I need to tell her. I can’t have any fun with this on my conscience. Todd cleared his throat and said, “Uh, Liz… There’s something I need to tell you. See… Um… How do I even say this…”
Liz stared up at Todd with a slight worry in her eyes. “What Todd? You’re not going to say something like you have a girlfriend, right?” She looked expectedly at him.
“No! No, that’s not it. It’s just that, it’s not really something that’s easy to start. Here, you see this ring?” Todd held the remote in front of Liz. “It’s a remote I made that lets me alter reality. Now before you start getting worried about my mental state, I want you to know I didn’t think this was possible either. It took me a long time to figure this out and believe me, I couldn’t explain how it works if my life depended on it. But it’s real. I’ve been using it all day.”
Liz looked blankly at him. Todd could tell she was not buying his story and was waiting for the punchline. Todd continued. “No one would believe a story like that. You’re completely right to doubt me. Test me. Tell me to change something and I’ll make it so you are aware of the changes.”
Liz still was looking at him without speaking, but there was a shift in her countenance. Instead of looking like she was gearing up to call an ambulance for the obvious stroke Todd was having, she looked like she was thinking. After a few moments, she spoke.
“Okay. At least we’re getting this out of the way early in our relationship. If you’re nuts, I’d want to know before we get too deep into this, and if you aren’t, then I landed the single person in the world who has the power of God, and I’m not passing that up. If you really are telling the truth, then…” She looked around the room for inspiration and had a spark of inspiration, “Turn the TV into a bigger one. One that’s impossible to fake with some bullshit like sleight of hand or whatever.”
She sat up and folded her arms expectedly. She obviously didn’t fully believe him yet. Who would? Todd knew she was waiting for hi to make a fool out himself or tip his hand and give her the reason she thought she had to walk away and prevent herself from becoming involved with a lunatic. Looking at the remote, he fiddled with a few buttons, adjusted a few dials, and pointed it at the TV on the ground.
“Ready?” Todd said with a smirk that only a man who knew he was going to shatter the world view of the person sitting next to him could give. Before waiting for a reply, he pressed the remote. Liz’s eyes were glued to the TV, searching for the trick Todd was going to use to fool her. Instead, her eyes widened as the TV did. The small poor-man’s TV grew upwards first, then shifted to stretching sideways. The TV seemed to travel through time as it went from something a family in the 90’s would have to something they would only dream of. The screen went form rounded glass to flat screen. Inches added and quality increased. Liz was dumbfounded. She didn’t move a centimeter as the Tv just kept growing. Suddenly, the TV wobbled, and a small table sprouted up from nowhere not prop the TV up. When all was said and done, the tiny 90’s TV had grown to a 60” plasma TV with all required cords and outlets in place. Todd looked from the TV and back to Liz, who was still frozen in place, gears spinning in her head. As Todd had guessed, her world view was shattering.
“How… Wha… I…” Liz was sputtering out. Todd needed to jump in before her head caught on fire.
“It’s just like I said. I can change reality. You dream it, I can change it. Before you ask, remember I said I can’t explain how. I think actions speak louder than words here though,” Todd said, turning his attention back to the TV. He flipped the TV on and started watching a show, purposely avoiding the incredulous person sitting next to him to let her mind simmer down. After a few minutes of silence, Liz seemed to finish processing what she witnessed and was ready for the conversation to continue. She started, “Todd, I’m going to assume you didn’t lace my food with something, because I REALLY want to believe that just happened. That was the most incredible thing I have ever witnessed. You can do anything you want with that thing? Make a million dollars? Summon food?” She gasped, then quietly stage whispered, “Can you stop time with that thing? If you saw something bad happening, could you stop time and help? Like a building on fire or a guy about to be hit by a car?” Her face looked like a child on Christmas morning. She was clearly getting beyond excited about the godly powers sitting in front of her. Todd cleared his throat for the second time, trying to find a way to segue into the conversation that needed to happen now that Liz believed him. He waved his hand in a “relax a bit” gesture and proceeded to speak.
“I can do those things, yeah. I even saved a woman from a burglar. It was totally out of a cartoon.” He laughed a bit, then his expression soured slightly and turned his head away from her, looking down. “I also did somethings that might not have been as heroic. Liz, I did some stuff to you…” He felt the couch shift as Liz tensed up in a panic, childlike exuberance dissipated. He realized what his wording sounded like. He quickly shot his attention towards her again with fear in his eyes.
