sir.”

“So, you tell me, what has to happen for this senator to stand up under the pressure of her peers?”

“I don’t know. I'm telling you, I've worked with all the people around her and her mind doesn’t change. At that point, she's convinced that the other senators must know what they are talking about, even though she doesn’t agree.”

“So go back farther. Go back to a point where she can learn to trust herself a little more.”

The old man turned back to his screen. Michael rose and smoothed his slacks. He reached out to pick up the folder from the edge of the desk and hesitated. The folder had remained there the entire time. The old man hadn't even looked at it. Which meant that he already knew. Was this another test?

************************

“So what did you find, Michael?” the old man said as the big man came through the office door. Michael sat down in the soft office chair and looked his boss in the eye. He didn’t have a folder this time, just his memory of all he had researched over the past few hours.

“There's some room for development in her, when she's younger. We could give her some trials…”

“You know I don’t like giving out trials, Michael. Life is hard enough. Plus, what else are you going to do to her that won’t break her completely? Her step-dad died when she was young, her mother battled depression, and she grew up in near poverty. Let’s look the other direction.”

He did already know! Then why is he putting me through this?

Michael grinned. “I thought you would say that. So, I looked up how to make her life better. She needs some additional support as a child. The thing is, she doesn’t have that many sources to choose from. Her extended family is too far away to help much, and her friends don’t have families any better than hers. But I was thinking, I could tweak one of her friend’s mothers, make her more nurturing and…”

“I think maybe you are going in the wrong direction. You're talking about changing the fundamental nature of another person, making them more nurturing, just so they can give her a few more minutes of extra time. How much contact do you think a friend’s mom is going to have with her?”

“Well, it was either that, or her teachers!” Michael said, feeling defensive. “Her school teachers had ample opportunity to guide her and shape her and they did nothing! I looked at every teacher she had, from her day care up through graduate school, not one went out of their way to give her guidance.”

“True, but I like the direction you're going. So if her existing teachers won’t cut it, what do you think you should do?”

Michael clenched his fists in frustration. “This all seems so inefficient! Why can’t we just make them do what they need to do? Not all of them, just when…”

“You know we don’t do that.” A flat statement, no room for argument allowed.

Michael sighed, almost a grunt, and stood up.

“Fine. I'll see if I can find a new teacher for young Senator Brighton.”

He left without saying another word or closing the door. He heard the old man chuckle softly and then heard the door close softly on its own.

************************

“There are no other teachers,” Michael said, rubbing his temples. He sat in the old man’s office again, for the third time that day, and felt no closer to solving the problem. His agitation almost made him blur with suppressed energy.

“Sure there are. You looked at other classrooms she could be in at college or high school?”

“Yes. And elementary school too. The teachers are all pretty good, but they don’t have that element that's needed to help her. I tried to tweak them, gently, and none of them developed it either. Senator Brighton is destined to cast the vote that destroys the world. There's no way around it.”

The old man chuckled, a good natured laugh, with no malice in it.

“Michael, you're on the right path, you just need to go deeper. You are looking at the first few connections between people, but you need to explore deeper possibilities. I know you are a soldier and you're used to just looking at the surface situation, but to work with the timeline, you have to go deeper. Of course we have all the time in the world. Since our timeline is outside theirs, we can work on this forever. Wouldn’t you like that? To work on this same problem, this one senator, this one war, forever?”

Michael raised his eyebrow at the obvious jibe but said nothing.

The old man laughed. “I'll give you a hint. Investigate this teacher.”

He handed Michael a folder across the cluttered desk. The big man took the file carefully, restraining his fingers from crushing the paper. He opened the file and scanned the first few lines.

“I must be missing something, Boss. She doesn’t even teach at the senator’s school.”

“Go, Michael. Go learn about her. Investigate. Finish this.”

The old man turned back to his own computer and Michael left, file clutched in his hand.

************************

Serena Bagwill grew up in a loving and supportive family that taught her that she could do whatever she set her mind to. She got straight A’s all the way through high school and went to college to be an elementary school teacher. Teaching young people was what she had always wanted to do. She earned straight A’s through all of her college course work, but had some problems with her student teaching her last semester of college. She buckled down, worked hard, and got through it, although she had to practically cut off all contact with all her friends to do it.

