Ain't it funny how the time slips away?
9 Purpose
Markus led Todd through the twisting woods as the sun took its afternoon stroll across the back half of the pale autumn sky. Todd was out of questions, the excitement of his journey had finally caught up to him and savored him like a lion with fresh kill. From getting into the pod through his walk in this unfamiliar forest, he only felt it had been a handful of hours - ten at the most. The berries and the sleep had done wonders, but not enough to satisfy his wandering soul. It didn’t matter where Markus led him now, it might as well be a grave.
Processing roared in Todd’s head, his slightly below average brain making connections and putting pieces together slowly but surely. So many questions remain unanswered, but nevertheless the good ol’ Jacobson brain chugged along. With each step, he constructed a magnum opus. It didn’t matter now if he never understood what was going on, he would find the right words to speak his mind.
The pair finally stopped before a small gray box that stood alone in a clearing. One metal door adorned the dry face.
Not a grave? He thought about the strange gray buildings in the back of billionaire’s private graveyards. Or my own private mosole… mosule… museum… He guessed at the word, getting it right at least in spirit.
Todd took a breath to reinvigorate himself. No more Mr. Nice Todd.
“In,” Markus commanded, motioning to the door.
“Now what exactly is going on here!” Yelped Todd. A piece of his mind had consolidated itself over the course of the walk, and Todd was ready to give that piece right to Markus. Whether he liked it or not.
“Give him Hell Toddy Boy,” It was Donn Jacobson who had told him that, so long ago now. It may have been the only piece of good advice he ever really got from his father, but he would be damned if he didn’t listen to it now.
“I’m promised a job as a Janitor on Mars, shut inside a tiny little pod - by you just in case we forgot - then found - by you - on a planet SIX MILLION YEARS LATER!” Todd paused for emphasis, just as he practiced in his head, “Then I’m taken all the way back across the Galaxy, just to be pawned off to the terrible nightmare-house that is the remnants of my species, who are made from my own genetic code BY THE WAY, only for that ship to crash on some RANDOM planet, and for YOU to lead me to some, what, gray box? W–what is this… a mosole- museum?”
Todd smirked, high on his own adrenaline despite tripping up on the last word. Every ounce of swallowed pride that he had been forced to eat by managers finally had a golden opportunity to come out. It was the least pathetic Todd felt in his entire life. In a flash decision he decided to improvise.
“Look here mister,” he began, not as great of a start as he wanted, but he kept moving, “you’re gonna tell me exactly who it is that you work for and exactly why I had to be the poor sad sack that is doing… whatever it is that I’m doing.”
Losing steam now but refusing to let go of the feverish energy that goaded him onward, Todd continued, “Y-you take me to whoever programmed you RIGHT NOW! S-sir… a-and I’m gonna give them a piece of my mind or my name isn’t Todd Hope Jacobson!”
Revealing his full legal name - which still contained some level of shame - seemed like the natural place for a speech like this to end. Nobody could make him keep that down anymore. Filled with courage and with heaving breaths, Todd finally opened his eyes - which he had unintentionally glued shut sometime in the middle of his tirade - and looked up to Markus.
The giant held the door to the small gray box open and replied simply, “In.”
“AHHH!” Todd yelled in desperation. “No! No no no!” Stomping his feet with each beat. “No, you tell me something! Now!”
“In.” Came the simple response.
If there ever was a good time to throw a hissy fit, now was it. So that’s exactly what Todd did. Much like a toddler, Todd fell to the ground and began wailing. The sound bounced off of the valley’s sloping walls, doing a quick u-turn to reveal his own piteous state back to him. Todd didn’t care, and definitely didn't count the echoes.
He had no idea how Markus would react. Employing this technique in front of his parents had always been the last ditch of last ditch efforts, and rarely got him more than a kick in the ribs while he was down. Markus didn't seem like he was a kicker like Donny Jacobson though, he had the look of a grappler. Whatever the case, Todd’s belly was full of fresh river water and a bush-full of berries, and he didn’t plan on stopping until he got his answers. He braced for the kick that never came.
Jet black figures eyed the pair from the trees flanking the gray slab, waiting patiently.
It took some time screeching, but eventually Markus relented.
“If I tell you one thing, will you stop,” his booming voice ducked underneath the shrill whines of desperation.
“Yes,” Todd jumped to his feet, wiping real tears from his eyes.
The android took a deep breath in.
“The Crows programmed me, gave me the instructions to function as I have. They’re the ones who made this plan for you Todd,” he droned.
Todd glanced at the trees and pointed, “Crows?”
“Crows,” Markus confirmed. “Now IN.”
“Wha-? But that doesn’t explain anything!” He kept a shrill tone on standby.
“I told you one thing. Now IN,” Markus clearly wasn’t relenting.
“Ugh,” Todd grunted. He pushed beside the giant and entered the room, a deal’s a deal.
***
Aside from another steel door on the opposite wall from the one he entered, the concrete room was completely empty.
Markus had closed the door after Todd slinked in and sat on the floor, leaving him completely in the dark.
How could it be? After all this time, Todd thought, I end up sitting and waiting.
