Times were good. He felt the times were good, and getting better. Russ was leading with his gut on this. When his friend group came together and challenged his optimism with their yeah buts, he countered them one by one, with the evidence of his intuition. Growing up, Russ had heard the euphonious sign-off of Paul Harvey – Good Day – as more a proverb than a friendly wish. Even the family terrier, Rusty, the alacritous wag of his copper tail awaiting his bowl of kibble was just more evidence of what Russ’ gut was telling him: Things out there were getting better. This feeling wasn’t acute, like a rush of dopamine or a cigarette after sex or some sudden woo-woo alignment of the planets. No, as Russ grew older, what he felt inside him became stronger and stronger each day, larger with each passing month, for years it blossomed. The great wars were over. The country was back to work. Opportunity was everywhere, pregnant with possibility. Russ was going to get his! Soon, even the sky would not be the limit. Genetically gifted men would construct rocket ships, launch them and take their buddies into space to float at zero-g and look out the window at the big blue marble below with all its burgeoning opportunity. It would leave them speechless. And out the other window? Mars, the edge of the galaxies, the Reionization Era, and beyond (if there was a beyond, god only knew). One day millions of satellites placed in synchronous orbit would keep all the minds of the world enmeshed. A mathematical model of language would deliver readers lyrical prose at the push of a button. Be able to discern a cat from a dog from a fish, all by itself! Build and program our computers for us. Discover our cures. Refactor and staff our most revered institutions (or deprecate them for good, the Greater Good). Vacuum our homes while we’re away. Take Rusty v3.0 for a walk, even pick up after him! In the future, all the mundanity of human life would be handed down to augmented robots. So long as they were kept inline with what matters to Us, there should be no looming worry they may someday replace Us. Russ felt sure of this too.
And then many years later, as a mature adult, when Russ was getting what was his in this world, one day at work he found himself alone inside his colleague’s office. And not merely a colleague, but his friend and professional mentor as well. Now because Russ was a hard determinist, he understood full well that the act he was about to perform had been omnisciently known since the first Planck second after the Big Bang. And likely before that, if there was a before that. As such, what he was about to do was the only thing he could do, because, of course, as it is with the birds and the bees and the rocks and the trees, no human being can act otherwise. Given this worldview, Russ, a fully determined marionette, knew he was merely fulfilling The Universal Plan. Russ didn’t think his own thoughts, in other words. Nobody did.
So there alone in the office he pulled open the middle of three drawers of his friend’s (soon to be former friend) standalone wooden desk, and glanced at the contents therein – sundry office supplies and a few manila folders stuffed with petty documents. Yes, that will do just fine as a landing pad Russ thought. He turned around and undid his belt, lowered his khakis and underpants, and then while bent slightly at the knees he squatted precariously over the drawer and took a dump in it. What happened! Well, the most immediate cause of this vulgarity was, of course, Jill’s (Russ’ wife) full stack of banana pancakes. She’d lovingly prepared them for Russ that morning, in seeing him off to work. He rarely ate breakfast anymore, not since the advent of their working years, when he and Jill had gorged on all that opportunity out there, getting what was theirs. Except the future had arrived earlier than anticipated, earlier, that is, than Russ had anticipated. Because shortly after Jill had crammed and networked her brains out for years to go to work for one of the Five Great Companies, to develop and train an AI, she was, to her shock and dismay, laid off by one. Didn’t see that coming! Good thing was, it freed up her mornings to make breakfast for Russ, who was still employed, getting what was his. There was no world in which Jill did not work for and get laid off by the same Titanic Tech company. No world where the daily dishware she served Russ’ breakfast on was not purchased by her parents off the wedding registry, a list she’d created, having married Russ, who it seemed to her she had freely chosen to be her soulmate and husband. But when she centered herself and freed herself of the fantasy of free will, she knew, scientifically speaking, it could never have been otherwise. Jill had no role in choosing the future in making Russ her lawfully wedded husband, their love collision had already been determined. People who say Russ and Jill were always meant to be don’t understand how right they are! Objects collide. It was Physics 101.
Some days existence felt to Russ less like living the dream and more like being in a dream. The broader cause of his indiscretion on that fateful day was the deception his (former) friend had played out, fooling Russ into believing he was a man of character, a friend and colleague Russ could trust to do the right thing to save Russ’ job, and his friend Dale’s job, too, as both were threatened by a looming company-wide layoff. Instead, Russ felt betrayed to learn that this “friend” had instead all but signed Dale’s termination letter in exchange for adulterous sex with a hottie in HR. No contempt is too much in response to that kind of treachery. So Russ experienced only satisfaction and joy during that final peristaltic push of poop. On Russ’ office wall hung a portion of a torn sheet of yellow paper on which he’d scratched a lyric from a song that had always resonated with him: “And all this science, I don’t understand, it’s just my job five days a week.” Company managers who saw that were none amused. Some felt betrayed. After all, Russ had been recommended to company recruiters by a revered university professor known for mentoring eventual top performers in industry. And here he is now, mocking his own incompetency?
After pulling up his pants he rushed back to his own office, collected his personal effects in a small box then hurried to the elevators, took an empty one to the first floor, hurried through the atrium and out to the parking lot where he got into his car and drove a leisurely route back home. Jill was away when he arrived, and it was nearly dark. He poured himself a large bulb of Cabernet and stepped outside onto the patio and sat in a favorite Adirondack chair. He swirled the wine in the glass as he gazed at the night sky, wondering where the evidence was for all this meaning philosophers go on about. He waited for the phone to ring.