Fiction River: How to Save the World

by Fiction River

  Anger over something Tara had nothing to do with, caused by a company Tara didn’t work for, in cities Tara had no idea how to spell, bombarded her for the rest of the day. But through it all the narrator’s voice repeated in her spinning mind. I wonder who I would have become…

  At her first break, she had an idea. By lunchtime, she had a plan. At her last break, Tara ached to be home, to be at her computer, to take action. Finally. The loose pieces that had swum in her brain last night had congealed into a whole. She felt alive for the first time in a long time. At the chime of the clock to release the customer-call cattle back into the world, Tara fished out her backpack and bolted for the door with wings on her Converse. She even wished Ms. Betsy a good night that she almost meant.

  ***

  Slamming her front door closed, Tara only threw one of the two bolts, leaving her chain hanging free. Let them rob her. Good luck with that. Her only truly prized possessions were her crazy sock collection—no matching socks, all unique and crazy—and the computer Doug had given her. She bee-lined to it, tossing her backpack through the beads strung across her bedroom door onto her mattress on the floor (made-up, of course. She was broke, not a slob). She turned on the computer and monitor, starting a pot of water on the hot plate in her closet kitchen while waiting for it to boot up.

  Tara lit a stick of raspberry incense in her ever-losing battle against the constant deep-fat-fried breeze wafting up from the restaurant below and the moldy smell of the old building. She had painted over the cracks and water stains in the walls with deep blue and royal purple. The dark colors made the little apartment into a cave. And she liked it that way. Some Van Gogh sunflowers and a couple Dali dripping clocks via half-off poster day at Wal-Mart and her redecorating was complete.

  Her computer chirped and slid into a gentle, idle hum. Tara dropped into her chair, pulled up Facebook, cracked her fingers, and began to type.

  ***

  Five hours, a torrential wave of typing, and raid of three second-hand stores later (dipping into her coffee can emergency fund) Tara rubbed tired, gritty eyes like a little kid and stretched. She had never been so grateful to have a half-day of work tomorrow, even if it was a morning shift. She groaned as she crawled into bed, achy with exhaustion. And lay awake.

  Her mind spun with what she had done.

  Empower a Kid.

  I wonder who I would have become if…

  The phrase that had haunted her all day had turned into an idea. She knew she didn’t have anything to offer a kid, but others did. And she didn’t know any kids. But others did. It was just the idea that if you were aware and told a kid something positive—something good—to them, supported them, or even just freakin’ said “sure” or “give it a try” to them that maybe they wouldn’t lose hope, wouldn’t let go of their dream.

  Where would we all be if even half of us hadn’t let go of that childhood confidence and hope? she had typed in a furious flash with her two index fingers and a spasmodic thumb on the space bar. “That unshakable belief that we could be whatever we want to be and hard work would pay off,” she’d said into the little webcam found at a Goodwill store that she had finally got working after threatening it with a harsh string of heavy, oily, curse words.

  She had cleansed her pallet with her onscreen pleas to YouTube. “I’m asking you to take a moment, an opportunity when you see one, to empower a kid. Say something, help them in some way, encourage and empower them so that they can achieve what they want to do, whatever that may be. Tell them that they’re worth it and that they shouldn’t give up. Like we did.”

  Tara ended her Facebook post and YouTube video with a request to send viewer’s stories to her so she could share how they empowered a kid. “Sometimes the littlest thing is the biggest thing. And we all like to hear happy stories.”

  Away from the rush of it all, in her bed in the dark, hearing Saturday night’s muffled merriment in the restaurant below and the subtle tink-tink-tink of her drippy kitchen sink faucet, reality forced her face into her pillow with a groan.

  What was I thinking?!

  She came up both for air and to face the fact that no one would answer her. No one would give a flying monkey’s fart about what she had said. She would be just another tiny voice, lost in the noise and chaos of the Internet, and she could just pretend it had never even happened.