He closed his eyes and tried to find the happy couple on their field of green. Picturing it, Todd found that a stream now ran through the field, just about half way down. This would have been a terrible inconvenience to him during his landscaping days, but he had a different view of things now, much more appreciative of nature. He didn’t need a trimmer anymore, nobody did. Wild grass covered the steep bank and trees, their leaves dappled with autumnal colors scattered along the edges of the field, canopies alive with black shapes chittering away.
There they were, the happy little duo, holding each other tight in front of their new concrete house. The woman had her face up to the man’s ear, hands cupped around the side of his head. Seemingly in response to his wife’s secret, the husband chuckled idly - interrupted in intervals with a devilishly gleeful grin or feigned shock of surprise. They both knew the secret, and once the wife was done, the husband took his turn conspiring into her ear.
Todd scrunched his face. Why don’t I get to know?
They bursted out laughing in response to his question. Whatever it is must be absolutely hilarious.
Todd figured this salacious secret must have been told to the couple by the crows that dotted the trees in the woods.
How could they possibly fit into all of this? Androids, HyperSpace Lanes, Human Flesh Ships? Crows?
His eyes split open, frustration bubbling up from his belly.
“WHAT!?” he screamed aloud in the box. “WHAT WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT WITH ME? I HAVE NOTHING! I AM NOTHING!” In a blind rage Todd scurried to the wall closest to him.
“WHY WHY WHY?” He screamed as his voice went course.
When the only thing his throat could produce was a shrill, sad whistle, Todd lifted his balled fists and began slamming them against the wall.
Still mouthing the words, metallic taste spreading across his tongue, Todd pummeled his knuckles into the concrete wall, splitting the skin and splattering red onto the gray surface - feeling the snap of bones. He continued on until he had no strength left in his arms.
If nothing else, Todd had done a fine job giving the wall a fresh, bright red paint job.
Collapsing to the ground, completely depleted, he wept. Throngs of pain pounded his mangled hands as they slowly began to puff and swell. His immune system tried desperately to heal the damage he had done to his throat as a second front tried in vain to reassemble his decimated hands.
His back slouched up against his victim-wall, head low, hanging like a rotten fruit from his neck between his legs. All the tears were spent, and only stinging red remained in his eyes. New pools of blood from his hands grew from where they splayed out on either side of his sweating body. His chest heaved up and down with powerful sobs.
The couple on the grass field had fled into their home, hiding from the rage Todd inherited from his father. Although, the violent tirades Donny Jacobson performed usually resulted in the broken bones of others, not those of his own.
Todd writhed on the ground, turning from one side to another. Tears flowed down his face in a torrent. As he turned on his right side, the sharp metal point of the piece that had been hitching a ride in his pocket during this entire bizarre journey stabbed his flesh.
Rage still alight in his blood, Todd shot up and grasped for his pocket. White hot pain answered his call, the bloody pulp of his two fists utterly unable to extend into useful grasping fingers. Immeasurable pain traversed up his arms like electricity.
Retreating from his pocket, allowing the metal piece to rot there, Todd rolled to his other side in dejected capitulation. As he did so, a thin line of dim orange light pierced his eyes - one of the doors had been opened, allowing a shaft of light from the distant sunset to sneak into the concrete box.
***
“Of course you would be out here,” Was what Todd tried to say through shredded vocal chords. What had come out sounded much more like a sad vespa puttering to a dreadful death. His throat roared with fire.
“Just up there,” Markus said, turned around, and pointed a meaty finger at a raised platform of concrete sitting alone in the afternoon sun.
Two huge black figures stood beside each other on this platform, gleaming with light from the orange rays. Regal, tall as skyscrapers, and black as the night. Standing what must have been over a hundred feet in the air were the shapes of enormous, colossal Ravens.
“The Crows,” Markus said plainly. “They’re waiting for you.”
Todd’s whole body shook. He didn’t speak, not because of his ripped up throat, but rather he couldn’t think of the first thing to say.
They were gargantuan, impenetrably sable - feathers subjugated and absorbed the fading Sun, denying the fire from the horizon its expected recital upon their stage. Imposing their grandeur down upon him as monarchs bidding a serf, the Ravens peered low, commanding him with silent authority.
Markus slapped him on the back which got him moving. Slowly he trudged up the sloping hill up to the enormous creatures, huge black eyes gazing down at him from slick heads in the sky. Finally, with slow, shaky steps leading him the entire way, Todd finally stood on the lip of the concrete platform and looked up at the two gargantuan figures.
“Hello Todd,” a voice spoke in his mind. It was coarse and rough, yet spoke with a certain proper dignity. It sounded just like Todd always thought Crows should sound if they were to pick up English.
His eyes popped from his head as he looked back and forth at the huge beings. He’d been stunned into silence many times before, but this superseded all of that.
Crows? Big Crows? A stupified voice rang out in his head. It felt… well it felt a bit ridiculous really. He would burst out laughing, but not even the absurdness of the situation could shatter the sheer awe he felt.
“Do not be alarmed,” a slightly deeper voice said, “Everything has led to this moment, just relax and let us explain what we need from you.”
Todd found himself nodding in agreement, completely drained of any defiance in the face of these Godlike figures.
