Thomas' Mystery

Once upon a time, there was a man named Thomas. Thomas was exceedingly average. When he went to school he earned average grades, at work he performed exactly as expected, and when he returned home, he spent his time as an average American would. Thomas stayed in line as he should, never making waves, keeping on the correct path of life so that he could eventually retire and live a relaxing life wherever he ended up. He always hoped it would be California, but he would be fine in whatever quiet suburb was offered to him.

One winter morning, Thomas woke up as on any other day. Today, however, something was off. From the moment that Thomas opened his eyes, he couldn't help but feel as though he was forgetting something. As he showered, brushed his teeth, and then got dressed, he thought hard about what he was forgetting.

"What could it possibly be?" Thomas said out loud to himself.

"If it was this important, you'd think I'd be able to remember what it was."

Thomas continued through his morning routine and sat at his small kitchen island to eat his breakfast of buttered toast and a black coffee as he watched the morning news. The governor was giving a speech from a hospital bed declaring victory over the pandemic. In between hacking coughs that splattered saliva and mucus over the hospital equipment, the governor told the public that any consequent deaths caused by a related illness would be promptly cataloged in official documents and then shredded for safekeeping. The governor assured those at home that the shredded documents would be recycled according to federal environmental care guidelines, supporting the newest green initiative.

Thomas checked his pantry once more, scanning through the various items he had in stock.

"I didn't forget to go grocery shopping, I've got plenty of food."

Thomas quickly glanced at the clock on his microwave and realized that he needed to start heading out to work if he was ever going to make it on time.

Thomas stepped outside and got into his car. As he pulled out of his driveway and began to drive into the city to work, he passed by pristine apartments that were home to no one. Those who couldn't afford them simply sat in the alleys between them, trying to survive the winter cold as best they could as they were left outside to the elements.

Thomas thought on his bills and quickly ran through each one he might have forgotten.

"Rent paid. Electric paid. Sanitation paid. Everything's been paid off this month. What else is there for me to forget?"

As Thomas came to a parking spot near his job, he saw a group of people standing in the small urban green space holding signs protesting the latest cop killing. Thomas watched, lost in thought, as armored police vehicles carrying people in SWAT gear drove into the green space, gouging the turf with their military-grade tires. The police robotically exited their vehicles and began arrests, making sure that anyone whose skin was anything darker than a light shade of beige was beaten within an inch of their life before throwing them in the car and taking them away.

As blood began to stain the shirts of the oppressors, Thomas thought to himself again.

"Did I forget to take something to the dry-cleaners?"

Thomas inspected his clothes, looking for any noticeable stains.

"No... I think everything was clean back at home too. What is it?"

Thomas decided he wouldn't solve the mystery from his car and made his way into this office building. Thomas walked past the empty cubicles still pondering his mystery. He sat down at his desk and watched his cubicle neighbor Darryl pack up his things in a box provided by HR. Darryl was let go like many other people at Thomas' job. The company simply couldn't afford to maintain the employee's quality of life without cutting into their billion-dollar profits. Thomas, however, was lucky enough to be the great-nephew of one of the board members and was assured that this company would be "like family" to him.

As Darryl crashed through the window and fell from the eighth floor, Thomas snapped himself out of the trance of doing menial accounting work and came to a realization.

"Oh! Maybe I have a doctor's appointment after work! That has to be it!"

Thomas quickly pulled up the calendar on his phone and found... nothing. No doctor's appointment, no appointments at all.

"Well... at least I'm not forgetting any appointments. What am I forgetting though? I'm not going to get any work done today, this is taking all of my concentration."

Thomas got up from his desk and approached his boss to see if there was any way he could use one of his three-yearly paid sick days to take the day off to tackle his white whale.

His boss seemed rather distracted while watching a news broadcast. A war had broken out in some countries far away causing thousands of deaths within the short time between the first bomb dropping. Thomas couldn't catch the specifics, but his boss seemed troubled enough that when Thomas asked for the day off; his boss simply agreed to let Thomas leave without even hearing Thomas' excuse about his grandmother passing away.

As Thomas made his way to the car, the police had finished arresting the remaining protestors and were transitioning over to create protective barriers for the white-supremacist rally that was happening in the afternoon. Thomas turned on his car, his mind puzzling still over his personal Sherlock Holmes story made real. He even had to turn down the loud sirens that were playing over his car radio so he could concentrate. The traffic in front of him was coming to a standstill, Thomas thought to himself once more.

"I've checked every possible list and schedule that I have, still nothing. There's no possible way I could've forgotten something. Maybe I'm just having an off day."

Thomas planned to return home and take a nap, perhaps he just needed a little bit of rest. Unfortunately for Thomas, his mind had been too preoccupied to notice the announcement from the radio telling him to take cover. He had been too distracted with his phone, looking at his schedule, to notice the people fleeing from their still running cars. He was too busy honking his horn at the people running out in front of his car to notice the mushroom cloud forming a few miles away from him. As his body turned to ash almost instantaneously, a final thought formed in his brain:

"It's a Tuesday, Tuesday's are always rough."

As a shockwave blasted through the city, Thomas' home shook and began to collapse. As the fridge fell over, a sticky note that had fallen from the refrigerator door and hid underneath was finally uncovered.

It said this:

Hey Future Thomas! Don't forget to take the chicken out of the freezer to unthaw while you're at work! -Love Past Thomas

Thomas wouldn't have to worry though. By random chance, the atom bomb had missed its intended target by about six miles. Had the bomb dropped at its intended location, Thomas' house, and the chicken within it would have been reduced to ash, much like Thomas himself. A few miles further away, the chicken would still have been partially frozen inside the freezer. However, by some miracle of chance, the bomb was dropped in just the right place, that by the time the bursts of atomic heat had passed. The chicken was perfectly cooked, ready to be eaten by Thomas, who would never return.