  Closing her eyes, Tara tried not to acknowledge the confusing war inside her between hope that she wouldn’t be ignored and fear that she would be. Two teams, and she truly didn’t know which one she wanted to win. So, she slammed a cup of Nyquil and begged for sleep.

  ***

  Tara sprang out of bed and scurried to the computer the moment her eyes opened. She scuttled back to turn off her screeching alarm clock and slid a piece of white bread into the toaster as her computer booted. Her fingers drummed the counter between the clicks of the machine as it heated up. The zing of a hangnail caught her attention. She chewed the offending finger while snagging the raspberry (seedless, because, of course) jam out of the fridge door with the other.

  The computer came up just as her toast did. Tara forced herself to jam her bread before sliding into her computer chair. Breakfast clenched in her mouth, she tried not to drool on her keyboard as she brought up YouTube and Facebook. YouTube pinged first.

  Twenty-seven views. And two comments.

  She skipped the first comment after the third four-letter word. But the second comment…

  What a great idea. I’ll be watching.

  Tara’s stomach flipped and clenched. Her fear strangled her cheer that someone in the world had noticed her. Noticed her post. God, now she’d have to post something else. Well, only if someone gave her something to post.

  Her cursor hovered over the Facebook tab. She closed her eyes and clicked.

  She unsquinted one eye and looked at her profile. Comments. A handful associated with her Empower a Kid post. All along—yay, it’s a good idea—but no action. No sharing of something they actually did. Nothing for Tara to do. Her little losing-her-mind moment could just pass into the ebb of the Internets.

  “Dammit.”

  Tara groaned and got ready for work.

  ***

  Tara both blessed and cursed that her work blocked access to the Internet. She couldn’t help the weird drive to check, to know. Like she was awaiting validation from the world. She had thrown a pebble into the pond with the hope of creating a tsunami. She tried to deny it, but after not being able to push a bologna sandwich past her knotted stomach, she had to admit it. She felt passionate about this idea. And she wanted everyone else to as well.

  She stamped her foot at her slow computer when she got home that night. Then she stamped it again at the world when both Facebook and YouTube were tsunami-less. No stories, happy or otherwise. No comments. No kid empowered that day.

  Tara growled and paced, then threw herself down onto her bed and kicked the wall. Where was her empowerment? The person who could tell her she could do it. Who had faith in her?

  Staring at the wall, Tara saw the divide. The divergent path of that one moment. She could get up out of bed and make it happen. For herself and others. Or she could lie in bed for the rest of her life and wallow in her patheticness.

  She argued with herself. I’ll just fail. It’ll be a waste of time.

  But she felt good trying. She had felt great the night before. On life and alive.

  No one would listen to her. What was the point? She would just feel worse when it was over.

  Worse than I feel now?

  That made both sides of her pause. She growled. Then groaned.

  “Oh, heck and jam.” Tara climbed out of bed against the weight and pull of all her insecurities and fears, and dropped onto her computer chair.

  Plan. Hmmm…

  Fine.

  If the world would not come to her with their happy stories, she would find them on the Internet and retell them. Attract bees with honey and hopefully they would leave some o
f their own. Empower a Kid.

  She would make the world see her. See her idea. Take action.

  World, Empower a Kid. Dammit.

  ***

  “You seem to be putting that computer I gave you to good use, my Facebook friend.” Doug’s soft smile edged the top of Tara’s cube wall.

  Tara rubbed her ear (partly earpiece ache, partly a futile attempt to wipe the latest mouth breather’s filth from her mind) and shrugged. “It’s a hobby,” she threw out, not sure what to say. Surprised at the rush of blood to her face.

  “More than a hobby, I think. A Facebook post everyday, plus a YouTube video.”

  “Well, you don’t have to watch. I didn’t ask you to,” Tara snapped, then immediately felt ashamed. And exposed. She wanted Internet attention to her idea, not personal attention in the real world.

  Blood pounded in her face as Doug’s eyebrows slowly pulled together above his eyes. His gaze seemed to see all of her—to see through her. She fought and won (barely) the urge to crawl under her desk and hide.