Todd was jolted out of his petrification by the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him.
“Markus,” the bird said. Todd spun around to see the giant, who had silently climbed the hill behind him.
“Well…” Markus’ eyes were downcast, and for the first time since meeting the android, Todd was stunned to see an emotion other than stoic solidity paint the grisled face. He seemed anxious, “That’s it, isn’t it?” came the deep voice.
“That’s it Markus, you’re done,” the crow replied.
“Thank you,” Markus took a deep breath.
Worry faded from his continence, and Todd saw a second unexpected emotion grace the large android’s face. Markus smiled, genuinely smiled.
Not a second after he allowed his face to split with the warm grin, his eyes drained of their color, blue and the green both drifting to gray, and his huge body fell like a tree. The form fallumphed on the concrete ground with a deep, dull slap. Just as suddenly, the body began disappearing, frittering away in little shards in the wind.
“Markus!” Todd tried to yell, only really getting out a few screeches.
Dust flew away into the air, and all remains of the android were gone.
“Don’t fear Todd,” the Crows said. Todd turned to address them again. “Markus did his job, and he was ready.”
Todd tried to lift a finger to point at himself, the only way he knew for sure to communicate the idea, Are you going to do that to me? but none of his pointer fingers would extend. Pain stopped him from trying to communicate this way for the rest of the conversation.
“Let’s start with the big picture, ey Todd?” the deeper voice asked.
Todd groaned.
“These impressive forms you see before you are nothing but footprints, if you will, impressions of our true fifth dimensional essences.”
Todd’s eyes popped from his head. None of that made any sense. Not a great start of explaining things.
How is a crow this big? he thought.
“Yes we know, it may be hard to understand or wrap your little third dimensional head around, but understand this: You are the only thing to have ever been born in this universe with what you would call a Purpose.”
Todd’s stomach fell forty feet, unprepared for the words.
A Purpose? Todd? Big Crows?
“You understood that right Todd. Most things in this Universe exist for the simple ‘purpose’ of existing - if you could call it that, but we won’t get into the idea that a ‘purpose’ is a label, or better put prison that you humans liked to put yourselves in for no better reason than to perpetuate some cycles of shame left over from being animals when you had to exist in a world that wanted to eat you. Humanity's biggest mistake was trying to run away from the fact that all any life has ever had to do was just exist. Humans are so keen on defining and placing nature into boxes that you forgot the most simple truth: The meaning of life is to experience life.
“You’re not like the rest of humanity Todd. You’re not like the rest of any organic life, ever. Understand: Machines are made with purpose, and that is how their usefulness is judged. Organic life, that which arises out of the processes of the Universe and which makes machines as extensions of itself to do tasks, is free from ‘purpose’, and therefore no usefulness can be judged. They can only be. Just in being, organic life can sleep easy knowing it’s doing it right, cosmically speaking that is. You understand.”
Todd, was beside himself, for once in his life he did strangely understand. Though it went against everything he had ever been taught throughout his entire life, it felt right. As a matter of fact, it felt more right, than all the manure shoved into his mind during school.
Most of the specific words were lost on him, especially the bit about him being special, but he got the gist. Maybe it was the exhausting journey, maybe the outburst against the wall, maybe the terrifying crash landing, but whatever the case, that worm of disagreement in his heart that wanted to try so desperately to cling to his childhood worldview was simply too tired to complain. Todd was utterly open to this new truth, cautiously feeling them take root in place of his society's objectivist cynicism.
All I ever wanted was to just... be…
“But you Todd, long before you were even born your life was destined to serve a singular and most important task.”
These words, however, halted his burgeoning understanding. Me? Todd Jacobson? Important? Everything the Crow said waged war against the preconceived notions that sheltered in his unconscious mind. Not him, not ever. Todd Jacobson was less relevant than the Will of the People in National Politics. Todd Jacobson was a worm at best. Todd Jacobson would never be important. Todd Jabocson would never be anything.
Just being? Sure, sounds right. But being important? No no, not Todd.
The colossal beasts nodded to each other in the sun’s lowering light. “Let’s start with this, it may be easier to understand.” came the deeper voice.
“Crows evolved on this planet slowly at first, evolving ever greater cognitive skills with each passing generation. However, thanks to a little quirk in our eventual evolutionary path, us Corvids had a little ace up our feathered sleeve.”
Todd heard them chuckle in his head.
Was that supposed to be a joke?, he thought to himself. I could do better.
“Millions of years after humans trashed this place, a species of distant descendants to the crows that you knew in your lifetime passed through an evolutionary barrier that no consciousness had ever crossed before. Billions of generations of conscious thought locked in the minds of small fragile minds of birds gradually came to explode into a Universal connected understanding. Fifth Dimensional consciousness.”
“Huh?” Todd managed to whimper through a scream torn windpipe. Fifth Dimensional? I know Three Dimensional, that’s what movies were if you paid the extra subscription fee… How much did the crows have to pay for Five?
“While you, Todd - and all animals like you - live and experience space in the Third Dimension, we have gained the ability to transcend your plane through collective evolution with some prodding from the past, though the notions of linear time don't mean much to us anyhow. It’s all about perspective, you see.”
