Todd started to rouse from sleep as the sun began to shine in his eyes. Sighing, he stretched his legs and arms to wake the rest of his body up. Climbing out of bed, he put on some clothes and got ready for the day. He could hear some clattering in the front room and figured Liz had woken up before he did. He called from the bathroom as his shower was warming up.
“Morning Liz!”
“Morning~! Do you have any cereal or am I stuck with toast for breakfast?”
“I should have some in the cupboard but if I don’t, I’ll make some after my shower.”
“Fiiiiine. Guess I’ll starve for a few more minutes.” Some time passed before Liz spoke up again. “Hey Todd? You know we can sleep in the same bed, right? I mean, I appreciate you making the room for me but if you were worried about me being uncomfortable sleeping next to you, don’t be. I’m fine with that. We’re a couple.” Todd raised his voice to speak over the running water as he washed off.
“Oh, yeah uh… To be honest I didn’t really think about that. I just thought that a person staying in a house, or dorm or whatever, needed a room to themselves to own. I didn’t think about privacy for decency or anything. A lo happened last night and I was tired.” Todd could hear his girlfriend laughing.
“And here I thought that I had a white knight boyfriend.” She put on a faux old English accent. “A room for you milady! I shan’t think of sleeping within 50 feet of a beautiful maiden such as yourself!” Todd responded with a fake laugh.
“Oh, ha ha. Keep making fun of the person that’s going to make you breakfast.”
Todd realized that it might be worth letting Liz in on how to use the remote. Having to take to the time to do everything that needed the remote could start to get annoying down the line, so he figured he could trust her with the unlimited power of God.
After his shower, Todd used the remote to make some cereal and the couple ate their breakfast together. Todd brought up if Liz wanted to know how to use the remote, which was met with an excited ‘yes’. After thinking through the process of how to transfer knowledge using the remote, Todd keyed the information in and pointed it at Liz. She looked a bit nervous, but not nearly as much as she had the previous night.
“This won’t hurt, right Todd?”
“Probably not. I haven’t done this before but it shouldn’t be any worse than how you felt when I used it before. Maybe a headache from information being put into your brain? I don’t know. You want me to try it on myself first?” Liz looked at the floor for a second. Her eyes seemed to move back and forth in thought before she smiled and said, “No, I want to be the guinea pig for this one. You worked hard on this thing and I want to do my part in helping you. If something goes wrong, you’ll fix it.” Todd could see she was putting on a brave face. She really wanted to help him despite how frighting the prospect of brain manipulation was. He smiled back.
“I appreciate it, Liz. Thank you.” Todd lowered the remote and double checked his calculations and processes one more time to be sure he did everything right. When he was sure, he pointed the remote back at Liz and clicked a button to activate it. With a whir, the remote seemed to wind up before emitting a ding that Todd sampled from his microwave. Liz exhaled sharply. Todd leaned in and tilted his head to see check if she was okay. Liz’s face was scrunched up like she had received news that she needed to process and lowered her gaze. She glanced around at the area on the floor rhythmically. Todd studied her for half a minute before tapping her on the shoulder. “Liz? You in there?” The college student snapped out of her daze and looked back at Todd.
“Oh… Yeah! Yeah, I’m okay.” She rubbed her temples. “That was just a lot of info really quick. You were right about the headache though. Nothing too bad but it’s definitely there. Don’t worry. I’ll live.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Hand me the remote. I want to try something.” Todd gave her the remote and watched as she dialed the buttons as quick as if she was the one who invented it. Pointing the remote at the table, she pressed the button and simmering hot waffles appeared with syrup and butter. She pressed a few more buttons and orange juice filled their empty glasses from breakfast, along with strawberries and whip cream. Putting her hands on her hips in a satisfied stance, she turned to see Todd standing in the same stance. Liz raised her eyebrows and cockily said, “Looks like we have a second god in the universe.” Todd quickly shot a glance up at the roof.
“Whoa Liz, let’s not tick off the guy upstairs with blasphemy. I don’t wanna get hit by a lightning bolt the day after I created the best invention in the world.” Liz looked up at the roof with a puzzled look.
“I didn’t know the RA could shoot lightning bolts.” Todd groaned and looked back down at Liz.
“Not the RA, Liz. I meant God. I was making a-” As he said this, he caught the expression of the woman in front of him. It was the epitome of “are you serious?”. Liz rolled her eyes and chuckled.
“I know you’re joking you idiot. I’m not THAT stupid. I was making a joke back! Geez, I might even be able to convince you there’s no shower here and you have to walk outside naked.” Todd blushed at his mistake and tried to move the conversation away.
“Alright, I’m dumb, you’re smart, yada yada. Anyways, I think we have class to get to.”
“Maybe you have class, but I became a college student yesterday in the middle of the year. I have no classes going on.”
“Oh right. Here”. Todd punched a few buttons and clicked the remote. “Now we have the same classes. Your stuff is by the doorway.” The couple started walking out the door. As Liz grabbed her newly created school supplies and textbooks, she stopped.
“Hey Todd, why are we still going to class? Can’t we just use the remote to learn anything we want?” Todd rubbed his neck awkwardly.
“Weeeell, we could do that, but then what do we even do ourselves anymore? I thought about this a lot last night while a laid in bed. I could just program that we don’t need to eat, sleep, drink, use the bathroom, whatever. Then we just exist doing nothing to the heat death of the universe? I don’t know about you, but that’s boring.” Todd walked over to the window and looked out as he kept talking. “I know the remote can do anything, but I don’t want to USE it for everything. You know that episode of the Twilight Zone where the guy dies and goes to Heaven where he always wins in the casino?” Liz shook her head. “He gets bored pretty fast, and when he wants to change something or leave, he realizes he can’t and that the casino is actually Hell.” Liz walked over and peered through the window to see what Todd was looking at. Outside, students were walking to class. Professors were reading over notes on their way to their offices. Groundskeepers were trimming bushes and mowing the grass. Liz watched the scene quietly for a while. Soon, Todd spoke again. “The students going to class aren’t ecstatic about sitting in class for 2 hours but their hard work will pay off with a nice job. The professors don’t want to sit in an office for hours on end waiting for students to come ask them simple questions they should know the answer to, but every so often students in need come and get the insight that will help them pass the class. The workers don’t want to always be working in the sun so spoiled rich kids can have a nice campus to attend, but they know they put in a hard day’s work and get to head home with pride. Liz mulled over what Todd spoke about and sighed.
“You’re saying adversity makes the world work, right? If there wasn’t adversity, there’d be nothing to compare happiness to. Too much of a good thing and whatever. I get it. Fine. Let’s go be bored in class I guess.” She kissed Todd on the cheek and twirled theatrically around to walk about the door. Todd grabbed his stuff and followed behind.
As he locked the door behind them, Todd patted Liz on the back. Leaning close to Liz’s ear, he whispered, “Don’t worry. I’m sure that we’ll find something fun to do pretty soon.”