She started the next year as a 4th grade teacher in the same elementary school she herself had attended. But it wasn’t the same school that the young Senator Brighton was attending.

Serena soon became disillusioned with teaching. She was restricted at every turn by rules and policies and having to teach to the test. She wasn’t allowed to use her brilliant mind or creativity because of the regimented curriculum. She already had some health problems and the stress of hating her job made them worse. The stress and the chronic pain from her health problems ate at her until she hated her life. She never married, never had a lasting relationship, and died depressed and alone at age 53.

************************

“Boss, you gave me the wrong file,” Michael said, laying the folder back down on the desk.

A tension was building between his shoulder blades and his hands practically itched to hold something more lethal than a computer mouse.

What had happened to the straightforward and simple assignments I used to get? Deliver this message. Fight that demon. Simple. Easy. This planning work makes me want to break things!

“That was the right one,” the old man said, not looking up from his computer screen. “What did you find out?”

“Serena doesn’t even work at the same school! She has no contact with Senator Brighton as a child, and by the time she could have contact with her, she's depressed, disillusioned and wouldn't be a good role model.”

“That is true,” the old man said, still not looking up. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“I tried already! I looked at the people she has contact with. Her parents are loving and guiding, but this goes beyond what even they can do for her. Her friends are mostly teachers and they are just as disillusioned as she is.”

“And yet, she's the only one with the capacity to do this task. She has a desire to make herself better, and to guide children while they are young. I love her very much,” the old man said, looking Michael in the eye for a second before going back to his screen. “I will not allow this to happen to one of my faithful, not when she has people praying for her. I have made for her a companion and protector. He will stand by her and take care of her.”

Without looking up, the old man tapped one of the other folders sitting on his desk with a forefinger. Michael took the folder and left. This case was starting to give him a headache. Which of course was impossible. His kind didn’t get things like headaches, but he could swear he felt the pain building behind his right eye.

************************

Joel Smith grew up looking for love. He was socially awkward and sometimes reclusive, which made meeting people difficult. Through elementary school and high school he had a few friends and a few girlfriends, but none of his relationships seemed to last very long. Computers always seemed to make sense to him and he taught himself to program at an early age.

He went to college to study computer programming and met other people that were studying the same things. These people tended to be just as socially awkward as he was, if not more. He made friends with his roommates, but mostly kept to himself and studied hard. He set his goal at maintaining a 3.6 GPA and worked hard towards it. He managed to pull a 3.5 and got hired as a programmer soon after graduating. He thought that hard work and financial success would make him happy, but it never did.

Regardless of getting to create programs, he soon discovered that he hated being a programmer. It was a thankless job with long hours and loads of stress. He spent most of his day in a cubicle, typing away at a computer, not talking to anyone. He longed to have someone to talk to, but there was no one. The stress of his job and his loneliness made him overeat, which in turn ruined his health. He died, depressed and alone, at 335 pounds, at age 46.

************************

“Wow!” Michael said to himself, leaning back in his chair. “That was seriously depressing! How is this loser going to make Serena’s life better?”

Sitting in his tiny cubicle, he worked at it for the better part of an hour before finally admitting defeat. Shoulders slumped, he went back to the old man’s office. Without waiting to be invited, he sat down tiredly in the chair across from the desk.

“I don’t get it, Boss. You give me these burnt out, depressed and downtrodden people and expect me to change the world. I can’t do it. They don’t even know each other! Even though they go to the same university, they never meet. Their worlds couldn’t be farther apart! She's in Elementary Ed, and he's in Computer Science. Because of the difference in their ages, he's already gone by the time she starts there. Boss, are you sure about this?”

The old man looked Michael in the eye until the big man had to look away. The intensity of those eyes was powerful.

“I am,” the old man said. “I'm certain. Combine the two lives and see what happens.”

“I tried, sir. Not even considering the fact that I don’t see a way for them to meet, whenever I try to combine them, everything falls apart! She’s no longer a teacher, he never gets a good enough job to support them. It’s a mess!”

“And yet, that is what life is, Michael. It’s a mess that people make sense of one day at a time. Tell me, what occurred when you combined their lives?”

