Read This
By: James Rumpel
PROLOGUE: Everything that is to follow is true. I am writing it down so that I can begin to somehow wrap my mind around these incredible occurrences. Perhaps, this exercise will help me decide my next step.
I am in a conundrum. I mean, real ‘rock and a hard place’ stuff. You see, I’m a superhero. Well, I have a superpower, or my computer does. Either way, I have amazing capabilities and I don’t know how to best put them to use for the betterment of all mankind or, at least, my local community.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, I suppose, I should tell you about myself. I’m a thirty-something, single man, living in a one-bedroom apartment above Jerry’s Come On Inn. I have a good job as an oil transfer specialist at the Jiffy Lube. It’s actually not a Jiffy Lube since that’s a national chain and this place is owned locally. The real name is Mike’s Oils Well That Ends Well. Everyone thinks that’s a stupid name, which explains why we all call it the Jiffy Lube. I also deliver the County Advertiser twice a month, three times if the calendar falls right and there are five Mondays in the month.
I’m a quiet guy. I don’t have a lot of friends, but it’s not like I’m a hermit or anything like that. I play on Jerry’s Slo-pitch softball team, I’m fairly respected on the internet for my Fortnite skills, and I have almost fifty friends on Facebook. You would think there was nothing special about me. You would be wrong.
I’m sorry, that last bit sounds like bragging. I’m trying to keep my special talent from going to my head, but it can be difficult. You see, for the last week or so, I’ve been able to control peoples’ minds. I can make them do anything . . . well, not anything. I can’t make them do things they can’t normally do. I can’t make Mike fly or Jerry glow in the dark, but if I tell them to do something, they will do it.
Okay, that’s not exactly true, either. I can’t tell them what to do, I have to use my computer to send them a message. I can verify that it only works through my computer. After I discovered my ability, I tried commanding Maggie Horowitz, the cute secretary at Bill Witman’s Insurance, to kiss me. I think I can still see the red finger imprints from where she slapped me. But I’m digressing again. There will be more about Maggie later.
I have no idea how long I’ve been able to control people. Maybe I’ve been doing it for years. I’ve had my computer long enough for the warranty to run out and never noticed anything odd until about a week ago. It was a Saturday morning and I was getting ready to play softball in the annual Chicken and Cow Days Festival tournament. I was a couple of minutes ahead of schedule, so I decided to check out Facebook. I don’t post very often though I do like to tell people when I find a good recipe for nachos or post a picture of the tomatoes I grow in my window-box garden.
That day, I decided to invite everyone to come and watch the game. I’ve done it before, and no one has ever shown up. However, this time, instead of saying “you’re invited to come watch the game” I just typed “come watch me play softball today at 12:30 at The Fighting Holstein’s field.”
During the game, I noticed there was an unusually large crowd. Most of the spectators were my Facebook friends. I didn’t think much of it till after the game. I went 0 for 4, had two errors, and spilled the big tub of sunflower seeds Jerry provides for the team. As I was sweeping up the dugout, I saw my cousin Alvin sitting in the bleachers with a blank expression on his face. Now, it’s not all that rare for Alvin to have a blank expression but it was strange that he was wearing a hospital gown.
“Alvin, why are you wearing that?” I asked.
He snapped out of his trance and looked at me. He shrugged. “I was being prepped for surgery to remove a kidney stone. I had a couple of minutes before they took me to the operating room, so I took a quick look at Facebook. The last thing I remember is thinking I need to come watch your game.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I started to say, but I stopped when Alvin grabbed his side, doubled over, and screamed in agony.
“I’m not sure why I came either,” said a female voice from behind.
I turned to see, Jenny Limbalm. We sort of dated a little in high school. By ‘a little,’ I mean I asked her out about ten times, and she refused on an equal number of occasions. At least she had accepted my Facebook friend request last year.
“I don’t even like softball,” she continued. She wandered off toward the parking lot without even saying “Hi.”
I noticed about a dozen other Facebook friends walking away with the same confused expression.
It was later that evening when I came up with the hypothesis that I had forced all those people to come to the game simply by telling them to on Facebook. It was time to experiment.
First, I went back on Facebook and made a post that said “like this post.” Within ten minutes the post had thirty-six likes. Now, to some of you that might not seem like a lot, but it’s at least double the most I had ever had before. Heck, thirty-six is more than seventy-five percent of my friend total.
I was convinced that anyone who read that post instantly hit the like button. This only brought more questions. Did my power only work on my Facebook friends? What were there limits to my power?
I, immediately, went down to Jerry’s Come On Inn and tested my magical power. I already told you what happened when I talked to Maggie. I also tried writing a note to Jerry telling him to cut my rent in half. He tore it up and sprayed me with seltzer water. It was then that I realized that I needed my computer to control people.
I didn’t sleep much that night. I spent most of my time thinking up ways to test my new power and ways to make use of it.
The next morning, I made another post on Facebook. This time I typed, “Share this post and if you are not already my friend make a friend request.”
It took less than a half hour for two hundred eleven thousand friend requests to appear on my computer. That was way too many for me to even begin to deal with so I made another post that read, “share this post and cancel any friend request you made to me and forget that you ever saw this post or my last one.”
I was beginning to realize how potent my gift was. I started to make a post telling everyone to send me one hundred dollars. I paused. That wouldn’t be right. I shouldn’t use my power for evil. Maybe, I could have everyone send one hundred dollars to their favorite charity. But would that be right? What if someone couldn’t afford to give away that much money?
I put that plan on the back burner. I had a lot to think about. Maybe if I didn’t worry about it so much, the answers would come to me. I spent the day playing Fortnite online. I did very well, especially when I messaged my opponents telling them to drop their weapons.
Monday morning, I decided to test if my ability was limited to Facebook and Fortnite. In a moment of weakness, I did something that I am not very proud of. I sent an email to Maggie Horowitz telling her to fall in love with me. I didn’t have Maggie’s e-mail address, but I did have the address for Witman Insurance.
I sent the e-mail at 8:05.
At 8:07, I got an e-mail from Maggie saying she loved me and wanted to see me.
I was almost out the door at 8:09 when I got another e-mail from Maggie saying that she was sorry, but she didn’t love me anymore. Apparently, it took her all of two minutes to fall out of love with me. I thought about sending the first e-mail again but the prospect of sending her an e-mail every two minutes was a bit overwhelming. I just chalked the whole thing up as a valuable lesson about the limits of my power. I thought about sending another e-mail telling Maggie to love me forever but I knew that just wouldn’t be right. I should never have sent the first one.
At 8:15, I got an e-mail from Bill Witman saying that he was in love with me.
At 8:21, he sent another saying that he had changed his mind.
This is the first time I’ve used my computer since last Monday. I’m afraid to. I can’t think of a way to use my skill to help people. I mean, really help them. Sure, I can make them quit smoking for a few minutes or wash their car but should I? What gives me the right to take away other peoples’ free will? I don’t want to turn into some kind of evil villain. This power is as much a curse as it is a gift.
I just have to come up with some way to use this power that doesn’t hurt anyone.
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