Why did they have us pay extra for Third Dimension if we live in it? God those CEO’s really were evil. He thought during the crow’s mental monologue.
“Not only do we exist in a form that can only be observed through your eyes in carefully constructed psychic simulacra, such as these, we also experience space and time quite a bit differently than you.
“See, one of the great things about being a fifth dimensional being is that, from our point of view, Time begins to look very much more like landscapes or traversable landscapes, rather than an inevitable stream of passing seconds, years, days and whathaveyou.”
Woah woah woah, Todd thought, still feeling his torn up throat, I wish I could ask these guys to slow down. Whatever happened to the Fourth Dimension?
“Thanks to this little quirk, we, as aforementioned fifth-dimensional beings, can, at our leisure, go ahead and fly around to any point in the time stream of the Universe, past, present or future, as you would see it, and exist in any point in time. Or, in another sense, we exist in all points of time all at once, and are able to focus on these points through links to the consciousness of our close evolutionary relatives to exert our will over that specific point in time, or physically fill a space with aforementioned psychic simulacra. I think you can see where this is going can’t you Todd?”
Todd could not see where this was going. Not in the slightest. What does simulac... simulacra mean? Having heard the word twice, it seemed to be one of the many questions that his mind snagged on.
The crow's voice continued in his mind, “Not only could we travel through to the past and future during these flights down the promenade of Time, but we could link our consciousness to that of the Corvids of wherever we ended up. We knew this of course, we were the ones helping our ancestors gain the tools necessary to evolve a consciousness such as our own after all. We’ve been here all this time. We are at all times, always have been, always will be, you see.”
Wait… the pieces slowly fell together. All this time? It was them… These are the crows… Todd’s face flushed with heat as he made the connection.
“Regardless, I bet you’re still wondering about your part in all of this. Well, see, we knew that you were destined to be shot out into the depths of space to a useless chunk of rock and be forgotten about, and we knew your pod would remain sealed, right? One in a million. So, we made sure your whole life that you would trust a Crow by helping you get along when you needed a little push - shoes, coins, whathaveyou. That way, when we gave you that little metal piece, you wouldn’t think twice before putting it in your pocket, and that you’d have it when you got shot off into the depths of an uncaring, expansive galaxy..”
The metal piece? Todd felt it in his pocket with his mashed hands. What?
“So, there it was in your pocket, that little piece we need so much. The android we helped gain sentience to help us achieve this little plan ended up spawning millions of others from his immaculate code and all of the sudden we had tons of Android scavengers running about the Universe. That was no good.
“So we wrote a new bit of code for Markus and had him do the whole unite, rebel, turncoat business to wipe them all out. Just had to wait a few more thousand years, then it was a hop, skip and jump for him to get you here now!”
Todd was left stunned before the two massive birds. He wished he could even form a coherent thought, unfortunately every part of his brain that made those was too busy being completely dumbfounded.
“Ah yes,” the voice spoke again as a small black shape dove down from the trees around the clearing and perched itself on the ground beside Todd. It was big, the size of a small child or large cat with strangely human blue eyes. This oversized crow waddled over to Todd’s side, gingerly plucked the metal piece from his pocket and soared back into the sky all before Todd could flinch.
The act wrenched the feather from his pocket, which drifted delicately to the ground.
“Thank you so much for that, again. You have no idea, like… ugh,” the crow voice said.
Behind the two huge black figures, dwarfed even by their thin legs, stood a small gray slab table which sat upon it a tall black shape. He hadn’t noticed this particular derivation in the slab for one key reason: the two enormous crows that could speak into his mind were standing directly in front of it, and, frankly, they were just much more eye-catching.
Instantly Todd recognized the appliance for what it was: a coffee machine An older make, definitely not an Amazon product. Those could never hope to last this long. In fact, how any coffee machine could last six-million years was beyond him.
The blue eyed bird who took the piece flew behind the machine and wrenched something open with its right talon before gingerly placing the piece inside. Todd heard a satisfying click. After closing the panel it had opened, the bird flew back up into the sky and away to the trees.
Hissing began to come from the machine, and soon brown drops of coffee began to fill the clear carafe in the center.
“God, yes I need this,” the deep voiced crow spoke.
“Me too, Gah- man, Todd? Seriously? Thank you again dude. So much.” The other replied.
A flock of seven magpies surrounded the coffee maker. Working together - two on the nearly spilling carafe, two picking up red mugs from somewhere behind the machine, and three fluttering around in wide circles doing absolutely nothing - they pulled out the glass pot, poured the liquid into two red mugs, and flew them up to the beaks of the towering birds.
The Huge Crows drank the coffee - sipping the liquid waterfalling from the magpies’ cups.
It took a while.
Todd didn’t know what to say.
He waited.
Finally, after hearing the birds satisfied hums after finishing their drinks, he cleared his throat to make an intelligible sound. The only words Todd could think of were blurted out, “That's it?”
“Hmm” one of the birds said, a mouthful of coffee somehow coming through in the voice in Todd’s head.
“You did all this, just cause you needed some coffee?” Todd squeaked through a tight throat.
