To-Do or not To-Do

Another day, another hour swallowed by the subway. Matt felt once more inside the stomach of a giant beast, digested everyday, again and again. He often thought he was in a never-ending simulation. Perhaps he was stuck in a loop. That would explain many things, especially why his career was not progressing so well.

At that thought, he reached out for his phone in the breast pocket of his anthracite suit, and opened the notepad application. He created a new To-Do list for the day, one with tick boxes. He always liked the feeling of ticking things off a list, a habit he had kept even after switching to digital for convenience.

The old subterranean train was entering the station, its metallic wheels letting out the usual agonizing shrill that gave everyone a headache, and irritated them for the rest of the day. He held his phone tight as countless bodies smashed into his from all sides, as if they were all meat pieces eager to enter the pressure cooker. Upon entering the wagon, he glued himself to the wall on the left, his shoulder pressed against the half-broken window, and gazed at the crowded train set for a short instant. Call it animal instinct, he needed to have a sense of what surrounded him. Or maybe he was looking for a glitch in the simulation.

As the train departed, slowly conquering the inertia that was battling it, Matt bent his head to go back to his empty, somehow insignificant list.

“First, tell Mitch there’s no way I’m going to tonight’s after-work,” was the first thing on his mind. His liver was still filtering last week’s absinthe. Since he had entered his thirties, he had started to feel like a grandpa when it came to alcohol. Digesting the poisonous fluid felt close to climbing a steep hill on clutches, dragging a prisoner’s ball and chain, under a heavy sun. He was just beginning to steer his life back on track.

“Tell-” he started writing, when suddenly all lights went down. A piercing shriek blasted in his ears, followed by a flash. The lights came back on, only for Matt to realize no one had moved. The train seemed to be moving steadily, with the occasional clatter of the railway segment junctions.

“Another sign I shouldn’t drink tonight,” he thought. “I’ll tell him I have a migraine. A classic excuse, but I don’t really care whether he buys it or not…” He went back to his screen and finished his sentence.

“- Mitch I’m not going to the after-work.” Now that this was out of the way, he could focus on more important matters. Today was a big day for Matt. As a salesperson, his partner Sophia and him were in charge of answering a call for tender for an influential company. They had been working on it for months, and the deadline was tonight, hence Mitch had proposed a drink to celebrate and decompress.

He proceeded to write the next point on his list, the obvious “Send proposal to client”, quickly followed by “Call Peter about the missing chart”, after which his phone immediately started calling Peter.

“Shhh-,” Matt let out through clenched teeth, while canceling the call.

“Weird,” he thought. He was startled. What just happened? Not a second after pressing ‘Enter’, his phone had instantly taken upon itself to do exactly what was written, as if obeying some sort of command. Out of curiosity, he decided to try something.

“Text Peter it was an error,” he added.

Matt immediately checked his messages. The phone had instantly sent “It was an error” to Peter! And something else too.

“Hell nooooo…”

His mind did a backflip and crashed upside down. The phone had sent “I’m not going to the after-work” to Mitch. Nothing else, just that one raw, straightforward, cold line, exactly as it was written in his To-Do list. On top of that, by text message. Figuring he couldn’t cancel the message, he decided to write a follow-up message.

“Sorry for my straightforwardness, I have a migraine. I think the proposal I’m working on has killed my brain.”

Or at least, this is what he would have sent. Instead, he stopped after typing ‘I have’, wondering whether he would die on the spot if he typed ‘kill my brain’.

“No way I take that chance…” Thought Matt, growing more superstitious than ever. Perhaps this was not only limited to the To-Do list after all. He erased everything and thought it best to apologize in person later.

“What is happening to this stupid phone?” He wondered. His first reflex was to open his browser and type “My phone is doing everything I write automatically.” He figured it was safe, since it was already the case anyway. However the page didn’t load.

“Damn subway… Can’t believe we still don’t have data underground! Why am I paying this much every month?”

