Jeff looked at the device which appeared from nowhere before him. No larger than a keychain dongle and able to rewrite reality... "Unfathomable..." Jeff muttered as he felt the heft and quality of the device in his hands... he flicked all the toggles and pushed all the buttons turning settings on and off... until a knock came at his bedroom door... He quickly double-checked the settings, all labeled with representative images, and finally said, come in.
"Hey buddy, big day tomorrow!" Dad said as he made his way over Jeff's dirty clothes and sat on the bed.
"Yeah, I guess so. It's really happening, we're going back to in-person schooling," Jeff muttered.
"Yeah, you'll get to see your friends, and teachers, again. How are you doing with all that?"
"I want to see them... I do! But..." Jeff couldn't find the words... so many what-if scenarios played in his head. ultimately it boiled down to what if he spread the illness to someone who didn't survive it? What if he, being required to go to school, made things worse for his community? In agitation, he squeezed the device...
"Hey now, it's going to be okay... We will get through anything life throws at us, as a family!" Dad said sensing Jeff's reservations.
Jeff continued to manipulate the small device in his hands absentmindedly, running his thumb up the toggle for percent impact and feeling it click into place at 10, 20, 50, and 100 percent... then grabbing it with his thumbnail and feeling it click back down to 5%... "I know dad, but I don't want to get sick or make anyone else sick."
Jeff absentmindedly...