There are many misfortunes, setbacks if you will, that happen in life—even though the technology works hard to better itself before a misfortunate might happen. We all know of the great modern misfortunes—Apple stealing the ideas of Xerox, Microsoft stealing the ideas of Apple; Intel stealing the ideas, or rather the technology, developed and discovered by the makers of the Rusoe chip, Transmeta; and of course the misfortune of the butt cheek. But the fortunate thing about misfortunes is that they happen to make way for a better way—this is the way it’s supposed to happen anyway, and, by and large, we rejoice in the long run when it does. But it is most unfortunate, indeed it is a crisis, when a misfortune happens and the new creation is a frightening lesser version of what came before it—and I’m not talking about a new version of your computer’s GUI that does not meet the expectations of the old interface—no, this is much worse. But before I proceed with this unfortunate scene, let me opine that the Web is never to blame when bad things happen—the creator is not to blame when his creation goes most definitely wrong. And also, young, less mature readers who cannot handle intense material of epic proportion—you know who you are—I beg you to skip out of this chapter and into the next, which is one chapter closer to the great Tobit Fortran Cyber Death™.
If you’re still reading, it means you are brave, but only the test of time will tell if you can handle what is to follow. But before I get to the scene that you await with great suspense, I will need to explain the biographical background of this chapter’s villain, Bragger Brown.
Bragger Brown, it turns out, turns up a lot in our hero’s life (though not so much in this story—in fact, this is the only chapter in which we will meet him). He is a friend, confidante, and hacker for our hero. Brown’s friendship with Fortran, as fate would have it, began on the Web. Being a showoff hacker at times, Brown broke into Tobit’s server, and for an entire day, users who tried to access his website were redirected to a gay male porno site. Tobit liked Brown’s knowledge of invasion so much that he hired him as a Web page consultant. Over the years, Brown evolved into more than just this man on the Web—he became a real man to Tobit. Their long emails to each other led them to even longer telephone calls which led them to even longer sunset walks on the beach. Some nights they’d talk about websites or new versions of computer software, and some nights they’d just enjoy their rare companionship and not talk at all. Bragger Brown was actually our hero’s first choice for Aphrodite’s new husband, but, as luck would have it, Brown was already married and wasn’t ready to divorce his wife just yet.
Needless to say, Bragger and Tobit were good friends, which is about all you need to know about that, so I’ll let the story explain itself. Oh yeah, Bragger Brown arrived in town just yesterday, and he asked our hero to join him for an afternoon picnic in the park. Our hero said yes, of course (he never turns down a picnic, especially one that’s in a park).
So here they are on a warm spring day in the park. Our hero is sitting on the wool blanket Brown has put down. The park is busy with people, but our hero doesn’t mind because it makes the picnic experience more real.
A kid on a leash is throwing rocks at a pigeon, and he is the entertainment until his mother, who tried earlier to give Bragger and Tobit booklets on a new religious sect she has formed that says it’s okay to murder, grabs the boy by the arm and tells him that he shouldn’t harm the bird because birds are our friends.
“I really should have put on sunscreen,” Tobit comments, rubbing his exposed knees. “My legs are so white.”
Brown smiles but says nothing. It is typical for him to be quiet offline.
“But I’m complaining now aren’t I?” Tobit looks away embarrassed. He hates being a complainer. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
Tobit looks at a telephone line near the edge of park that has a pair of shoes tied hanging from its wires (which is a hacker code that indicating that the park has been tested and found to be computer geek friendly). He looks at Brown pleasantly. “You’re looking very well, by the way.”
Brown smiles and rubs his wrist. “Thank you.”
For a moment it’s quiet. Tobit has one of those times when he thinks about simple life—times when he tries to come up with a solution without typing it into a search engine. It isn’t easier for him this way, but the serenity of it is at least calming—at first. But the silence is broken by chaos: Brown starts twitching uncontrollably and our hero knows something is about to happen.
“Are you alright?” Tobit knows Bragger to have eccentric behaviors, and this might be one of them.
“Have you ever gone to one of those religious sites?” Bragger finally gets out, still twitching.
“Religious?” Tobit bites off a nail. “I’m a member of Father Aquila’s cyber church.” For a time, Bragger and his wife were also members of the cyber church, but, as with many members, regular attendance at the Web cast eventually stopped when they found something else on the Web a bit more interesting. Brown, like many others, has a low Internet attention span, and he can stay interested in a Web page for only so long. He isn’t religious in that way.
“Not like that. Like the ones that tell you you’re going to go to hell. They all have those ‘Endorsed by the Cybervangelist of America’ Web banners.”
“Heavens no!”
“Well, I did.”
