The Fourth

Choices adds worlds...

There comes a point in certain people’s lives when they run out of answers. The answers they had had melted away. And those questions?

Do you remember the Terminator Judgement day movie? Towards the end, the shape shifting robot, T1000, falls into a furnace of molten steel. In sheer desperation this machine tries to shape shift multiple times. But in the steel furnace, all its attempts are futile and it eventually disintegrates to oblivion.

Hartley realized his answers went the same way as that T1000. Those primal questions have an elemental heat so fierce that his chameleonic, sophisticated suit of responses simply eroded away. And now he stood in front of the mirror. Naked. Alone. 45.

The mirror smiled. Two decades of playing the cyber Robin Hood had finally caught up. Hartley was surprised he’d lasted this long. Maybe that was why he got a little careless…

He had maybe half an hour before the police would barge into his apartment. It would take them another 15 minutes to locate the hidden room and break it open. But Hartley would not give them the satisfaction of an arrest. He glanced to his left. His baby Glock gleamed.

Hector could not believe it. He read the text again. For the tenth time at least. But the meaning remained unchanged. A slow deep sigh ensued.

Two decades of revolutionizing education. Building a diverse ecosystem of educational approaches, building grassroots level research labs, empowering rural children with skill based learning for next to no cost. Going against giant educational establishments, cliques with tremendous powers, and winning. He won by showing them for what they truly were. Emperors with no clothes. Big, slow moving, outdated machinations that sucked out all ingenuity, creativity and diversity from education. Hector was the one that coined the term ‘Beyond Textual’. He introduced a larger diversity of learning modules. Those who loved to learn by making and building, those who loved to talk and narrate and explain, those who loved images and colours, those who expressed through body and motions. Hector and his team of seven, slowed down the brain drain.

Hector knew they would dig up his past. And he knew they would find the dirt-goldmine. Back then he was an alcoholic, a serial womanizer and a directionless, arrogant punk who thought of himself living in the clouds. Plenty of material, thought Hector and winced.

He was prepared. He was dressed in his usual formal white shirt, sleeves rolled up. Black trousers. He tugged hard. The noose was ready too.

Harvey stepped out of his shower. Dried himself and stepped on the weighing scale. 72 kgs. Satisfied, he put on his bathrobe and stepped into his bedroom. Julie was waiting. Leaning against the balcony railing, her profile made him take a sharp breath. She looked at him, smiled and said, “It is over, Harvey.”

He knew it was over days before she did. It had taken him over two decades to build his fitness empire. And today he owned none of it. In fact he owned nothing. Back to where he began. Where did he begin? Harvey nodded at Julie and walked to the balcony. He accepted the coffee she’d prepared for him and looked out at the sea.

From a lonely, lethargic, heavy drinker with a low paying job and no greater ambition, he revolutionized himself, his community and built a solid, foundational, strength-based fitness program. Minimum equipment. Affordable fees. He took his fitness ideas across schools and universities. Sports federations. He created huge trusts for gifted athletes from all areas of sports to excel. He built state of the art facilities for them all over the country. In the last two decades, his company had single-handedly changed the trajectory of the country’s Olympic medals tally, almost tying with the US last year.

He knew his past would one day catch up and bite him. His boat was ready. A storm was brewing. Time to head out to the sea.

The room was lit by a single window and occupied by a triangular table and three chairs, both of wood. Bare walls, off-white. One door on the opposite wall to the window led into the room. A ceiling fan ran noiselessly. The window was open. It looked out to a sea and a sharp drop of 100 feet.

The first to arrive was Hector. He walked in shielding his eyes from the window. The door closed behind him. He turned away from the light and looked at the room. Perplexed. The window’s glare appeared to dim and he walked toward it. That’s when the door opened again. Hartley walked in. Forearm covering his eyes, just like Hector had. As soon as the door closed behind Hartley he looked back. And as if on cue, it opened again and in came Harvey squinting his eyes.

For what seemed like an eternity, the three men kept looking at each other, stupefied. Hector was standing by the window, looking into the room. Hartley and Harvey stood closer to the door. That’s when the Voice spoke.

“You are all from different worlds. Branched off by the choices each of you made. And now the three of you have run your course.”

The three looked around, trying to locate the source. The audio seemed to come from no place in particular and from everywhere. It was a deep baritone voice. It spoke without haste, uttering each syllable with clarity.

Hector, Harvey and Hartley. They looked like triplets. Harvey looked the strongest, while Hartley was cherubic and Hector was wiry. All three were bald. And looked identical in all other aspects. After all, until the age of 23, they were the same person.

“Yes, at 23, Harry was struggling. Alone. Broke. Out of a job with only his bottle for company. But he had finally sat down on that December night and poured his heart out into a book. He wrote of where he wants to go and what he wants to do. There were a lot of places he described and four life missions he wrote at length.”

The three nodded. Still unsure where they were and how they were still alive and in a room with two other clones. But once thing they all agreed. They had renamed themselves, picked up their pieces and forged a new life under a new identity.

“Each choice Harry made branched off to a different world. But…”

Here the Voice paused.

“But what?,” asked Hector. He was looking at the ceiling, as were the other two.

“There’s a Fourth, Hector.”

“Fourth?”

“Yes. The one who wrote all of your choices but didn’t make his own choice. Harry hesitated. Harry still lives.”

“While we do not, right?”, quipped Hartley.

“Yes. You are all dead.”

Harry did not need a tele-prompter. It wasn’t the first time he was narrating his story. He was usually invited for just that. His story. Especially the last two decades.

I have shared this many times. As you know, twenty years ago, I was destitute. Broke. Drunk. Divorced. Estranged from my boy and un-employed. I had hired a car using the last of my savings and driven to Milton’s point. Not far from here actually. I was going to drive off that edge. As I put the car in gear, 500 meters before the edge, I heard a voice. Not from anywhere outside. There was no one there at 2 am. No, this voice came from within. And it hasn’t stopped guiding me ever since. This voice coaxed me to write. Lit up my memories with all I had written and never published, made me see visions as a writer. I went to my sister’s place that night. Slept on the couch and had another vision. Of being a singer. A day later I came across an old book I used to recite to my boy. And a voice whispered to me to be a child counselor. In the span of 2-3 days, I was suddenly infused with a zest and spirit I never had before. These voices I know are called Angels. My angels. Sent to my rescue. Why me though? I do not know the answer. But I have written about it all in my Autobiography. I would be happy to sign the first 100 copies immediately after this.

Harry was walking down from the stage when he noticed his vision blurring and sharp pain in his chest followed. And then he went dark.

“He’ll open the door anytime now boys. Time to go. The Final Resting Place awaits.”

Hartley, Hector and Harvey sat facing the door. All three wore a smile.