The Roads We Choose: A Social Media Mystery in Four Acts

“I've never walked the same path other people found comfortable and I'm not going to start now.” ― Lora Leigh, Forbidden Pleasure

1. Left Turn

When he was twelve, Henry translated War and Peace into Vulgar Latin, against the advice of his father, who wanted him to translate it into Pig Latin. Upon reading the manuscript, his father said vox nihili, and pushed it across the desk back to Henry. That was the last time he talked to his son.

When Henry grew up, he fought with everyone on Facebook and Twitter, as well as with his own shadow because it followed him all the time except in complete darkness. He preferred that it would leave him alone, and, eventually, it did, along with most of his Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Especially after he tweeted “everyone is born unequal but dies equal.” The only time Henry went along with the demands of society was when he agreed to change his name for the sake of his fellow Americans’ sanity. His real name wasn’t Henry but a hard-to-pronounce Eastern European agglutination. Perhaps even that decision wasn’t a deviation from his contrarian roots. His wife wanted him to keep his old name because Henry was Harry, and Harry was Harry Potter, and there was nothing magical about her husband.

As he expected, instead of falling down, he flew up.

Henry refused to go to school because everyone else did. When, at the age of sixty, he learned about the law of gravity on Facebook and confirmed its existence on Twitter, he jumped from the tenth story window. As he expected, instead of falling down, he flew up. Birds of various species invited him to join their flocks, but he categorically refused. The clouds tried to drench him, but he stayed dry. A drone shot at him, but he ignored the missile, and it was deflected by a lightning bolt. Henry’s still up there, above the clouds, arguing with the angels.  

2. Right Turn

Jonah, Henry’s former Facebook friend—they blocked each other because of a fight about the term “ladylike”—sits on the bench overlooking the lake and watches a young woman walk by. She holds a phone in her slim hand. A tattooed snake slithers from her elbow to her wrist. It takes about a minute from the time she enters Jonah’s field of hearing until she leaves it. Within this minute, she says “like” twelve times. Five seconds between “likes.”

Since he wasn’t born here, Jonah prides himself on his English skills. On Twitter, he passes for an expert sometimes. But those “likes” puzzle him. She is “like” talking, which means she’s not really talking but is doing something that resembles the process of talk? What’s wrong with her? Or maybe what’s wrong with him? Is he falling behind? It’s a mystery. No matter what everyone who knows him believes, Jonah believes that solving mysteries is his destiny.

And what about the moons? The young moons, the old moons? Where do the old moons go when their time is up? Does the sun swallow them?

A flock of geese traverses the lake from one grass-covered bank to the other. Jonah sees new hatchlings every year, but he’s never seen an old goose dead. This lake is ancient. A few old geese should have died by now. Do they have a catafalque service to remove them? Another mystery. And what about the moons? The young moons, the old moons? Where do the old moons go when their time is up? Does the sun swallow them? If Jonah dies here, would the same service remove him? He imagines an epitaph on his tombstone: “He sat on the bench. He died and was carried away.” He prefers happier stories: “The girl and the boy loved each other. They got married. The end.” But the happy stories don’t last long. An old moon passes over the sun, obscuring it for a brief moment. While everyone is looking up, a snake emerges from the lake and, like, swallows Jonah whole. Soon, he sits on a bench in its belly, below a constellation of old moons, watching a large flock of middle-aged but friendly geese. They honk. At first he doesn’t understand, but he learns fast. In a short while, he’s honking at them and they at him. They like each other. He’s happy to be alive. The old, wrinkled moons don’t give out much light, but what’s here to see, anyway? He’s happy to solve another life mystery. Unless it’s contrary to his beliefs, of course.  

3. Straight

If you beat your demons with a switch, can they call 911 on you? As far as I know, my demons never do. So that makes me safe to abuse them while I’m walking along the line of fir trees in Central Massachusetts, still fuming after a Twitter fight with some self-proclaimed language expert named Jonah. I said that Russian is older than Ukrainian, and he claimed the opposite. An idiot and ignoramus.

The real estate is surreally expensive here. Privileged children of every hue ride their bikes in the middle of the street in the subdivision, and then abandon them in the middle of the walkway. Demons are Бесы in Russian, in the land I came from, and it’s usually an allegory, though mine are as real as the children.

Live long and prosper, oh young philosopher. Stay away from the demons. Maybe they’ll leave you alone then.

