Modern-Day Messiah

Chris looks into the large fish tank in a corner of the expansive office where he spends his days developing computer software, and watches its oldest residents – two leopard bush fish – staring back at him. "Stupid fish," he mutters, and slowly walks away.

Approaching a long desk filled with computer terminals, his workmate since college that he shares it with, Tom, slowly comes into view. Chris plops down in his rolling chair, and through the clutter can barely see his longtime friend sitting on the other side.

"Wanna go out to lunch for a change?" Tom says, pumping up his chair for a better view of Chris behind the maze of monitors. "I've got to get outta here for a while. There's a code problem with a program I'm workin' on, and I need to get a fresh perspective on it."

"You've been out to lunch ever since I've known you! But yeah, sure, and you can even talk to me about that computer problem of yours if you want."

"Maybe, but mostly I just need to clear my head, because right now my brain is caught in an endless loop."

"Order will always prevail in the end, my friend, and that's the beauty of it: These machines can only follow the logic we put into them."

"But sometimes you gotta stop thinkin' and give the human brain a rest if you don't want to confuse yourself and them."

"I know" Chris says as they head to the elevators, though he really didn't.

Later that evening Chris returns to the high-end apartment he shares with his fiancée, Abbey, who works in the financial sector.

"You beat me home!" he says as he walks through the door.

"It's not that hard to do since my office is closer," she replies. "But I can't always leave at five on the dot like you, since I have to deal with human beings as well as computers."

"Are you jealous of my love of artificial intelligence?" he says, and they embrace.

"Not if I come first."

"Of course, my love, and you bring another variable into the equation," he deadpans; she blushes. "By the way, is your family still pushing for a full church wedding?"

"Of course -- I am Catholic, after all. I take it you'd still like my father to pay for it?"

"I'm not gonna fight about it. And since I was at least raised Catholic too, there's still a little lingering guilt there. Besides, I wouldn't want to steal your parents' chance to buy some insurance against their grandchildren going to hell!"

"That's a good boy," she says, sitting on the sofa and patting the space next to her. "Now why don't you come over here so we can decide what to get for dinner."

"I already know what I want," he said, bending over and playfully grunting while pretending to gnaw on her; he falls over and they both erupt in laughter.

************************************************************

Chris has more than enough going on at work to keep him busy during the next few weeks. But in the back of his mind he's still coming to grips with the transition his selfish life is about to undergo at 30 years old: from single to married, and then husband to possibly a father. And he's becoming confused about little things he normally wouldn't, even at work where the clarity of a computer-system's brain trust is second nature to him.

At first he chalks it up to wedding-day jitters, but the situation gradually worsens until even Chris' own rarely seen parents notice that something is off with him. Worried that he's not prepared for the worst since he'd forsaken his religion long ago, he knows that a medical cause needs to be ruled-out first.