THE RED HAMBURGER IS A SITE MAP
The Lighthouse
Of all the places I could have traveled to, I ended up here. As I looked up at the darkening clouds and the bolts of pure energy within them, my eyes frantically searched for somewhere to hide. This was going to be one hell of a storm. It wasn’t the first bad choice I’d made, but this escape from my mind-numbing job could turn out to be the most challenging.
I was out in the middle of nowhere. Endless miles of ocean were in front of me. A boulder-strewn expanse of eroded beach was behind me. That’s when I spotted a lighthouse about a half mile away. I ran towards it like an Olympic sprinter. Intense gusts of wind swirled debris around me as I approached the door. I wasn’t about to get caught in an atmospheric river without a life vest.
As I reached for the door handle, a violent gust of wind blew the lighthouse door open. I quickly moved inside and closed the door behind me, which kept opening. There was a rusted metal desk a few feet to the right. I dragged it over, but the door kept opening. I climbed onto the desk. For once, my excessive weight was working for me. I reached behind and flipped on the light switch on the wall. I pretty much expected what happened next, that is to say, nothing happened. It was a good bet that electricity and people hadn’t flowed through this place in quite some time. I looked straight up at what had been the nerve center of the lighthouse. Now, it was just a collection of broken glass. Strangely, I found that funny because, in a sense, it was the perfect metaphor for my life.
This past day had been a wake-up call of sorts. I’ve been getting subtle signals that Karen wasn’t happy for quite some time. This time felt different. I didn’t want it to end, but I didn’t know if I could stop it. This wasn’t one of those fights she’d get over quickly. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I could get over it, either.
I looked at work as a way to get away from the unfolding drama at home. Now, this momentary road trip had become my way of escaping the boredom of a go-nowhere job that gave me too much time to think about everything else happening in my life. It was my lunch hour, but no one said I had to spend it eating lunch. I began to wish that I had.
I could hear the storm intensifying. The wind sounded like an approaching freight train. I didn’t like being stuck in a brick tower, but it was a lot better than torrential rain and hurricane-force winds. After all, this was a lighthouse and, as old as it was, I had to believe it had been built to survive a storm. Still, I thought it might be a good idea to tell somebody where I was hunkering down for the night. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. The screen came to life only to inform me that there was no cell signal. I hit the flashlight icon and saw a family of rats scurrying around. I wondered if they were as hungry as I was. I turned off the flashlight and pulled my legs up on the desk. If they were hungry, I wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
Leaning against the lighthouse door, I wondered whether she’d miss me if I never came home. After last night, I wasn’t sure she would still be there if I did. Karen told me she had married me for better or worse and kept wondering when the better would kick in. I could see her point, as well as the pain in her eyes as she was saying that. We loved each other, but love only goes so far.
I had tried the boardroom bit for brief periods, but I would inevitably return to the solitude of night rent-a cop. When I graduated from college, I was white-hot and ready to illuminate the world. I had a business degree clenched in my hand, and a head brimming with dozens of innovative ideas. I was primed and ready for some company to snatch me up with a big paycheck. That’s when I found out that, in the real world, businesses want recently graduated worker bees, not wannabes. I went through the low-level, low-pay apprentice training. I sat in on boring board meetings where bowls of M&Ms were more welcome than my “cutting-edge” thoughts.
After three years of bouncing around from boardroom to boardroom, my ambition began to wane as did my taste for M&Ms. It was always, “Your time will come if you just hang in there.” It did for others, but it never did for me. Maybe it was my attitude. I had expected so much, and most of my expectations never saw the light of day. The white-hot flame was burning out, and it showed.
Although my security job paid the bills, it barely left anything for enjoying life. My innermost thoughts constantly reminded me that Karen wanted us to enjoy life, but I had become comfortable, perhaps a little too comfortable, and comfort leads to a lack of ambition. She kept pushing me to use my business degree to work for a business, instead of guarding them. The problem is, I had gotten used to wandering the halls alone without adult supervision.
The howling wind, darkness, and my thoughts lulled me to sleep. When I awoke, I started to sit up only to feel my feet get wet. The ferocity of the storm had caused the old lighthouse to spring a leak, and three feet of water had forced its way in. I watched the rat family float by as a torrent of water started rising around me. I tried to move the desk away, but the water forced it back even harder against the door. Why was this happening to me? All I had wanted was a temporary escape from my going-nowhere life, a break from the meaningless game I played every waking moment of every day. Now, it appeared that the game was about to end and take me with it.