The chaos continues. Tobit, fearful of making eye contact with Bragger, stares at a small spider crawling up Brown’s shirt, and asks, “Why?”
Brown shrugs.
“Don’t they believe in,” Tobit looks around to make sure no one is listening, then whispers, “Jesus.”
“Well, yes—that’s sort of why I asked you to have this picnic.”
“Then you’re one of them?”
“Would that be a bad thing?”
“It would,” Tobit tells him plainly. “There’s just no place for that in a Web culture.”
“Have you ever heard about Jesus?” Bragger is no longer twitching. He speaks with a confidence in his newfound faith that makes our hero feel uncomfortable.
Tobit looks around, with reason, embarrassed. “Not so loud.” Children are playing on the playground in the distance, and their mothers look on, talking off and on to the moms surrounding them. They are all too far away to hear the conversation, and but Tobit still fears that they are listening in—perhaps pitying on poor Tobit and wondering what they can do to stop the blasphemy he is hearing from a man who is suppose to be a good friend.
“Well, have you?”
“Sure—he’s that guy.”
“He’s God.” Brown laughs to himself. “The things the Web has taught me—it’s amazing, Tobit.”
“You’re using the Web to find out about him?” Tobit is appalled and tightens his fist to relieve his stress.
Bragger nods. “There’s so much on it to help me in my walk.”
“The Web’s a place to escape judgment, not embrace it.”
Brown ignores Tobit and continues passionately, “Through the Web, I discovered that there was hope out there for someone like me—and that hope is Christ. God has freely given me something I didn’t deserve.” He pauses and inhales deeply. “Just think of it—it’s like I broke into a house and got caught, but instead of calling the cops, the owner of the house handed me the keys and said to take whatever I want from the house, but next time to use the front door. It makes absolutely no sense and it’s amazing.”
Tobit has known a Christian before. In high school there was this girl who was real religious in the Christian sort of way. A car hit her while trying to chase Tobit on a bike to tell him about the guy Bragger believes in, and she died. Then there was this other guy who said he believed in that guy Bragger now claims to believe in, but he wasn’t a Christian. He just used that guy’s name in chat rooms to meet girls because that word always caught them a little off guard and made them more vulnerable to believing that what he said was true, despite it being lies.
“I accepted Christ, and I’m living a better life.”
“That’s so stupid.”
“Why?” Bragger says, “Why is that so stupid? Can you give me one good reason?”
“Because Christians are evil. Everyone knows how puritanical they are.”
“No, they aren’t. The Web says Christians are cool. They watch television, drive cars fast—but not too fast—and some even know how to surfboard!”
“Do you want to surfboard?”
“Maybe.”
“What about your wife? Does she believe too?” His wife is a strong willed and determined woman—if anyone can change Bragger’s belief, it is she.
“She does, and we’re closer now than we’ve ever been before. It’s like we’re married all over again.”
The thought of Bragger’s wife being a Christian too disgusts Tobit. They used to be his and Aphrodite’s best couple friends. He doesn’t know how he is going to break the news to Aphrodite. He knows she’ll be devastated. The two women are very close; they use to meet almost every week to go shopping online, but had not did so recently because of all the death preparations.
Tobit stares at his watch and watches the seconds slowly pass. He finally asks, “Is there anything I can say to change your mind?”
“Change my mind?”
- “My mind has already been changed.”
“Well, this is just great. Now we can’t be friends.” Tobit reasons that he can’t be friends with someone his views conflict with. It might disturb the way he thinks and create chaos in his little world.
“We can still be friends. It doesn’t change anything. If you don’t want to talk about it, fine. But I hope we’re still friends.”
“What would we talk about?”
“I think your death is morally wrong and you should reconsider doing it—have you even thought about the consequences?”
This is the first time anyone has said the death was morally wrong, and Tobit laughs. “Is not.” He recalls how when Bragger was just starting out, he had no morals. It was all a big game. He had decided in his youth, he told our hero, that this computer thing he had become so good at had been fair to him, and it was only appropriate that he let it guide his path in life. “Morals are uncalled for, when justice does not exist,” he said. And now he is lecturing Tobit on his own lack of morals. It’s outrageous—I don’t even want to narrate it. It makes me feel so cheap and dirty and…I digress to progress.
Brown’s left hand twitches slightly. “You’re teaching kids that it’s okay to kill yourself, all for a cheap commercial marketing scheme.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“Yeah.”
“You make it sound like I’m the antichrist.”
Bragger rolls his eyes and his right hand begins to twitch a little. He slaps his hand and says, seeming to choose his words carefully, “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You already have.” Tobit stands.
“But I’m still your friend.”
“Well, I’m not yours.”
