January 1st

 Prologue


That year started with people waking up and blinking away the celebrations of the passing of another year. 2022 was going to be “The year when things got good” after all - not like 2021 or, even worse, 2020. Earth was going to be a good place to live finally. 

We didn’t know what was coming. And all it took was a few days.


1


It seemed to happen all at once - on Facebook and Twitter and Youtube and every other bit of social media - the unnamed man showed up. He wasn’t there on the day before but on January 1st he was on all of them with huge followings. His statements were discussed on the news and in print. His tweets were read by millions. 

It seemed so innocuous at first. He urged peace, prosperity. There were some that sensed a problem. Nobody gets to be that popular literally overnight without question of course. Allegations of “Bot followers” sprang up. But weirdly… all his followers across all media seemed… real. None seemed like bots.

I want to recount his messages as they proceeded that fateful month. I remember seeing one that first day on twitter. All it said was “Be kind. Follow your glee.” Seemed innocent. But then I looked at the metrics and it had 100 million likes. I looked again - I must have seen that wrong. It must say 1000 likes, or 100 likes. But no, 100 Million. And still going up. I gave it one, shook my head and mentally thought about how his simple stuff worked best in the modern world.

I mean, I had a lot of things to do. Work, family, arguments on twitter of my own, the cat to feed, myself to feed. Social media has those flashes in the pan so what did I care if one innocent message got a lot of likes.

But then I went through my day and couldn’t stop thinking of it. “Follow your glee” became almost a mantra to me that day. I’d look up and see it floating in the air. I went back to the tweet and it had even more likes and I sat there, looking at it. Apparently I wasn't immune to a simple message. And it seemed so so so nice and logical. Was I following my glee? Did I know what my “glee” was? Did I even know what this man was talking about? Who was he? 

“I have no idea”, I said to myself and sighed out loud. I wasn’t getting any work done that day - I wanted to know the answers to these questions. I wanted to know why my life seemed less fulfilling than the day before. The sun seemed less interesting. My work seemed less fulfilling. Maybe I wasn’t following my glee? 

I pushed the chair back from my computer and walked out to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and to give the cat a bit to eat for lunch. As I stood there, looking out the window, I saw some people walking on the street. Most seemed to be going on their way as they always had before but some seemed to be lost in thought like me. I wondered if they were thinking the same thing I was. Maybe their lives were less important than they thought yesterday from only 3 words that showed up on their screens? I don’t know. That first day was just fodder for thought.




2


That night I laid awake and stared at the ceiling. The cat jumped up on the bed and rubbed her head against my forehead. I rubbed her ears and turned over on my side for sleep.

“Follow your glee” pursued me into my dreams. I can’t remember my dreams anymore but I know it did. I am sure it did. 

I’m sure it followed quite a few people into their dreams that night. None of us understood what was coming.

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