It was then that I noticed a small metal box attached to the wall. A plate on the door said ‘FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY’ in bold letters. I hadn’t noticed it before, but then I had never really taken a good look around me. Maybe it was a circuit breaker box for a sump pump. At just over five feet, I was moments away from going under for good. A lifetime of junk food and a sedentary lifestyle was taking its toll. I reached up and unlatched the metal door. Inside was a big red button with the word ‘RESET’ etched in white lettering. The water was rising faster. I took as deep a breath as my lungs could handle. As the water began engulfing my face, I forced my arm up and pushed the button.
Once again, I found myself out in the middle of nowhere. Endless miles of ocean were in front of me. A boulder-strewn expanse of eroded beach was behind me. Storm clouds were above, and intense winds were swirling all around. I turned and noticed the lighthouse about a half mile away.
I tore the ‘Escape Hatch’ virtual reality glasses off my head. My heart was pounding as I glanced at my watch. I had to get the AI mind probe prototype back to the product research lab before employees started flooding into the break room for their morning cappuccinos.
Escape Hatch was a marvel of AI technology. Glasses wired to a compact processing unit about the size of a paperback book. I imagined that would change with future design modifications. The wire would become wireless as the processing unit was integrated directly into the glasses.
The AI mind probe prototype worked by reading low-level neural oscillations through the temples and using that data to construct a highly personalized simulation, not a random adventure. It was a scenario built from the user’s own subconscious mind. Fears, desires, unresolved tensions, the system found them all and gave them form. The basic idea was that by confronting thoughts in a controlled environment, truths the waking mind had grown too good at avoiding would surface and be resolved.
The Mind Games, LLC research team called it therapeutic gaming. After my recent interaction with it, I had to wonder what the game really was. During long hours of solitude, my curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I had done some research on my employer. The company was a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a moderately successful gaming company. It turned out that the CEO of that company had begun his career as a researcher for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Defense.
There would come a time when wearers of these glasses would come to see them as a natural extension of reality and self-awareness. The big question was whether that knowledge would enhance the user’s life or imprison it. In the brief time I had worn them, the glasses had given me self-awareness that I hoped might put my life and my marriage on a new, more fulfilling path because I had begun to question not only my place in the world at large, but my place in Karen’s world.
With the passage of time, relationships go through big and small changes. The big ones are easy to spot because they entail major life-changing events like the birth of a child or advancement in a career. Those changes require more effort and dedication. The smaller changes tend to be overlooked because they happen more gradually. Sometimes, those are the changes that require the most effort in life.
My “escape” had forced me to realize that I had become complacent in my relationship with Karen. I had woken up each day believing that my partner would always be a part of my life. Now, that belief was being shaken to its core, and the time had come for me to fight that complacency. I thought back to the moment when I wondered if she would miss me if I didn’t come home. I decided to make sure that she would. It was time to convince her and myself that I could make it in the business world.
My “escape” had taken longer than my lunch hour. Fortunately, nothing much had happened during the rest of my shift. I gave a quick report of my uneventful night to the next shift’s rent-a-cop and headed for the bus stop.
I decided to call Karen while waiting for the bus to arrive. As soon as I heard her voice, I told her to listen before saying anything. I begged her not to do anything rash until we talked face-to-face. Maybe it was the sincerity in my voice or just that I caught her in an unguarded moment, but she agreed and ended the call. I said, “I love you,” as the home screen replaced the keypad.
I leaned back on the bus bench. Escape Hatch had left me with a sharper focus and sense of purpose that I hadn’t felt before. More importantly, my brief adventure had taught me something about my own life. It was a lesson I had needed to learn but had chosen to ignore. Karen’s better or worse question hadn’t been about money because we were very happy when we first married, even though we had very little money.
I think what bothered her the most was that every time she looked at me, she saw untapped potential. She remembered that white-hot flame ready to illuminate the world. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a failure willing to settle for whatever life gave him. I thought she was unhappy because of me. It never occurred to me that she was unhappy because I was unhappy.
Escape Hatch had shocked me into the realization that Karen’s view of me and any chance we might ever have of a life together would never change unless I changed the way I viewed myself. Every life comes with a reset button. All you need is a desire to find it, the motivation to push it, and the willingness to work through the inevitable roadblocks life throws in front of you. When all is said and done, life doesn’t improve because situations change with time. Life improves because you change one day at a time.