“Not like that! I didn’t do anything like that! I never abused you, but I did violate your trust, or maybe your wellbeing? I don’t know how to say it.” Todd’s words came tinged with shame, fear, and disgust with himself. Liz, realizing the situation wasn’t what she thought, eased up slightly and leaned forward and tilted her head to meet Todd’s downward gaze.
She whispered softly, “Todd, what did you do?” When Todd turned to look at her, her eyes were full of worry. She was trying to expect anything. She had seen that he could change reality. Her mind must have been reeling with an infinite number of possibilities of what he could have done. He took a deep breath and said, “I changed your mind and age without you knowing it. I can change whether someone notices my changes. I let you see the TV change because I needed you to believe me that the remote was real, but I made it so everyone thinks I always had this TV so they didn’t think I stole it. But back in the library, I made I so you didn’t know what happened. You used to be an old lady, Liz. The librarian. I wanted to try out the remote in different ways than I had been using it and saw an opportunity.” He started to laugh incredulously. “Messing with someone’s age? How much closer to God can you be? Why wouldn’t I try it? But as soon as I got to know you and the reality of what I’d done set in, I realized what I did was no better than murder. The old you is gone and I took them. Everything you worked for, all the money you made, and the relationships you built, and the life experience you had; all gone. Reality changed so that you were never the old woman.” He tried to calm his breathing and hoped that what he said made it clear exactly what how he felt and what happened. He closed his eyes to avoid looking at anything but his own thoughts. He waited for the response to come, afraid of what would come next. The couch shifted again and he could feel that Liz had gotten up. He heard footsteps around the room; she was pacing back and forth. He let her have her moments to think through what happened. It seemed like hours had gone by when she finally sat down again.
“Todd. I want you to answer some questions. Did you change my personality?” Todd shook his head.
“Am I the same person I was when I was really this age?”
Todd thought for a moment. “I’m pretty sure. I didn’t change your body, just your age and mind.”
Silence followed again. Liz was processing the new information. After a minute, she continued after taking a deep breath, steadying her nerves.
“The way I see it, what you did was wrong, but hell if I can blame you. You wanted to try something crazy and went for it. But even after all this thinking, I can’t feel upset after what you’ve done. Did I lose friends I made? Probably. Unless I was some bitter old woman who was a menace to everyone around me. But I don’t remember. Technically, that never happened since reality changed for me to be this age. Same with the money and everything else. Only you remember that. Can I be mad about this? Sure. Is the idea that the reality I know could be an elaborate lie conjured up by some college student? Absolutely. But you seem so upset about this that I think you wouldn’t change something to cover your mistake. You could have just made me okay with this right? Like, use the remote to say “Liz is okay with everything” and move on? You didn’t though. You wouldn’t put yourself through this if that were the case. You were straight with me. I can forgive you for what you did. I can just pretend it never happened.”
Todd was a frozen as Liz was when she saw the TV. Liz put her hand on his shoulder.
“Todd, I’m happy. I’m in college, so you didn’t make me stupid or poor, I have a place to live, so I’m not homeless, and I have a boyfriend who cares enough about me to face me head on instead of cowering behind an easy way out. You may have taken some stuff from me, but you gave me plenty in return. I want to stay like this. I’m young, I have my life ahead of me now, and I have a boyfriend who can do anything. Why the hell would I be mad about any of this?”.
Todd slowly started to unfreeze and placed his hand on Liz’s on his shoulder. He smiled like a man who escaped a false conviction, one that he had placed on himself. Embracing her tightly, he whispered softly in her ear.
“Thank you so much. Thank you.”
Liz responded, “You’re a good guy Todd. Don’t try to find ways to punish yourself more than you need to.”
After the embrace ended and Todd regained his composure, Liz said, “By the way, what was I like when I was an old lady?”
Todd chuckled. “Uh, kind of a bitter old woman who was a menace to everyone around her.”
Liz gasped and threw her head back against the backrest of the couch. “So I DIDN’T have any friends! So basically the only thing I lost was money? Dude! Just MAKE MORE MONEY. Why were you beating yourself up so badly about this? Tell you what. Give me $5,000 and you get to wipe this whole thing off your “boyfriend screw up” counter.”
Todd laughed and dialed the remote. As he handed her the money, Todd said, “You know you could have asked for a lot more, right?”
Liz gave a sly smile. “I know. But I think there’s plenty of opportunities to get more.”
Todd breathed a sigh of relief. He had confronted the issue and made it out alive. Now, he thought, what do I do now?