“Well, they both became happy and enjoyed life more. They stick with each other until the end of their lives. They start going to church and they develop a real relationship with their creator. As much as they can, being human.”

“So? Isn’t that enough to make you want to do it? The happiness of two people for their entire lives?”

“But…what about the…you know, the end of the world?” Michael said, feeling confused.

“If you work towards happiness, the end of the world will take care of itself,” the old man assured him.

“I…I don’t really see how that works, but regardless, I still can’t get them to meet.”

“They will meet. Watch closely…”

And the old man started adjusting things on his computer screen. Michael came around the desk to watch and his mouth started falling open. A nudge here, a tiny change there. First this connection, then the next…

“How can you keep track of all that?”

“Like I said, you have to look deeper.”

************************

Joel Smith grew up looking for love. He was socially awkward and sometimes reclusive, which made meeting people difficult. After high school he went to junior college for a few years and also worked full time, taking four years to get a two year degree. Then he transferred to a university to study computer programming. He met Matt, another programming student. Joel also became friends with one of his dorm roommates, Mike. Mike was friends with a guy on the next floor named Eric. Eric was friends with Carol. Joel and Carol soon became friends. Then Carol started dating Scott, and Joel and Scott became good friends. Scott lived on campus as well, and one of his roommates was Kevin, Matt’s younger brother. And Kevin’s girlfriend was Serena.

Serena was in her first year at the university and Joel was in his last. They met briefly once when their groups of friends ate lunch together, and neither of them thought much of each other. Then Serena and Kevin broke up right before her 19th birthday. She was sitting alone in the lunchroom the day after the break up, feeling very depressed and alone. She wanted to go home to her family. Maybe even just quit school. Joel came into the lunchroom, also alone. He sat down and they talked. They didn’t hit it off immediately. The conversation was awkward, and he kept calling her Selina. But they met again a few days later when mutual friends got together to hang out. And again at a party. They kept meeting and talking, and soon enough they became inseparable.

************************

“That’s insane!” Michael protested. “How could I possibly see through all those connections?”

“You just have to keep looking until you find the best fit.”

“But, look!” Michael said, pointing at a different part of the screen. “This is what I was talking about. It all falls apart if you get them together. She loses her focus on her studies and she doesn’t pass Student Teaching. She drops out of school and she never becomes a teacher. And he doesn’t get good enough grades to get the job he wants and winds up working Customer Support and hating it.”

“I will help him through his years in that job. It will be better for him than being stuck in a job that ruins his life. And as for her, we make one little adjustment and… there, she is now in contact with the senator as a child.”

“What? Where?”

“Go back a few years. You see?”

“Oh, the preschool! But…will she be able to handle working at a preschool with her health issues?”

“Her husband will help her. I chose him because he never quits once he sets a goal. It doesn’t even occur to him that he could. Once he says his wedding vows nothing could make him leave her. He will help her and love her until the end of his life. Maybe beyond. Two faithful people whose gifts complement each other can endure anything.”

The old man turned to look at his second in command. “This was always my plan for them, Michael, regardless of the current timeline crisis. This was always their destiny. I'm trying to teach you something here. You are great at reading single people and seeing what they will do several moves ahead, but my creations are about more than that. People are about the relationships they have. Relationships they have with each other, relationships they have with the world they live in, and the relationship they have with me. Sometimes those relationships can change them so much that they can accomplish things they never thought they could.”

Michael furrowed his brow, thinking. His boss continued.

“Mothers can perform amazing feats of strength and courage to protect their children. Men can endure poverty, hardship, or even the horror of war if they are doing it for someone else. A couple can compliment each other so well that both are strengthened and bolstered enough to endure the hardships that life throws at them. If you can get the right people together, amazing things can happen. Even saving the world. Sometimes it just takes a little extra work to get them to meet. You just have to work towards love. That's the key, Michael. Create love and you can accomplish anything.”

Michael was silent for a long moment, digesting this. Finally he nodded and left. The crisis was over and disaster had been averted, for now. The sun was going down and the work day was over. Michael left the office to go home and get some rest. Tomorrow was sure to bring more crises and problems. Humans were quite a lot of trouble.