Page 85 of The Happiness Blueprint
“We have a seat to Reykjavik for 2600 kronor, leaving in two hours. In case you don’t get the girl and fancy going, it’s a lovely place. You only have twenty minutes until your friend’s flight closes,” she announces, at which point I shove my credit card at her along with a thank-you and get ready to sprint.
I run toward gate 22, my pocket contents banging against my thighs and heat starting to creep up on my face. This was not how I would have imagined myself turning up to ask for Klara’s affection. Like a schoolboy running for the bus. Also realize I should not come empty-handed—flowers, chocolates, anything.
It turns out I don’t have to worry about that.
“Final boarding call for flight 342 to London Gatwick,” a voice crushingly announces. If I were someone else, say Usain Bolt or a politician running away from responsibilities, I would have given it my all, spurted ahead and made it with a second to spare. But I have to admit my limitations. I’m Alex, and on the best of days I couldn’t run a half mile in about two seconds. I stop and catch my breath.
I’m not winning Klara back today.
Give Dan a hug when I get there. Had told him I might not make it, but turns out I did.
“All good?” he asks me and hands me the obligatory beer.
“All good,” I echo.
We look out over the wild sea. There’s nowhere to sit. There’s a ladder and some other equipment by the door and the lights in the ceiling flicker as if they know their days are numbered. My legs ache from being on my feet all day.
“The wine bar didn’t look too busy when I passed it on my way here,” I say.
“I wouldn’t mind a sharing platter,” Dan says.
“Shall we have the next one there, then?”
“Let’s.”
It doesn’t feel sad when we leave, or not as much as I expected it to. Because I still have Dan, and that’s something. I turn off the lights, and Dan locks up behind us. We bring the beer bottles with us and throw them in the recycling bin in the lobby.
That evening when I get home, I scroll back over the weeks, looking at each day to see where it—whereI—went wrong. Realize, strangely, I wouldn’t change the past, even if I could edit it like a calendar entry. Because I need to be right where I am now. So does Klara. Know she said it’s not real and that I can’t edit life, but the future is still open. I can create a digital future, show her what Klara and Alex’s story could be like. I start to add entries.
Shared Calendar
• NEW TASK:Apologize to Klara. Never should have lashed out at her when nothing was her fault
• NEW TASK:Tell Klara about the first day we met. How she blew me away
• NEW TASK:Tell Klara I’ve grown more and more crazy about her with each day
• NEW TASK:Figure the future out together (long-distance relationship?)
She may never read them, but at least it exists now—the future I’d like.
KLARA
Where would I be without you?
Google Search I’m Feeling Lucky
The room is large and airy. The test invigilator has striped yellow socks that remind me of a bee. There are a lot of boxes on the paper in front of me, and I don’t mind them: I like when they are ticked, and I try to make my ticks symmetrical. The spaces for writing, on the other hand, bother me: they are large and empty and very white, and I am supposed to fill them. So far, I have written two sentences. Everyone else in the room seems very busy. I don’t understand how they cannot hear the buzzing of the bee socks that is so obvious to me.
The forty-five minutes are coming to an end, and more and more people get up and leave. I have to resist the urge to get up and push the chairs in after them. I feel sorry for them—the people, not the chairs—as I can’t imagine someone who fails to leave the desk and chair neat would have nailed the test.
The question stares at me.Many people think technological devices such as smartphones, tablets and mobile phones bring more disadvantages than advantages. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
My extra time has started, and something strange happens. The box-shaped space with its lines for writing transforms itself into a speech bubble and words start to form inside me. I write. In fact, I write so much that I have to add a line outside of the box to fit my last sentence in. I discuss how I might have died without diabetes technology, and how social media can give opportunities to people who desperately need them, say, young girls with Down syndrome or another young woman trying to run a business. Google can find schnauzer owners, and it can hold a whole family in one little square app. Then I argue how technology can aid mental health, say, by helping a young man beat depression by enabling him to keep track of small, but measurable, achievements. And how it may know that two particular people belong together and should sync their lives before they even know it themselves.
When I put the pen down the swarm of moths in my stomach have gone to sleep, or died perhaps—a moth’s life spanisvery short—and I smile at the bee-sock man as I hand him my papers. I tell him, “Thank you. Have a nice afternoon. I’ll just buzz off now.”
ALEX