“Oh, yeah definitely man,” the first crow replied. “Gonna need these so we can go back to the beginning of time to build the HyperSpace Lanes.”
“We wouldn’t have been able to get them done without this coffee, seriously,” the deeper voice added.
Todd took a step back. “What?”
“Oh yeah, sorry about that. It gets hard to talk about time as a fifth dimensional being to someone with a third dimensional perspective. We’re just about to go back to the beginning of time and build the HyperSpace Lanes.”
Utterly lost, Todd scratched his head, “They told me humans found the HyperSpace Lanes…”
“Ugh, who do you think made them so that humans could find them?” The voice came through exceedingly condescending.
“Humans have always been silly to us. Thinking they are somehow the ‘pinnacle of evolution!’ Ha! As if labeling benchmarks of progress for the human species necessitates the replication of those criteria in the evolution of a species with a highly evolved consciousness grander than your own! Oh Humans, assuming the Universe has set arbitrary benchmarks of grandiosity upon the so-called progress of consciousness.” They laughed like it was the funniest joke in the world.
Todd had no idea what any of those words meant. These birds had found a way to make less sense than the President - at least they didn’t seem evil. They were just frustrating.
“I just still don’t get how birds learned to get big and time travel.” He said.
“It’s not-!” One of the enormous black figures sighed in frustration. “Look dude, it's like this: The years that have passed along with the downfall of the human species allowed Corvids - who have been connected to the fifth dimensional consciousness that binds all crows, ravens, and magpie since the beginning of time,” the bird nodded at his building sized compatriot. “-to finally actually evolve a genesis link to that fifth dimensional consciousness in the third dimension that then allowed them to span back to the beginning of time, generating and connecting to all fifth dimensional Corvid consciousnesses."
It took a breath. Todd was already lost again, more questions bubbling up the more it spoke.
“We, the beings you see before you, are the psycho-physical embodiments of said fifth dimensional consciousness that has carefully exacted your life since being expelled from Earth to getting back here, so you could give us that piece of the coffee maker - because that original piece was the only piece we were unable to maintain over the millions of years and we knew couldn't find a replacement for anywhere except for the past - so we could fix our machine and have our coffee, to have the energy to go fly off and build the HyperSpace lanes at the beginning of time. Understand?”
Todd didn’t understand a word.
This all seemed very contrived, not that he knew what that word meant.
“Why me?” he asked.
“Why you? Why me?” the crow responded, “Why anyone? Why anything?”
Todd stared.
“Why is such a horrible question, Why me even more so. Why? Because! Because you were there! Because we all were! Why you? Because that’s what happened! That’s the way it went down! It happened that way, and will happen, and continues to happen. That’s how everything is, was, and ever will be. You cannot ‘why?’ your way into understanding an unreasonable Universe. Do you understand me Todd?”
“No. Not at all,” he responded.
The crows sighed again.
“W-why do you need to build the HyperSpace lanes in the first place?” Todd asked as the birds shared a glance.
“...so you could be shot out to a deserted planet, be preserved along with the piece, and be shot back here through them so we could get our piece and get our coffee… duh.”
“The coffee you need so you can time travel to the start of the Galaxy and make the HyperSpace Lanes… so I could go through the HyperSpace Lanes both ways and get you the piece from the past so you can get your coffee so you could time travel to the start of the Galaxy to… go make the… HyperSpace Lanes… so…?”
The loop ran over and over in his mind, seemingly without end.
“Now you’ve got it! You were the only person in the history of the Galaxy that has ever had a Purpose Todd. And now you’re done! You did it! Thank you and congratulations!”
Todd didn’t get it. Not in the slightest.
“Why make me go through that horrible human ship? Why not make Markus drop me off here?” He would get some answers if it killed him.
“Oh yeah, that. Ahh…” the birds winced, “We are sorry about that, tough but couldn't be avoided. See, The Independence was right at the other end of the HyperSpace Lane when Unity popped out on this side of the Galaxy. They sensed your bio-rhythm and the androids were programmed to acquiesce… so…”
The other bird picked up immediately, “But the strangest thing happened… The Ship’s President must have been distracted by something, he got way too close to this planet’s gravity and started to fall. We hardly had to generate any extra gravitons to pull it down.”
“When did you start all of this?” Todd gasped out a final desperate question. “Why did you start all this? Why not leave the universe alone without any HyperSpace Lanes, without gravi-gravitons… without me?”
“Start?” The two crows glanced at each other, grading chortling squeaking through Todd’s head. “There was no start, Todd, that’s such a human thought. And as for your ‘Why?’: if there were no HyperSpace Lanes… if there were no you… then how would we get our coffee, Todd?”
Without another word, the two Crows ascended through the sky with a great whoosh, disappearing entirely before they reached the clouds.
Epilogue
Finding happiness took some doing, as all good things do.
Very little from the clandestine conversation made it into his mind, the birds had left him in a numb state of half-understanding that lingered for days. So many nights passed while Todd’s head crunched gears, he might as well have been leaking thick black oil from his ears. He wouldn’t have even noticed that sentence rhymed, even if there was a music major there to point it out.
As it turns out, living your entire life thinking you have no purpose only to be told that you did have a purpose and to immediately discover it's now over, is not a recipe for immediate happiness.
