It's Raining Intellectual Property, Hallelujah!

Rhys held the most useless thing he could imagine. Like everybody in his office, he had rushed out as soon as the Great Shuffle began, looking to the sky in the hope of winning the lottery. Just moments ago he heard Maria scream in pleasure as she bonded with the rights to a popular song on the radio. Those royalty checks would make her a rich woman for the rest of the year once the Shuffle ended. Even set her up for life if she was smart about it. She sprinted faster than an Olympic runner to get inside before another Fortune could fall from the sky, touch her, and cancel the bond with the popular Fortune.

Rhys, meanwhile, would like practically anything else aside from what landed in his lap. Without any way of screening the Fortunes before making contact with them, they all looked the same as they fell from the sky. He chose a seat on a bench in the park figuring that whatever fell near him would be as good a Fortune as anything he might pick out of the air.

His strategy made cool logical sense, but he doubted his play now as he looked down on his Fortune, the schematics and rights to the floppy disk. The floppy disk! If it were the rights to the image of a floppy disk, that would have been something in the hands of a good merchandiser but no, he only had the rights to manufacture the product itself. Absolutely useless, and that's how it went sometimes. The Great Shuffle usually lasted a few hours, so Rhys stood up from his bench, Fortune in hand, and left in search of a new one.

There was an impromptu market on Main street today. It wasn't Saturday, but the popup tents, stalls, and criers that had set up at a moment's notice had a rehearsed quality. From coffee and tea with pastries to large golf umbrellas to stave off unwanted Fortunes, the market offered everything a Fortune seeker would want during the Shuffle.

Rhys waded into the maze of canopies with a warm coffee in hand, listening for anything promising that folks nearby had come across. People mostly bound similar Fortunes to his. Boring, outdated, or otherwise minor and non lucrative. There were so many people in the world, and only so many things were actively kicking out money after all. Still, there were a handful of folks who grabbed onto a Fortune carrying the patent for something that could bring in helpful side income, and legends were born from tales of the rare person grabbing something bank shattering like Maria.

Coffee in hand, Rhys politely declined an offer from an information broker that came to solicit him. At least he was lucky enough to know what his Fortune was. Lots of people ended up with obscure Fortunes and the brokers at markets like these helped them figure out what they were exactly, whether they were currently profitable in any way, and the relative market value for the Fortune. For a price of course.

Entering the largest canopy, Rhys found the whiteboards where unwanted Fortunes were being offered. There was a listing fee, of course, but Rhys still considered it. He might not have any use for his, but since it was something well known instead of particularly obscure, there was always a chance that somebody nearby might have a special fondness for floppy disks and be willing to trade a more lucrative Fortune to take it off his hands. The boards sported boring listings their owners were stuck with.

There were a couple interesting ones. A patent for a bag clasp from a few years ago could be pretty good despite how dull it was. He saw another for well known business accounting software that would sell quickly to someone who recognized the brand, but not the fact it was three or four versions behind the current one. A few blog posts. The last interesting one was for the screening rights to an old movie he thought he remembered somewhat. It had that one guy in it. That one actress too. What were their names? It could be good for some streaming fees. That might be worth floppy disk to the right person.

He browsed like a vaguely peckish man in a food court. When nothing sounded good he wandered off, hoping that his second catch might replace floppy disk with something better. This time he abandoned the logical approach, dodging the Fortunes raining down around him at irregular intervals, waiting for one that spoke to him. He waited underneath eaves and oak trees, moving from place to place like a fisherman in search of a promising hole that "felt right." Finally, judging by the slowing of the Fortunes’ fall he found the perfect spot. In the park, at a bench one over from where he had started, everything in his soul told him that this was the place. He sat back down and waited.

It hurtled down like a feather. He could see it above him long before it landed and it felt like it itched to be grabbed as much as his palm itched to grab it. He stood impatiently on the bench, forced to wait until he could jump and reach it a couple seconds early. Once his fingers clasped it he felt a shudder travel the length of his body as he lost a Binding to claim it, feeling floppy disk disconnect from his soul, free to bind to anyone he could sell it or trade it to before the end of the day.

Looking around to make sure no others fell in his general area, Rhys dismounted the bench and unrolled the Fortune to see what he had. Eyes bulging, he ran for the nearest cover faster than Maria had hours before. 