His anger surpassed his annoyance, as he impulsively wrote in his God-like list “Get maximum internet data!”

There was a noise and a sharp burst of heat in his fingers. The baseband chip was fried. No more internet, no more nothing. Not that he knew any of that. To him, nothing happened. “Strange, it didn’t work.”

Thinking he was going crazy, he raised his head to think. The wagon was now half full. Many people had left at the last interchange station, as was usually the case. Then it hit him.

“Who the hell hacked my phone?”

He looked around, even backward, but all he gathered were some curious looks from the other passengers. He went back to his phone, embarrassed, and got another idea.

“Find the hacker,” he added to the To-Do List. As he pressed ‘Enter’ once more, the entire wagon shook, and a thunderous noise reverberated through the car.

Matt was in awe. Every single passenger had pivoted at once to face a young woman sitting at the end of the car. She was innocently listening to music. When she realized what was happening, her eyes grew as big as her headphone cushions. She looked at her reflection in the glass, at her clothes, behind her, checking what it was they were looking at.

The scene was awkward. It looked like a hoard of zombies, but frozen. Matt immediately added a point “Don’t mind the hacker”. A second later, everything was back to normal, except for the girl, who was now paler than the neon lights on the roof.

“Definitely not a hacker,” he said to himself. That was the last sensible thought Matt would have on the matter, as his next belief would surely seem most absurd to the average person.

“That’s it, I really live in a simulation! And now I have the remote control!”

He had now reached his station. Perhaps out of habit, he uncontrollably left the wagon along with the other passengers, tagging along with the sheep herd, as if pushed by a supernatural force.

As soon as he stepped outside, he realized the power he now held in his inside pocket. He took out his magic remote and suddenly noticed he still had no data.

“Well, let’s fix this!” Thought a cheerful Matt, the only smiling being in the vicinity.

“Fix phone data” was added to the now nonsensical To-Do list. The browser page loaded instantaneously, forcing itself on top of all the other applications, as if for Matt to acknowledge it. He glanced at the page, but all he could see were results about phones automatically typing what their microphones picked.

“Hopefully mine never does that, else the world is doomed,” he sighed with relief. And yet, he couldn’t stop a chill from crawling up his spine.

As if the universe read his mind, a group of fanatics holding signs and banners crossed the street screaming “The Apocalypse is near! The demons are rising!”

His heart stopped beating for a second. His eyes dived on his phone in anguish, making sure it hadn't picked up and transcribed that, especially the part about demons, but the browser tab was still the same.

“Phew…” He sighed. “I have to be careful… Such a powerful tool can also be a curse.”

At that moment, he also realized how late it was and decided to proceed swiftly to reach the office on time, for now.

***

The tall glass-like building reflected the gray cloudy sky as it stood proudly on its gray concrete base. Matt blended perfectly with his anthracite suit, adding a nuance of gray to the scene. His mood would have mirrored his surroundings, if not for the magic wand he now held close to his chest, literally.

It was the first time in weeks that Suzie, the receptionist, saw a merry Matt stepping into the lobby.

“Looking good Matt, things going well?” she asked, fishing for some gossip. Caught off-guard, he muttered something back the best he could.

“Hey… Suzie! Thanks a lot, things are alright, big day today… What about you?”

“You seem quite pleased with yourself, any good news?” She kept poking for the good stuff, avoiding his question. There wasn’t much to munch on these days, especially with such depressing weather.

“Well… I have a good feeling about this business proposal,” he lied. “If Sophia and I land it, it could be big for us and the company.” The more he said, the less she believed him.

“Oh wow!” She faked. “Well, good luck to you both then!” Suzie decided to end her sentence with a courteous smile, seeing it was going nowhere, before adding “By the way, Jen asked to see you as soon as you reach, she said it’s important.”

“Oh alright…” Replied a puzzled Matt, “Is Sophia already there?”

“Not that I know off.”

“Ok… thanks again! See you around!” And with that he left the lobby.