A boy of five, a twelfth of my age, stares at me from the height of his bike and waves. Children usually don’t wave at strangers. I take it as an allegory of peace and prosperity. I banish my demons and wave back. Hi Fyodor, Mr. Dostoevsky, I mouth. “You’re old,” Fyodor says. “That’s what time does to you,” I say. “Every year makes you older by a year, if you’re lucky, or by two if you’re not.” He drives away. He must be smart for his years. Live long and prosper, oh young philosopher. Stay away from the demons. Maybe they’ll leave you alone then. I continue walking. I feel smug. I’m a demon slayer and protector of the innocent. I walk toward the end of the road and fall into an abyss. Flipping multiple times, I can’t be sure that I’m not actually rising instead of falling. I recite out loud, “In undertaking to describe the recent and strange incidents in our town, till lately wrapped in uneventful obscurity...” I still have good memory for my age. And remember, I’m not just falling, but falling for something. Thinking otherwise is unproductive, perverse, awkward, difficult, uncooperative, unhelpful, obstructive, disobliging, recalcitrant, willful, self-willed, stubborn, obstinate, defiant, mulish, pigheaded, and intractable.

4. Not Walking At All

Othello is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, based on the story “Un Capitano Moro” by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio —Wikipedia

Otho lies supine in his bed, in the dark, listening to the terrorist pacing upstairs in her high heels. Earlier that night, he had a discussion on MyShakespeareOnline.org with an old dude, who claimed to beat demons with a switch, about Dostoevsky’s Demons, of all things. Was Dostoevsky against materialist ideology because he didn’t experience it, or because he foresaw its implications all too well?

Otho’s white noise machine is on as always, but he can hear her loud and clear, as a true soldier would have said. Otho is not a soldier but he’s well versed in literature. And he can always tell wrong from right and vice versa. His alarm clock will buzz in two hours, at 4:00 AM. His plane takes off at 7:00 AM from Logan. The terrorist will board his plane right after him. Her bomb is hidden inside her iPad. It’s not easy to do because the iPad is so small. Did someone help her? Or is she a bomb maker herself? She must be a crafty bastard. Or should he say crafty bitch? Which expression is less offensive?

By the way, Shakespeare stole his play ideas from the Italians and then mangled them.

Otho wanted to google how to make a bomb but was afraid. What if they traced his search back to him? In German, Otho means “wealthy.” Couldn’t his parents name him Albert or something? Albert comes from the Germanic name Adalbert, which is composed of the elements adal “noble” and beraht “bright.” Very appropriate. He is both noble and bright. Othello means “little Otho” in Italian. So, Otho is a “big Othello.” By the way, Shakespeare stole his play ideas from the Italians and then mangled them. Otho has already reported the terrorist twice, but the 911 operator hung up on him. Otho could take the train, but the terrorist will follow him wherever he goes. If he stays home, it’s even easier for her to blow him up. The ceiling will collapse on his head. As if he were Desdemona in “Un Capitano Moro.” No need to strangle him like the Shakespearean Othello did to his wife. Otho tries to detect any pattern in the terrorist’s pacing but fails. He doesn’t fail at everything. Though he has never been married, he has four friends on Facebook. Three women: Sexy Fatamorgana, Sexy Raven and Sexy Chloe. And one man: Hon. Peter Quail (Chairman) IMF Global Debt Committee who keeps promising him US$5.2M. Otho’s real life friend Dick moved to Virginia. Dick can afford neither a phone nor a computer, and unless Otho flies there, he won’t be able to see him. And Otho’s afraid of flying. And of driving too far, also. Could it be that the terrorist got interested in Otho because of Peter Quail? Otho disentangles from his sheets, gets up from his bed, and parts the curtain. Everyone’s asleep. Even the rowdy students in the building across the street. It’s only him, the terrorist and the 911 operator. A threesome. Otho likes the term so much that he laughs out. Still laughing, he returns to his bed and falls asleep. The alarm clock buzzes at 4:00 AM. And then the bomb goes off and the ceiling collapses on his head. Otho’s still alive when the terrorist comes down, together with the 911 operator, and they bludgeon him to death with sand-filled stockings. They obviously read their Cinthio and preferred him to Shakespeare’s version. After that, all is peaceful. The suburban cemetery sits next to a picturesque lake. It’s located across the street from another, older cemetery. There are no alarm clocks, no terrorists, and no rowdy students. The rent is virtually nonexistent. The tenants get up once a year, on Halloween, to tell ghost stories. Otho wonders why the old cemetery has thin tombstones while on his side of the street, the tombstones are fatter. Does it have anything to do with BMI or fat-shaming? No one can answer for sure, but Otho has plenty of time to figure it out. In the end, everything will be right, no matter what the world around him might think by then.