“What do you feel when you are working with them? What crosses your mind when your hands are moving through their lives?” Mr. Calamity asked.

It was a fair enough question. I had been working with him for only a few days and yet it felt like an eternity. Each of the people’s lives that I had been working with was a different story. Marshall was trying to find himself in a new version of his life. Katlyn could barely remember what life was. Jonas, Jonas was just trying to get out alive. They were all different. All broken in their own ways. So what did I feel when I looked down into the chaos of their lives? I felt useless.

“How many lives have you lead to despair? To their ends?” I asked.

Mr. Calamity leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. He was lounging. Like we were talking about what to have for dinner or what he was going to wear tomorrow. I only ever saw him in his suit and his stupid bowler hat, so his clothing options couldn’t have been on his mind.

“I’ve lead a lot of people along the path of disaster. I told you that some of them don’t make it out okay. Some of them don’t make it out at all. You knew that early on and you kept going. Then you saw something truly awful in that third door and it shook you. Tell me this though, you watched plenty of unborn children not make it to the path of life. You helped so many of them die. How is that any different than watching the people in Brookewill die?”

“It’s different.”

“How? Don’t just state something. Tell me something.”

“The unborn. They didn’t scream.”

“A life is a life. All those burning in the fire. The people that jump from buildings. The people that are murdered. The children that get killed in car accidents. They are all the same. Just a life along a path. I get them to the end of that path. Just like you did, bringing children into this world or denying them the chance. You weren’t offered this job at random.”

“Maybe the wrong choice was made,” I said.

Mr. Calamity put his feet down. He took his hat off and looked at me. The calm that normally lived in his eyes was gone now. The shroud was lifted and from behind it, loss came forth. Sadness was alongside it.

“Many times I thought I was the wrong choice. I worked with people and thought the whole time that I wouldn’t be able to do anything for them. I was leading them down a path I didn’t believe in. Then I tried to lead them down a better path.”

“What happened?”

“There was a flood. People were drowning everywhere. Countless people were dying. My job was only to keep two afloat. A brother and sister were on top of a car. Their parents had been swept away by the flood. They were alone, freezing cold, and stuck on a metal island. The car was moving. It was heading towards deeper water. There was a helicopter coming to save them but it wouldn’t be in time for both. I had to give the car a push. Left and the brother survived, right was the sister. I chose door number three. I halted the cars momentum so both could be saved. The helicopter made it to them and they were being pulled up by the coast guard. Then the storm strengthened and blew the helicopter sideways. First the kids and the coast guard member that was saving them went under. Then the rest of the helicopter. Everyone died. I couldn’t look away either. I was stuck there with them. I was by their side as inch by inch the water filled their lungs. There was no one to pull me away from it. That was the first time I tried to change the path and failed. It wasn’t the last though. I’ve been responsible for many bad things happening that never should have happened. After each time I always thought I was the wrong person for the job. Then I looked around and realized no one else was around. Nobody was sent to replace me. No one was yelling at me telling me how bad of a job I did. I was alone in this. No one is truly cut out for this job, but someone has to do it. That someone was me. When I’m gone someone else has to do it. You might be that person. You might not be. But you are the one here now.”

He put his hat back on and then his feet were back up on the desk. He didn’t show that side of him often. That was the first time I had ever seen it. He wasn’t professional, but he was real. As real as anything. Maybe even more real than The Plan itself. I felt ready to go back in. I knew the dangers and hardships I would face but I had to know if I was the one for the job. Plus, like he had said, there wasn’t anyone else in the room besides us.

“What’s your real name? Mr. Calamity can’t be it.”

He laughed at me. Then got up and headed past me to the door before looking back.

“No, it’s not my real name. All my friends call me Cal.”