  “Tara…” Doug began, then shook his head and started turning away.

  “Doug—Doug, wait.”

  He turned back to her.

  Tara stumbled for words. “I’m—” incredibly atrociously sorry and hope I never do anything again to ever bring that look on your face because you are the only person on the planet who seems to give a crap about me and thinks I am worth being around and I really need that every day just to keep breathing sometimes oh god what can I say, “—glad you read them. Well, check, I mean. Doesn’t mean you read them. Or watch, or whatever. That’s cool.”

  Air whooshed out of Tara in relief as the happy crinkles returned to Doug’s eyes.

  “Of course I read them. And watch them. You’re getting to be a celebrity. Didn’t your last post on YouTube hit a hundred thousand views?”

  “No. Not even eighty thousand,” Tara replied, though her chest still pounded at the thought.

  Eighty thousand views. Eighty thousand people watched her video as she read Empower a Kid stories she had received on Facebook and YouTube comments. Two months ago, she had created an Empower a Kid account on Facebook and began posting videos, tales, and story snippets people had sent her and others posted their stories in the comments on those pages. She had more than ten thousand friends now, and dozens of new requests daily. It was crazy.

  Every day, she bolted home to her computer and her new life. It had taken months, but Empower a Kid was building. People liked the happy stories. And were making and sending stories of their own. Her favorites were the kids that wrote in about the people that helped them. And the amazing things they accomplished because of it. The power of confidence.

  Doug’s words had been the first time her Internet life had been commented on by a person in her other life. Her real life? She felt so strong and happy at home on her computer. She was surprised by how fragile she felt when confronted with her alter life. One word of ridicule could shatter her. Especially by Doug.

  What if Ms. Betsy found out? Tara shuddered at the thought. The laundry list of insults and degradations would leave her in a whimpering pile. Or would force Tara to take a hedge trimmer to that red-haired monstrosity of hers. Maybe that would get the old bat off her back once and for all.

  “Tara.” Her name eased into Tara’s mind like a cool salve laced with kindness. Doug’s eyes held hers. Like a gentle hug. “What you’re doing is great. Don’t stop. Not for anyone.”

  “I won’t,” she swore. Her favorite swear ever.

  Doug nodded with a soft smile and dipped below the cube wall.

  Tara planted her feet and wished the feeling of her chair spinning would stop. ’Cause she had just been empowered. Believed in her and acted. For her. She had had her moment. Her own story to tell. Oh, god (or whoever) it was the best feeling ever. She felt a thousand feet tall and a million miles wide. Like if she tried, she could fly.

  “What bee just got in your bonnet, little missy?” Blue-bellied tarantula-eyes blinked atop the cube wall in front of Tara. The red hair mountain loomed. “Looks like someone just handed you the world.” Ms. Betsy sneered.

  “Because they did, you evil harpy. Now go drive someone else to suicide. This shop is closed,” Tara replied sweetly with a genuine smile.

  The mountain receded, hopefully to never rise again. But Tara didn’t care anymore. There was nothing that woman could say that would mean anything to her anymore. Tara had just been handed the world. And she had no intention of giving it up to anyone.

  But she had every intention of sharing her story with the world.

  ***

  Tara couldn’t help herself. Even after twelve years of daily Empower a Kid posts, her spine still tingled to see the KidTube hits. She tapped the flexi-glass screen on her wrist to bring up that morning’s video. Already well over eight digits. She hoped they would reach over a hundred million by noon.

  Tara looked up from her wrist to the window. Her office window that looked straight into another office building window. Oh, the glorious view, she thought with a snicker. But she also grinned as she slid her toes, covered in clashing paisley on one and polka-dots on the other, out of her dress flats and popped them up on the metal heating vent windowsill.