The pungent aroma of morning coffee had already conquered the corridors. Matt thought of picking one on his way to Jen’s office, but abstained himself.

“If I show up with a coffee in my hands, she’ll start to think I took my sweet time before coming to her, no chance…” He thought. He was just about to reach her office when she hurriedly stepped out the door.

“Matt! Glad you’re here, we have to rework the proposal, there is a huge mistake. We got the wrong input from our partner. Go to your desk and have a look at the email I’ve just sent you. I’ll be there in five.”

She was already gone. Jen was the sales manager. She always seemed to have a lot of time to fool around, alas never with her team. This morning was no exception.

Matt headed straight to his desk. The usual daily encounters had nearly made him forget about his To-Do list. How easily can you get distracted by the little things in life, even when such an extraordinary opportunity presents itself. While on his way, he took out his phone and added “Get a coffee” to the list.

He did not expect a coffee to magically appear on his desk, although he was slightly disappointed not to spot a nice hot steaming one next to his keyboard when he finally reached his station. “Maybe someone is making it for me right now,” he thought with a grin, as he sat in his chair.

He turned on his computer and immediately opened his mailbox. Among the two dozen unread emails, all from this morning alone, he instantly spotted the one from Jen. What he read was troubling.

Their partner had made a huge error in their estimates, one that could make things way worse than simply losing the deal and damaging their reputation. They may as well go bankrupt agreeing to something like this.

Shortly after, the most surprising thing of all happened. Matt swallowed with anxiety. It was a reply from the client, answering a previously sent email. He clicked to open the message with trembling hands.

“Thank you for your proposal, we will review it shortly and come back to you as soon as possible.”

He felt as though he had been violently hurled from the heights of Mount Olympus, where he feasted on ambrosia and nectar, straight down into the darkest, coldest pit of Hell, consumed by the ravenous souls of the dead.

Matt grew outrageously sweaty, enough to fill the entire River Styx all by himself. He checked the last email in the conversation. It came from none other than himself. The content was even more appalling. It was empty, except for the enclosed file and his usual signature. Trying to make sense out of it, he read the email again and noticed the date, following which he finally snapped back to his senses. That’s when it hit him.

“My phone!”

He opened his To-Do list, which didn’t seem that wonderful anymore, and stared at the second point.

“Send proposal to client”

He couldn’t believe it. Actually, he couldn’t believe any of what happened this morning. He had been so absorbed in figuring out what was going on with his phone and testing his newfound superpower that he had completely forgotten to retrace his steps for any unintended consequences.

“Ok ok ok ok… Let’s put this to good use now,” he muttered anxiously.

He added a tick box and started typing “Unsend proposal to client” followed by “Make client forget it happened”. Like a white marble statue, he stared at his mailbox, waiting to see the email deleted. But nothing happened.

Maybe it was deleted on the client’s side, or maybe it would take some time to disappear. His fears skyrocketed as he suddenly noticed he was still waiting for his coffee. He decided to carry out a simple check. With shaky hands, he typed, very slowly, not to make any mistake.

“Switch... off... the... lights”

Again, nothing happened. The lights shone bright on a now ghostly pale Matt. He glanced at his To-Do list and, as if possessed by some demon, began frantically adding the wildest tasks, having nothing left to lose.

“Get a Ferrari”

“Win the lottery”

“Have a six pack”

“Learn all languages”

…

The list went on and on. And still, nothing happened. It was over. He had been handed God's remote control, yet instead of using it right away, he had wasted time questioning its reality, going about his day like any other day, thinking it would last forever, believing he had time… And now it was gone.

An image crossed his mind, that of the young hacker in the subway, and how she must have felt. In a way, he was at a loss, the same way she had been. Was she even a hacker, or was it all a trick being played on him? He wasn’t sure anymore. He wasn’t sure of anything, except one thing, as he heard Jen’s footsteps getting closer behind him.

That today was the last day he would see an hour of his time swallowed by this godforsaken subway. At least for a while.