Edged under the boughs of a mature ponderosa pine, he unfurled it again just to be sure he had read it right. "All I want for Christmas is You, by Mariah Carey"

When Rhys traveled from cover to cover before,  the fear of losing floppy disk hadn't weighed heavy in his mind and he hadn't taken much caution. Now furtively glanced in every direction before dashing for the next tree or overhang. Back at the market he bought the largest umbrella he could find and listed floppy disk (might as well), the hundred dollar listing fee feeling like pocket change against the future he carried.

It was late September so his song would be playing everywhere soon and he would get those debt collectors off his back, pay off the one remaining maxed-out credit card that hadn't gone to collections yet, pay off his landlord (hell, maybe he could buy out his landlord!) and all his problems would go away. It wouldn't be like last time. He would be cautious, responsible. He'd fix his messes and get his life back in order, invest whatever remained in stocks or something. Better yet, he'd hire an accountant to make better decisions than he knew how to. Maybe Adam. He could show Adam things would be different this time. Everything would be different this time and maybe Adam would…

Lost in imagining how things would go from then on, Rhys hadn't noticed he wore an extra shadow since leaving the market canopy. He felt the familiar sensation flash through his body as the most famous and instantly recognizable Christmas song of all time with royalties to make all other royalties weep decoupled from his soul, replaced by a new Fortune. How? He was under cover, nothing could have fallen…. Spinning around, the first he saw of her was her knee to his groin. 

If he hadn't been so devastated, he would have been ashamed at the pathetic struggle he mustered as she searched his pockets, grabbed her stolen prize, bound it, dumped the Fortune she had used as a weapon on his chest and ran off without so much as a shrug.

Rhys laid there for a while, breaking down into a salty-eyed mess once the shock had passed into grief at his future lost. When he finally stopped racking himself for a way to find her or claw it back (both impossible), the Shuffle was petering out. Slumping his way back to his cockroach infested shoebox apartment, Rhys the umbrella behind. What would be the point? He collapsed into his couch, a phantom sensation soaking him to the bone despite the lack of precipitation in today's rainstorm. Throwing his unrolled Fortune on top of an angry pile of collection letters on his coffee table, he gave into sleep.

Thankful the Shuffle occurred on a Friday, Rhys didn’t need to make excuses when he stayed on the couch for all of Saturday, neglecting to rise for anything but using the bathroom and microwaving burritos. He wouldn't have been able to trudge to his desk that day anyway. His coworkers would happily gossip about who had bonded to what, dutifully suppressing their jealousy of each other, and he couldn't take it. "What about you, what did you get, Rhys?" one of the IT bros would have asked. "Oh, nothing. Just a Fortune to fix all my problems and set me up for life, which I lost to a Fortune Hunter in my carelessness!" No, he couldn't endure it. He debated calling out sick on Monday through forever.

He flipped on the tv. There was a chance that anybody who got a Fortune like the one he lost might be featured on the local news. They weren't running the current Fortune bonds however, but a rehash of previous years. Last year saw some good ones. Some guy a neighborhood down had caught the rights to a new navigation system being installed in all the latest cars, and a woman who was actually a friend of a friend (well, former friend anyway) had hit the jackpot when she was walking home tied to an obscure song nobody knew only to be hit in the head (literally) with the patent for vegan tattoo ink. The slides continued to the year before that when someone from Southside bonded the software used to accept online payments for a wide range of online shops and....He clicked the tv off, his own face abruptly fading to black on the screen. Rhys Mathews, the man who let it all go to his head. The man who thought he was invincible, the man who lost everything. That man didn't need reminders.

Come Sunday he had avoided the furled Fortune sitting on his coffee table amidst the refuse, patently ignoring it like he avoided eye contact with any man too eager at the bar at last call. At this point, the Shuffle was long over, there was no more trading to be done, no more chances, and he may as well know what was so horrible that a Fortune Hunter had sought out someone hiding under a large umbrella and used it as a crowbar to pry his Fortune away from him. He begrudgingly rolled it open.

To My Heart

I wish I knew how to change you

Back to who you were

When the sun kissed my hair

And you kissed my hair

And you kissed my face

And I kissed your face

And we walked in the park

Your hand in my hand

And my hand in your hand.

I wish I knew how to change you

Back to who you were.

Posted November 20, 2021 on AdamGrant.blog

Rhys called out on Monday.