Bill Sands walked into the teacher’s lounge as the morning bell rang out across the campus. He allowed himself a brief smile since he was right on time. As usual.
He crossed the room to the coffee pot in need of a quick pick-me-up to start his day. He found arriving at this time, since he didn’t have a homeroom to attend, the lounge would usually be empty aside from one or two stragglers milling about. Most often Ms. Loverly, the art teacher, who was as scatterbrained as her modern art pieces tended to reflect. Bill never knew how to relate to her. The science of Physical Education seemed miles away from the complex interpretations of an artist’s brush strokes. He, however, was spared any passing small talk with the eccentric Ms. Loverly that particular morning. Instead in her place were Mr. Pierce the Philosophy teacher and Mr. Kemp the A.P. Algebra teacher.
As Bill poured himself a generous helping of caffeine, he only caught snippets of what they were talking about.
“As a math teacher though of course you would say it’s at least possible,” Mr. Pierce said. He waited while Mr. Kemp taped a thoughtful finger across his lips.
“Yes,” Kemp said, “I agree that it is in fact possible. The universe being as expansive as it is, surely there must be somewhere where it would be true.”
Bill sipped his coffee, having filled it to the brim. He didn’t want to spill any as he made his exit. He got no more than a couple steps before Pierce called him back.
“Hey, Bill, you got a minute?”
Bill thought about continuing his escape and playing it off that he hadn’t heard his name over the morning announcements which echoed out of the speakers on the wall. He glanced at his watch and figured he had a few moments to kill anyway and so turned around to face his colleagues.
“Where do you stand on the issue of Free will?” Pierce said.
“Free will?” Bill jerked his head back. He didn’t know what he thought they had been talking about, but he wouldn’t have put money on free will. “In what capacity?”
Pierce shared a look with Kemp. Bill read the look as if to say Bill were swimming out of his lane. Had the topic been about calisthenics or nutrition he might have been more helpful.
“Jerry and I were discussing the possibility of free will,” Pierce said, “and whether or not it exists. Where do you stand on it?”
“Hmm,” Bill murmured to delay. He glanced at his watch and took a sip from his mug. “I guess I’m for it,” he said with a confident nod.
“Yes, I think it’s safe to say most of us are for it,” Pierce gave a wry smile, “but what Jerry here is trying to convince me is, if it does exist there’s no way to prove it.”
Bill looked from the philosophy teacher to the math teacher and back again.
“Interesting,” he said.
Pierce’s shoulders fell. “Look,” he said. “I’ll put it this way. You come in here every morning at the exact same time, right?”
Bill agreed that was true.
“Now, why do you think that is?”
“Because when I leave my house five minutes later than I used to, there’s less traffic on the roads and also here in the lounge.” Bill saluted his mug and took a sip.
“Have you ever tried to deviate from your normal schedule?”
Bill’s eyes circled the ceiling. He shook his head.
“Why would I?” he said. “My first class doesn’t start until 8:15. There’s no need to be here earlier.”
“See,” Pierce said, turning back to Kemp. “This is what I mean. Bill is a great example. Always doing the same routine and never asking why. This only supports my theory that we have the illusion of free will. No matter what we mean to do, we’re beholden to a certain path and any attempt to deviate from that path, we will be met with conflict that forces us to return to the prearranged plan.”
“And who’s plan is it?” Kemp asked. His finger returned to tap his lips.
“I don’t know,” Pierce said and threw his arms out to his sides. “Call it god, or aliens. Heck just say ‘them’ if you want. All I’m saying is we are no more in control of our own actions than characters in a video game.”
Bill took this as a sign to leave and padded across the room, out the door.
Did I choose to leave, or is this part of my plan?
He chuckled to himself. What a topic to be discussing first thing in the morning. He shook his head and proceeded to the back of the campus where the Phys Ed classes met. Along the way though his thoughts returned to Pierce’s questions.
What did he believe? Bill had never really dissected the idea of free will. Maybe he had been going through life believing he had been making all his own decisions. But how could anyone ever be sure?
He came to a fork at the edge of the quad. Normally he would take the path to the right, it being the shortest route to the locker rooms. The path to the left would force him the long way around the chemistry department and then around the auto shop yard. Easily another few minutes to his walk. It would make no sense to go that way.