The first decision he made was to give up. Why not? His grand purpose - that which he had searched for his entire life - had gone and left, all the while he was too worried about trying to find it that he was too blind to realize he was on the damn track the whole time. Not that he had any say in the matter. He was the biggest pawn in the Galaxy, but now the game is over. Checkmate Todd.
Languishing for the first few nights, finding macabre refuge in the concrete box, Todd abandoned all hope - his hands completely demolished by his own frustration. Though the pain slowly subsided, it left behind a simple gray ache, only hurting when he attempted to use them in the slightest. The digits on both of his thin hands healed haphazardly - making it hard to even pull his own pants down to piss.
Most days were spent on the floor of the box trying everything he could to ignore the knotted mess of hands that painted the aging red-brown streaks drying down the wall. Todd became familiar with the smell of his own browning blood. Too familiar. An old metallic stench, acrid and somehow comforting.
The floor became his grave, a place he could lay down and give up, for good this time.
Who needs to eat if you have no purpose?
Who needs to drink?
Who needs to live?
Starvation seemed like the most appropriate way to go, it had teased him his whole life and it only seemed proper to let it have the final word.
Nothing left for Todd Jacobson, so he thought. Dragged through the cosmos back and forth for six million years and some change, only to be left alone on a lush, unknown world of green. The last possible place he could make a living. Nobody needed him anymore. What a joke.
Todd chose to spend his long, weeping days in the concrete box for no other reason than its familiarity. What else was his old apartment but just an inhospitable prison cell where he could sleep out his nights until the boss man said it's time to work again? Some nights he could close his eyes and still picture himself there. But there was no more work to be done.
Useless.
“Well Toddy Boy,” he said to himself the fourth night, stomach rippling in pain and thinking about the bloody wreckage of the inhuman Independence Human-ship. “The Evil is Gone and you’re all that’s leftover. Great job… Great Job.”
The words only brought more sorrow.
One day however, just as thin and emaciated Todd no longer felt strong enough to walk, a small tapping awoke him from his half-slumber in his concrete box. Ignored at first, the noise finally grew grading enough to egg on his curiosity. Standing on shambling legs, Todd wandered to the ajar door and looked down.
An oversized crow looked up at him with blue eyes. Not as large as the colossal ones that scraped the sky and skipped off to the beginning of time along with his purpose, it did seem to be the same crow that wrenched the piece from his pocket and reassembled the coffee machine. Standing focused and straight, the bird presented small red berries piled up in front of its small black legs, shining in the lazy afternoon light. The berries dripped with moisture.
They were gone in minutes.
Over the course of the next few days, this large corvid continued bringing berries, nuts, and even small minnows from the stream to Todd as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He ate ravenously each and every time.
One night, when sleep seemed as slippery as the meals of small fish, the crow waddled and sat by his face. As his stomach was roaring with bitter hatred, the crow nestled in his neck and began to do the oddest thing. It started to hum.
A simple tune, one Todd didn’t know, but he found it strangely soothing. Intermingled with the harsh tones of the crows caw, the beast’s song was rhythmic yet calming. It helped him overcome the pain enough to sleep, carrying on into a dream of his disappointed couple on their untended field.
Every night that he found himself plagued with sleeplessness, nightmares, or anxiety, here came the crow to put him to sleep. Little lullabies from a big black bird. Todd’s dreams slowly grew more green with each night.
By the end of a few weeks, he even felt good enough to get up and begin to walk out of the small box - the crow following him everywhere he went. Waddling on the ground close behind or fluttering from tree to tree, it never drifted too far from Todd’s bald head.
With the fresh air and walking to help clear his mind from the depressive haze, Todd realized he should name the bird. Only one name seemed appropriate for a creature such as this. Such a loyal companion.
He called him Dog.
Todd and Dog explored the sloping river valley and adjacent watersheds together, the cat-sized black feathered friend hopping beside or flying above him during the long strolls. Nature wasn’t nearly as frightening and large with Dog by his side.
The world opened up for them.
Thanks to this odd companion, food turned out to be more plentiful than his days working for T Landscaping after his parents’ death. First it was the throngs of red berry bushes dotting the lazy streams, each as full as the first. Dog made sure to show Todd every single one. Various nuts and seeds that fell from the tree like rain were also pointed out to him as a quick source of food, often dropped into his hands from its large beak.
One bright afternoon as the first fingers of autumn whispered through the late summer air, Todd and Dog stumbled across a field of untended, wild red and orange melons. Curious vines twisted across the space, offering their fat fruit to the beating sun every few meters. Thick stalks of red, corn-like grain grew from the chaotic green mess, accompanied by small stalks with purple, bean-like pods climbing their way up the sides. A field of colors, flowers, and food.
Todd fell to the ground when he saw it, tears fell from his eyes. Food forever.
The duo spent days and hours picking at the field, seemingly never ending. At nights they would come home, Dog adding seeds and husks to a stockpile in the corner of their gray-box home after each visit. Days were filled with labor, but Todd’s belly was never empty, and that seemed better at least. It turned out, having something to do still carried its old charm after all.
