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Hmmm, if only I could reweave the threads of fate to suit my desires.

The office supply store Staples occasionally runs an ad featuring the Easy button. It is an imaginary button that you can push to get instant solutions to your office supply needs from your local Staples. They actually produce and sell a real-life version of the Easy button that plays a recorded phrase: That was easy.

I have decided that I would like to have a Make it So button. (I confess to stealing this phrase from Jean-Luc Picard in the Star Trek TV franchise. He would use that phrase whenever he needed his crew to carry out a critical and difficult exercise.) The principle is simple. I state a desire, press the Make it So button and it happens. A few examples:

Fast Forward to Tomorrow: Upon stating that action and pressing the button, I would magically be transported forward one day. Great for use when the weather forecast is bad, or a day ahead looks too hectic, or there is a scheduled task for the day that I dread. Needless to say, the tasks I was required to do that day would magically have been accomplished.

Go Back in Time: I would be transported back in time to a specified day when everything went as planned, I had no unpleasant tasks, no one did anything to irritate me, and I had plenty of time to do the things I enjoy. I believe I have had three of four of those magical days in my 67 years of existence.

Undo That Thing: Useful for those days when I do something foolish that I immediately regret. Pushing the button would undo the act and all the consequences of it as if it never happened.

Do That Thing: Similar to Undo That Thing but for use on those days when I miss a golden opportunity that would bring me pleasure and/or make my life measurably better. The choice I should have made would be acted upon and all the good consequences of it would follow.

Stretch Out Time: For use on those picture-perfect days when everything is going well and I want to stay in the zone for as long as possible. Time would stretch by a factor of three and I would luxuriate in the perfection of the day.

And of course, the button we would all like to have at this point in history:

Delete Donald Trump: Pushing the button after this command would erase Donald Trump from existence as if there was never such a person. All the controversial, self-serving, unethical and illegal acts he has committed would be deleted from history at the same time. Needless to say, his lapdog JD Vance and his puppet press secretary Karoline Leavitt would also be erased.

The Make it So button would empower me to bend fate to my will and reweave the threads of it to suit my whims and desires. Yes, I realize this is science fiction and quite selfish in its motivation. But if it really could happen, I would be willing to share use of the button now and then – assuming of course that your whim or desire does not contradict with mine!

~  Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

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Tags:   Jean-Luc Picard · Make it so · metaphor · Michael Robert DyetNo Comments