And yet, Bill now had a desire to go that way.
Maybe this could be his free will test.
While he stood and pondered what to do, the bell signaling the end of homeroom reverberated down the halls. Taking the left path now would make him late for his first class. If he hadn’t stopped to indulge his coworkers, he might have had time to test this theory. Of course he never would have had the notion to do so either had he not taken the extra time to chat. He waved it all off. Stupid to worry about it now.
Tomorrow though he would make sure to arrive on time and zip through the teacher’s lounge without stopping to talk. That way he could take the left path and put to bed any doubt over whether or not he had free will in life.
***
The next morning Bill entered the teacher’s lounge with the bell ringing overhead, though this time he found the room to be empty, which served his purpose nicely. He poured a quick cup of coffee and spilled some on the counter. He swiped a few paper towels from the dispenser over the sink and wiped it up. Every movement he made had a jerkiness to it as he tried to rush. He didn’t want to be late or to delay his experiment.
He pushed his way out the door as Mr. Kemp was going in.
“Whoa, Bill,” Kemp said. “Why the rush?”
“Oh, you know,” Bill said and continued down the outdoor hallway.
He did a funny kind of speed walk as he consulted his watch. If he made it to the split, the digression of hallways where he would conduct his experiment, in the next couple of minutes he would have enough time to go out of his way before the first period began.
Bill rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks. Where the hallway diverged left and right, the right path was clear and unimpeded, but the left…
Eddie the custodian had a ladder spread out and some yellow caution tape barricading the left passage. Bill stood taking in the scene with a stupid look on his face.
“Morning,” Eddie said as he mounted the ladder.
“Morning,” Bill said. He looked for a way to pass, but with rows of lockers on either side, the passage was effectively barred from pedestrian traffic. Bill held up his watch and figured what the hell. He started to step over the caution tape.
“Hold on there, Mr. Sands,” Eddie said. He scampered back down the ladder and held out a hand – the universal sign for stop. “You don’t want to go this way. That light there,” Eddie pointed above, “is shooting out sparks. I’m trying to fix it so no one gets hurt.”
“I understand,” Bill said, growing impatient. “But I can go by really quick, I’m sure it’ll–”
“Well.” Eddie drew out the word several times its short length. “I’m afraid I can’t take the chance. If you got hurt, I might lose my job.”
“We certainly don’t want that,” Bill said. He cast a rueful eye at the offending light fixture, as if daring it to shoot a spark while he watched.
“Thanks for understanding.” Eddie stood by the ladder. “I’ll have this fixed soon.”
The bell rang. Homeroom was over. Bill resigned to allowing another day to test his experiment. He shook his head at his own silly feelings. Why was he frustrated? This was no proof that free will didn’t exist. He took the right path.
“Have a good one, Eddie,” Bill said.
“You too.”
***
Another morning like any other. Bill entered the lounge. Got his coffee and proceeded out the door. He was determined to test his theory today. Nothing was going to stop him.
He rounded the turn and approached the fork in the hallway. Both paths were clear this morning. Bill smiled. Here we go.
As Bill stepped toward the left path a cacophony of noise bent around the corner and filled his ears with the fight song played before every football game.
“What’s going on now?” Bill stammered.
Marching three abreast, the high school band high-stepped down the hall in Bill’s direction. His path once again blocked.
“You have to be kidding me.”
Bill moved backwards to get out of the way of the ensuing wave of musicians in their bright red jackets and blindingly white pants. First came the percussion section with the booming of bass drums and the rat-a-tat-tat of the snares. Then the trumpets and mellophones. Followed by the trombones with their long reach and the fluttering sounds of the clarinets. All this rounded out by the flutes and the low brass.
Bill felt like he was stuck watching a mile long freight train pass him by. In all the years he’d worked at the school, he’d never seen the band marching through the halls, let alone at such an ungodly hour for that amount of racket.
When the last of the band had passed by, Bill went to run the path. His determination undeterred to take the left path to class that day. A hand reached out and stopped him before he could get up to speed.
“Whoa there, Bill,” Stan Withers said. Withers taught music appreciation and served as the band director. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“I have to get to class.”
“Isn’t it that way?” Stan pointed down the right path.
“Normally, yes,” Bill said. He tried to go around Stan, but the band leader matched his movements. Stan laughed.