He realized that he could still do ‘work’ even if there was no ‘boss’ to tell him what to do. It was oddly liberating. He was, in a way, his own ‘boss.’
‘Go here’s and ‘go there’s were absent from his life from all but himself. Breaks were as abundant as he deemed sensible, and had only himself to be accountable to. A lifetime of work ethic entrenched in his bones, Todd slowly found that picking this great field - even with his mangled hands - offered a kind of satisfaction he could never have imagined.
With Dog’s help, long cool early autumn days spent in the verdant field became like that of a work week. Some days he took off, deciding to sit in the sun beside the gray concrete box while his feathered friend chased small brown squirrel-like creatures out of trees. Other days were long, grueling even, but the work was always rewarding. After some weeks the stockpile had grown large enough to cover up the old stains of blood. Todd liked that.
The natural cornucopia sufficed for some time, and helped him make his concrete box-home much more livable with a corn husk bed - but everything can get tiring. Soon, after his stomach had healed from the horrible few days of self imposed starvation, it began to request different sources of nutrition.
Guided by his fading memories of fast food burgers, Todd began to eye the large brown beasts that ruled the forests. He couldn’t remember what kind of animal ‘burger’ came from, and he began to wonder what meat could be hiding under that shining crown? How good would meat taste after so long?
Though Todd’s hands never recovered, fingers forever condemned to twist around each other in a mangled knot, this kind of survival was no issue. Dog seemed to know how to do just about anything a high achieving Eagle Scout would ever know. Fat chubby squirrel-like forest dwelling creatures were the easiest to catch for the pair, falling for just about any simple snare Dog set up out in the thick undergrowth by the creek.
Such a good bird.
Trapping small animals became a nice early morning and nightly ritual. Set the traps on the way to the field, collect the critters on the way home to sleep.
Once the duo had mastered hunting squirrel-creatures, the beasts were next in their sights.
Bigger animals meant bigger snares, like covered pits and wood spikes - very easy to make with a single shovel Todd found near his original berry bush in the stream where Markus had found him. It was a good steel headed tool, something Todd knew he couldn't take for granted. At least not everything he learned from landscaping was useless, landscaping and survival weren’t as far off as he once thought.
Just after a few weeks of work, the two had a good stockpile of carved, sharp spears with tips of crudely carved yellowing ivory, stained red with the blood of the hulking wood beasts. The meat was gamey, but wonderfully filling. Todd and Dog made it a ritual to sit around a fire every night and dine on the meals they had prepared - the man draping himself in thick furs as the nights grew colder.
These meals were cooked over open fires - a technique that took Todd the better part of three weeks to learn. There had been a lightning strike during a particularly bad storm, a great oak tree slammed onto the forest ground and the pursuing inferno carried on all night.
In the morning, the two ventured out, Dog scooped up a branch, and the pair took some of the dwindling flames for their own. Todd managed to keep the same light alive for a few weeks before another storm eventually took it out, but the convenience of heat was too useful to forego - especially as the nights got longer and wind gathered a shrill edge.
It took some doing, as all good things do, but after some time - and some help with some hard metallic rocks Dog found in the shallow of a creek - fire became just another tool for Mr. Jacobson, Survivalist Extraordinaire, to utilize.
Days grew shorter, winds more chill, leaves turned yellow on their spindling branches.
During one of their walks during the late fall, the bird and man stumbled across what initially seemed to be an oversized track and field baton left discarded after a highschool for giant’s semi-national meet. A cold metal cylinder depressing the tall grass.
Though he wasn’t sure until he walked inside, this had to be none other than Markus’s ship, the Unity, set down in a small valley just beyond the crest of a low hill, smothering the wild undergrowth. A long metal tongue dispensed from the sleek rounded vessel offering passage into the cargo bay.
While he was hesitant to move out of his comfortable concrete box at first, he eventually had to admit that the Unity would serve as a much better shelter for the last weeks of autumn going into the winter. Leaving the gray structure as storage for his increasing amounts of food - much of it smoked and preserved with the help of Dog - Todd found personal refuge in the better sealed metal hull of the spaceship.
Rainstorms grew common, one night even sending snow drifting from the clouds, but not a drop of moisture entered the rattling innards of the powered down spacecraft.
While it was warmer in the ship than anywhere else, Todd couldn’t quite ever feel at home in its belly. He never dared to check out the precarious engine room, but the rest of the ship seemed to be left how he remembered it, odd gravity tricks and all. Only the wide cargo bay had been altered, once stuffed with machines and parts of all kinds, the room now lay completely barren. His vomit in the ‘Kitchen’ had been cleaned up as well, but the whole ordeal remained an acidic taste in his mouth. Embarrassment doesn't wash off as easily as puke.
He mostly slept on either of the two green couches in the meeting room, staying away from the stinky, grease stained brown chair in the middle of the room Illana must have favored.
After some time - with the help of Dog, naturally - he began to set up small wooden structures alongside the craft, using the metal of the Unity’s outer shell as a good support. Though the shelters were much worse at holding out the rain initially, they sure beat the soulless interior of the craft. No mind bending gravity changes in good wooden structures. No yellow walls or metal floors.