  With one hand she decapitated the Cookie Monster cookie jar on her broad, dark wooden desk and snagged a coconut macaroon. Hand-dipped in chocolate, she nibbled the cookie and nudged her rolling chair a bit to the right and back. At just the right angle, she could see past the metal and glass monstrosity next door to her perfect viewsliver of the Golden Gate Bridge, all orange and majestic. Fog free—a rare treat in March—the bay sparkled a cheerful blue beneath it.

  Her wrist beeped and vibrated—a text from Marjorie, her PR gal.

  EMERGENCY MUST C U NOW URGENT.

  Tara pulled down her legs, and popped the rest of her cookie in her mouth. Marjorie never shortened words in texts. So, it must be serious. Marjorie thought it unprofessional, though Tara didn’t care either way. Get your message across, that was the important part.

  Of course, Marjorie disagreed. “Empower a Kid took off because of the way you imparted your message, all rough and tumble. People liked that, related to that. The raw, brutal honesty. You pulled in a good chunk of people that way. But now you want to reach the rest of the world, and that’s why you hired me.”

  Tara had already reached some of the world—well, four different countries—when she first hired Marjorie. Funded by the donations of her viewers, her little home project had grown from her cramped living room to office space big enough to hold her, Marjorie, Doug (working again as a CPA, but now for EAK—Empower a Kid), and a slew of volunteers that Marjorie kept saying they needed, but Tara felt just got in the way, and made everything more busy and complicated.

  Hearing the frantic clicking of Marjorie’s heels approaching her office door, Tara sighed. Sometimes, she still wished for the quiet confines of her dinky first apartment. It never held the chaos of motion barely contained in the room on the other side of that door. At first Tara had thought a private office was too extravagant. She had finally agreed for the quiet to record her messages. Now she blessed its existence, and conceded its necessity for her own sanity.

  Her gaze drifted to the world map on the wall next to the door. A rainbow of color-tipped pins marked all the major cities in the United States, as well as cities in thirty-seven more countries around the world. “Thirty-four more than when I started. And growing every day. This is why you pay me, Tara.” Marjorie had reminded her just yesterday. “EAK Chapters like this one are popping up all over the world every day. Utilizing KidTube to post their own inspirational stories, in their languages.”

  “But I don’t agree with some of the directions people are using EAK for,” Tara had argued, words she’d said more than once, and didn’t think she would be heard that time either. “EAK Daycares and schooling projects? EAK is a way of thought, a choice to make in a person’s life to reach out and help
another. Not a vetted safety blanket. People are taking advantage of our message for their own gains.”

  “Which is free advertising for us. You need to think bigger, Tara.” Marjorie had said while waving a chiding finger at her. It had pissed Tara off. So had her next words, mainly because Tara knew they were true. “This is bigger than you now. You have to let some things go if you truly want to achieve what you set out to do.”

  That didn’t mean Tara had to like it. Or wouldn’t try to figure out a way to bring it all back together again.

  EAK had become so big that parts of it, groups and entities spouting the EAK ideology and the name—her name—acted in ways completely hypocritical to the message. It drove Tara nuts, and kept her awake at night. Doug calmed her, just by his presence as she ranted her frustration to him in private. Salt-and-pepper had turned to white, his cane had turned into a wheelchair, yet Doug’s gentle smile hadn’t changed, and still warmed Tara every time she saw it. His eyes had crinkled when he said, “No matter what happens, Tara, look what you have done. You have changed the world for the better. You, my Little Bird.”

  And she had.

  Unemployment down. Violence in inner cities at all-time lows. School graduation percentages up across the entire United States. And countries with EAK presence had seen the same relative results.

  Tara hoped that whatever drama Marjorie was bringing wouldn’t start another argument. Oh heck and jam, she admitted to herself, they were fights. And they’d become more frequent and heated over the past couple weeks.

  Tara slipped her colored toes back into her dress flats and tucked her legs under the desk as the door flew open.

  Marjorie’s newscaster-perfect blonde hair swung in agitation, her face pale beneath her makeup. All her normal calm and easy grace in her tailored suits and designer heels had fled.