“What are we dancing?” Stan slapped Bill’s arm. “I’m only joking.”
“Yes, well,” Bill said. He grabbed Stan by both shoulders to steady him, then moved him to the side. “I must be off.”
Before he could take a step to the left, the bell rang out. Bill dropped his chin to his chest and sighed. Stan placed a warm hand on his shoulder.
“Hump day,” he said. “Always the hardest. Whoa!” Stan ran off to catch up with the band parading through the quad.
Bill resigned to letting his experiment ferment another day longer.
***
This was the day, he vowed. Nothing would stop him today. He would finally be done with this dumb experiment and put it all behind him. The idea of free will had crept into the crannies of his brain and wouldn’t come unstuck, not until he had tested his theory out. At least, that’s what Bill hoped would be the end result. Then he could go back to his more boring thoughts and mundane wishes.
The teacher’s lounge was empty. Bill grabbed his mug as usual. Filled it with coffee as usual. And proceeded to the door as usual.
The door opened before Bill could place a hand on the knob. It flew open wide, and like a wild breeze, Ms. Loverly floated into the room.
“Ah, Bill,” she exclaimed. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
“Hi, Ms. Loverly.” Bill smiled weakly. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time this morning…”
“Time,” Ms. Loverly said in a more than grand voice, as if the single word held the entire universe and all its secrets in those four little letters. “Yes, she is a great deceiver.”
“Very poetic. I think you missed your calling in life.”
Bill spun away from her, but the woman was more spray than he allowed for. She linked her arm in his and dragged him back into the lounge.
“I want you to look at something.” She fumbled a large tote bag from her shoulder and dug inside of it.
“Oh, god,” Bill moaned.
“This will only take a minute,” she said. Ms. Loverly pushed him into a chair. He spread his legs out of the way as coffee spilled over the sides of his mug.
“What do you make of this?”
Ms. Loverly held out a small painting with blotches of various colors scattered across the canvas. Bill pulled down one side of his face as he stared at the seemingly unconnected drippings.
He glanced over at Ms. Loverly, who bit her lower lip waiting for his thoughts.
“Aren’t you holding it upside down,” he said.
Ms. Loverly gazed around the side of the painting to scrutinize her own work.
“So I have.” She flipped the painting. “What do you think of it now?”
“I think I liked it better the other way.”
Bill stood. Ms. Loverly got lost staring at the painting. She turned it one way, then the other. She shrugged and nibbled the end of her pointer finger.
While she was occupied, Bill burst out of the teacher’s lounge. Glad to be freed from the impromptu art show.
What the heck was going on? It felt like a larger force was trying to prevent him walking down that left path. He hadn’t even gotten halfway to the split when the homeroom bell sounded. Another day foiled. Now this was becoming preposterous.
***
This was the absolute last day he would try to take the left path. He couldn’t care less about the whole idea of free will now. His life had been perfectly fine until his colleagues gave him this newest obsession. It had been all he could think about over the last seventy-two hours, though after the next five minutes he vowed not to dedicate one minute more of thought power to such a useless endeavor.
Pulling out all the stops, Bill bypassed the teacher’s lounge, not even to peek who might be inside, and continued toward the split. When he rounded the corner and the troublesome fork of paths came into view, Bill was glad to see nothing could stop him this time. No custodian. No marching band. Nothing.
With his head held high, shoulders back, Bill swung his foot across the crack of concrete dissecting the two paths. The first step accomplished, he took another.
So much for the argument against free will, Bill said to himself and scoffed out loud. It was clear as day he had autonomy of his own decisions and why he ever doubted–
Bill smacked into a barrier, as if he had walked into a sliding glass door. If anyone had been around to see him, he would have looked like a bug splattered on the windshield of a car.
He stepped back and rubbed his nose. As far as he could tell, there was nothing in his way. He reached out with a tentative hand until he felt the distinctness of a cold wall. Yet no wall stood before him. He pressed into the invisible barrier and found it had some give to it.
Bill looked over both shoulders to see if anyone had noticed his impediment. Everyone must have been in their homerooms still because the halls were empty. Again he pressed into the hidden surface. The cold barrier pushed back.