“Fine—but you can’t stop me from praying for you, my friend.”
“Would you pray for my fortune?”
“I’d pray for your soul.”
“I already sold it on eBay,” Tobit chuckles.
“You’re afraid, Tobit—aren’t you?”
“What do I have to fear?”
“Death for one.”
“I’m not afraid,” our hero says defensively, and then softer, “What makes you think I’m afraid of that?”
“Who wouldn’t be? How can you go a single second without the wonder and then the fear of what’s going to happen when you die? With the way you believe, there are no certainties. Where will you go when you die?”
“To—to…” Tobit pauses. “This is some trick question, isn’t it? I’m not falling for it.”
“I’m going to heaven. Do you suppose we’ll meet there one day?”
“I’m not falling for it, Bragger. You people are all alike—you have to play these silly games to get people to believe. What kind of person doesn’t worry about what happens after they die? It’s a natural instinct in all men. We’re born into this world automatically fearing what the unknown is.”
“I don’t worry anymore. Christ took away my fears.”
“Stop saying that name—it’s not right to say it in that tone.”
“What’s it to you, if you don’t believe? It’s just a name.”
Tobit looks around. He thinks he sees someone hiding behind a tree, but it turns out to be a branch’s shadow. “But you make it sound real when you talk about it like that.”
“It is real. Through his grace and mercy, I now live in him and by him.”
Our hero begins to giggle. “You sound so silly when you talk like this.”
“It’s not silly. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve—mercy is not getting what you do deserve. It’s like I killed some man’s wife, and instead of calling the police on me, the man gives me a million dollars and lets me go free.”
“Was the woman having an affair?” Tobit asks, becoming suddenly interested in Bragger’s story.
“It doesn’t matter. The point is, I didn’t deserve what I got and I didn’t get what I deserved—how great is that?”
Tobit stares, confused. “If she wasn’t having an affair or something, why was the guy treating him so good? Was it the sex—it wasn’t good for the couple?”
“You’re missing the point.”
Tobit nods, agreeing.
”Would you mind if I prayed for you right now?”
“I certainly would.”
“Why? There’s no harm in it.”
“Is it even legal to pray in a public park like this?”
Bragger nods and closes his eyes.
”Well, I still don’t want you to do it.”
“Who’s the foolish one here?” Bragger asks.
Tobit rolls his eyes and starts to walk away. He can’t even begin to understand the mystery that has made Bragger convert. When he is almost to the parking lot he turns to see if his former friend has followed. He has not. Bragger Brown is kneeling on the ground praying. The position makes our hero sick and it makes me sick as well—I hope you’re okay. This is a good chapter to read on the toilet so just in case you have to throw up in disgust, you’re already near the toilet (or rather on it); I should have told you that before I started. Sorry.
I hope you understand that Tobit has lost a friend this day—a very dear friend. A misfortune indeed. Tobit feels as if Brown had traded in his palm for a notepad and was suddenly writing in a crazy language that made sense in its insanity. By nature Tobit avoids people who make sense, because he fears what they can do. Not only has our hero experienced yet another setback in his expired friendship with Bragger Brown, but he has been exposed to one of the few horrors of the Web—people abusing its massive amounts of useless information.
Tobit knows it will be hard to find another friend like Bragger Brown. They are hard to come by on the Web. Tobit’s web friends were Web-based. They don’t meet in parks or have dinners together. They confine themselves to chat rooms and emails, and if things ever get too close and intimate, then the emails cease and the friends simply disappear from Tobit’s life. It is easy to forget about somebody you don’t see. There is a certain amount of fiction to the online persona it as if it’s just something you interact with for amusement, but it isn’t real. It takes a special somebody to give up that ambiguity and become a real person. The hardest part of losing Brown is knowing how hard it will be to find his replacement. Brown is the first real friend Tobit has had since VB. In a way, he is losing VB all over again. And the loss is for the same reason—Tobit wants to grow and Bragger wants to remain a child. But Tobit, luckily for the rest of the world, is not one to give in to someone’s opposing ways.
Forgive me for suddenly becoming a narrator of cheap horror narrator in this chapter, but understand, though Brown is obviously crazy, this narration is important for reasons you should know already, so I won’t bore you with needless details. But a simple fact, perhaps overlooked in the face of Bragger Brown’s obtrusive remarks, is that Brown has killed a part of Tobit—symbolically, of course—and there is nothing further for him to do in his final days this quest has driven him to but descend into a deeper place where he might reason out what it is that will get him to peace of mind so he might finally die. But before we proceed, let me add a word of caution to you, dear reader—do not venture, my friend, into that dark abyss that is God, else you might find reason to become mad, like Bragger Brown.
Yours truly,
The Narrator