Finally, once multiple buildings had been constructed, roofs had been thatched, and a small garden of simple flowers and wild grass decorated the entrance to his new colony, the place began to feel like home. Wood-beast pelt, he found, acted as a very good carpet.
When small bugs and rodents inevitably found their ways into his home, Dog turned out to be much more helpful than the poor mangy animal Todd homed long ago. Flushing them out with fluttering movements and pecks of his beak, Todd couldn’t help but imagine the old screaming of Tristen, “BIO CONTAMINANT, BIO CONTAMINANT.” Finally understanding what he meant.
Weeks passed in the forests of the temperate valley, gentle snow began to drift down from the mountains and the world began to freeze. It was in this seasonal change, only after he had constructed his own self-sustaining farm and an acceptable working hand-made shelter, Todd became increasingly sure of one thing: He was wrong before, so incredibly wrong. This must be no other place than his old home, Earth.
Maybe the crows should have given it away, or the squirrel-like creatures, watermelon tasting melons, corn tasting corn, etc… but it took the man nearly twelve weeks of wandering around the vicinity of the coffee machine - ignored and slowly left to rust on its gray pedestal - to make the connection. He had walked past many chunks of gray stone that once served as headquarters for his economic masters, but the time had weathered the concrete far past the point of recognizability. Throughout this time, there had been no doubt that this was an alien world.
The tipping point had happened one early morning just after the second frost and thaw of the early winter season. Todd happened along a landslide which had excavated the side of a small hill. Swooping along the rubble, Dog picked up something peculiar before dropping into Todd’s twisted hands.
Long, black and rectangular, a glass panel that stretched across its surface was cracked and packed with gray and black dirt.
A smart phone, Todd realized. No way! I’ve always wanted one of these!
He placed the age-old device on a special place in his bedroom, a little wooden shelf just between Dog’s nest and his prized spears.
Sleepless nights could now consist of Dog’s song and long uninterrupted looks at this broken smart-machine. It was so unthreatening on the shelf, dead and still. Todd could almost forget they had once ruled the world.
Nothing but a human being could make something like a smartphone. Only a human would think it a good idea to put every single thing you could possibly want, know, or need in one single place.
It quickly became a religious symbol to Todd, though he wouldn’t label it as such. Something he had wanted and pined for his whole life, something that his mother brought up in almost every single conversation to point out the inadequacy of his father, was his. Just for him. The last smartphone ever for the last human ever.
It felt right.
See Mom and Dad, he would say in silent prayer, I got one. You don’t need to fight anymore, I’ve got my very own smartphone. It’s all going to be okay.
It could never be turned on and half of its components had already calcified, beginning the long process of fossilization, but Todd didn’t care.
As the snow became more frequent and covered the ground in a thick bedspread of white, life got harder. Nights grew longer, colder. Food had to be rationed, Todd lost weight and energy. Thick cloaks of forest beast fur were sewn together with Dog’s help, allowing Todd to watch his best friend play in the fresh snow after the day’s work was done. Fires were kept alight constantly, a new struggle for life required more responsibility.
Though he couldn’t know if he got the date right, Todd made sure to cut the crow and himself a big piece of jerky for Christmas. Ancient songs played in his head, and though he couldn’t carry a tune, Dog seemed to pick them up well enough. A family of two, bird and man, celebrating the holiday season together. It didn’t matter much to him that he couldn't buy a gift for Dog, there was nothing left to buy on the planet anyway. Besides, the bird’s company felt like a good enough present.
Nothing could keep them down, not the short nights, not the chill or the snow. Things were tough, but they were together.
Soon the thaw came and things got easier once more. Food became plentiful and he could again fill his belly every night.
Todd lived. He wasn’t always happy, but he most definitely wasn’t always sad. Weeks continued to pass and eventually had enough to declare themselves a month, then the months did the same process until Todd declared them a year. Seasons progressed on their eternal cycle.
Todd found that there was a great joy in planting flowers and setting up his little neighborhood. Each spring brought new flowers and each winter wiped the slate clean again. Repairs were needed every few weeks, but he was more than happy to do them. What else was there to do?
It didn’t seem to matter that he knew now for certain that he had no purpose, in fact, it made him feel much more free. When the summer sun came to wash away the spring’s chill rain, Todd found a new appreciation for living.
Quite suddenly, and without him really noticing, his ‘purpose’ became simply living. Just getting by seemed like a good enough reason to keep going. He had nothing to prove anymore, nothing to perform. His purpose was finally and truly his own.
Like the crows said. It was nice.
Oftentimes he found himself atop one of the hills surrounding his little compound, breathing in the fresh air of his home planet. Closing his eyes, he pictured his little family on their huge grass field. They too had built wooden homes with thatched roofs, crows helping them till their crops. There they stood, in their lover’s embrace, but rather than laughing and giggling to themselves in scorn, they smiled out at him. On their faces were painted warm, inviting smiles, and the smell of freshly cooked forest beast cooked on an open fire behind them - enough for everyone, even Dog.
He noticed something then, as he looked into his mind. The happy couple who lived on the big grass field, the happy could who was finally happy, the happy couple who were finally ready to love Todd:
They looked just like his parents, Darla and Donny Jacobson.
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