He stepped back to reassess his circumstances. It seemed odd he couldn’t get through when he had seen countless others come and go this way before. Why it had only been two days ago the entire marching back came from this direction, but Bill hadn’t noticed any of them walking into a wall. He scratched his head.
Maybe if he pushed hard enough the wall would give way. Perhaps it had some sort of surface tension that hardened when he tried to go through at a faster pace. He decided to give it a try.
Bill leaned up against the invisible wall. His breath condensed on the cold air radiating from the barrier.
Here goes nothing.
He pushed into the wall, feeling it give. There was some pushback, but he remained steadfast. Soon the barrier ruptured and Bill tripped over his own feet out of the well lit hall and into a dark cavernous room.
Blackness surrounded him on all sides. He gazed astonished upon the vastness of space and shuddered. The temperature had dropped to below freezing and he wrapped his arms around himself. He turned around, hoping the world he knew so well would still be there, but cold indifference was all he saw.
“Hello?” he called. His voice echoed until his ears could no longer hear the reverberations. “Anybody?”
A chill ran down his body, though Bill didn’t think it was from the cold alone. He feared he had gone to a place where no one would ever find him again.
***
A bell rang out, but not one to signal the end of homeroom. Instead this one was more muffled, as if a phone was ringing under a stack of papers. A red light illuminated the small control room where a young man napped in an office chair. The man had his feet up on the control board and a magazine draped over his eyes. He cooed as he let out each breath. Finally the ringing bell penetrated whatever dreams played in his head and the man sat up. The magazine slipped off his face and spilled onto the ground.
The man blinked himself out of his daze and stared at the screen in front of him. Bill shivered in the cold of the black abyss. No sound came from the viewing screen, but the man could see Bill’s mouth was moving.
“Ah shit,” the man said. “Not again.”
He furiously punched at the control panel. The warning bell shut off and the red light ceased to blink. He then pulled out a keyboard and furiously typed away at it. Sitting off to the side was a smaller screen. The man turned it on. It took a few seconds for the picture to come on, almost like an early model television. When the picture focused it showed an empty hallway. The man let out a sigh of relief.
He knew he had only a couple minutes to act before his superiors would come and investigate what had gone wrong. The man swiveled his chair back to face the screen with Bill on it. He punched a couple more buttons and pulled a bendable microphone close to his mouth.
“This is tech support, how may I help you?”
On screen Bill jumped from the sudden intrusion of the man’s voice. He looked around him and said in a weak voice, “Hello?”
The man sucked in a breath.
“You’re going to have to speak louder,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t hear you if you whisper that like.” The man cast a quick glance at the smaller screen. The hallway was still empty.
“Is this better?” Bill said, raising his voice.
“Yes,” the man said. “Now, what are you doing out of your sector?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not supposed to be here.” The man punched a series of buttons to add some warmth to the black abyss. Bill’s visible breath on screen went away.
Bill stammered, “I don’t know what you mean…”
“This is an unrestricted zone, hence the emptiness of visual elements and other stimuli.”
As the man talked he cleared drink containers and spent food wrappers from the control board into a waste bin. Another glance at the small screen. They would be coming any minute now.
“I don’t know how I got here,” Bill said. “I only wanted to take a different path to class and somehow I wound up here.” On screen Bill looked around at the emptiness. “Wherever here is.”
“Right,” the man’s voice boomed into the abyss. “You’re not supposed to be here. This isn’t part of your world.”
Bill muttered something under his breath, then said in a loud clear voice, “I only wanted to test my free will.”
The man at the control board groaned. He covered the microphone and said, “Why are they so obsessed with free will?” Uncovered he said, “Don’t we do enough to convince you you have it? Why would you need to test it out?”
The man was only stalling now while he typed a new sequence on the keyboard. Something caught his eye. Two men in fine suits of dark material came into view on the smaller screen. They walked down the hall passing the various doors to the left and right.
“Shit.”
The man got up and locked the door to his control room before returning to his seat.
“Look,” he said into the microphone, “I don’t have time to explain it to you.” Then under his breath he added, “Not that you’ll remember anyway.”
He finished on the keyboard and hit a glowing button on the control panel.
“A door should be appearing before you now.”
“I don’t see…wait,” Bill said. “Something’s happening.”
The man rolled his eyes. He glanced at the smaller screen. They were almost upon him.
On the screen the dimensions of a standard door appeared in front of Bill, but instead of being an actual door, it was more like a window. Through the aperture Bill could look out into the halls of the high school.
The door handle of the control room jiggled, followed by some polite knocking. The man wouldn’t be able to explain why the door was locked unless Bill went back where he belonged.
“You have to go now,” the man said into the microphone. Bill looked over his shoulder, away from the portal.
“What is this place?”
The man groaned. “Go through and I’ll tell you.”
The polite knocking grew in intensity. Now voices questioned why the door was locked.
On the screen Bill took a reluctant step toward the portal. He stuck his hand through first, maybe to see if it hurt. The man bounced his leg up and down behind the control panel. Finally Bill stepped through the portal and the bright glow died in the black abyss.
The man let out a sigh. He stood and rushed over to the door to unlock it.
“What’s the meaning of this?” one of the suits said as they stepped into the control room. They both looked at the screen to find nothing but blackness.
“Sorry,” the young man said, returning to his chair. “I didn’t realize I’d locked it. Lot on my mind.” He swiveled around and tapped some buttons. The screen changed from the black abyss to Bill standing at the divergent paths of the school.
The two men in suits exchanged a look. One walked around the small room and gave everything a cursory once over. The other one stepped up next to the man in the chair.
“We’ve been hearing some issues of the Dependents wandering out of their zones,” the suit said. He moved within the working man’s vision. “Have you noticed anything like that with…”
“Bill Sands?” the man filled in.
“Yes, has Bill Sands gone off his grid at all?” The suit crossed his arms and raised a single eyebrow. The man leaned back in his chair and screwed up his face.
“No,” the man said. “Not that I’ve seen. Bill tends to stay on the straight and narrow. He never really questions his reality.”
“Good.” The suit clapped the man on the shoulder. “That’s what we like to hear.” He nodded to the other suit who followed him to leave.
“Keep up the good work,” the suit said as they exited the control room.
***
The school bell filled the empty quad and surrounding halls. Bill didn’t move, however. He stood with a dazed look upon his face, almost as if nothing was going on in his brain.
A late student walked up the hall and stopped next to the P.E. teacher.
“Hi, Mr. Sands,” the student said. The student narrowed their brows when Bill failed to respond. “Are you alright, sir?”
Bill came too and smiled at the student.
“Sorry, Bill said, “I must have zoned out there for a bit. Where are we?”
“Late for class,” the student said and pulled on the straps of their backpack. Bill looked around.
“Hmm. I’m never late for class,” Bill said more to himself. Then to the student, “Good thing I’m a teacher, huh?”
The student gave a nervous laugh.
“We should be off then,” Bill said. “Come. This way.”
He led the student down the path to the right, not even giving the one to the left any consideration.
***
Friday came and Bill had survived another week. He entered the teacher’s lounge at the chime of the homeroom bell and felt good about his life. Everything according to plan.
Bill picked up the coffee carafe and filled a mug. He noticed Mr. Kemp and Mr. Pierce chatting animatedly. When he finished with the coffee and replaced the pot on the hotplate, he walked up to his colleagues.
“Hey guys,” BIll said and took a sip of the steaming brew. “Still trying to sway one another on the existence of free will?”
Mr. Pierce shook his head.
“No, we’re passed that,” he said. “There’s no way you could prove it one way or the other. We’re on to something else now.”
Bill had flashes of the black abyss. He knew differently, but not how to articulate what he’d discovered about freewill. He shivered from a sudden chill.
“You alright there, Bill?”
Bill looked up and smiled. “Perfect,” he said. “I just remembered one of my dreams from last night. Guess I’m not fully awake yet today.”
The other two teachers nodded as if they knew the feeling.
Bill turned to leave. No sense being late for class if he could help it.
As he was leaving, he overheard Kemp say, “I wouldn’t be so quick to say there is no god. In fact, mathematics argues that there is a higher probability of not just one god, but multiple gods that created everything.”
The door closed behind Bill before Pierce could make a rebuttal.
Outside the teacher’s lounge a slight breeze ruffled Bill’s hair. Birds chirped in a nearby tree. The day was young and full of possibilities, but Bill gave them no mind.
At the fork in the hallway, Bill took the path to the right. Just as he’d always done.
[Image Credit : Photo by Kaptured by Kasia on Unsplash]
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