This is a story that takes place in a world very much like our own, with one key difference.
There is a lever that, when flipped, will end the world.
No fanfare. No build-up. No warning.
Just, no more world.
The lever is located just off the side of the road in a perfectly ordinary small town in the middle of Ohio. No guards, no gate, nothing standing between it and the rest of the world.
But everyone knows that if that lever ever gets flipped, the world will end.
Needless to say, no one flips the lever.
This is also the story about a very naughty lizard named Nate.
Nate likes to cause trouble. He’s also curious. Very curious.
And he wonders, if he flips the lever, will the world really end?
Now, instead of simply wondering about it, he decides to fulfill his scientific (annoying) curiosity.
Nate decides he’s going to find out for sure.
So, Nate, who currently resides in Indiana, decides to walk to Ohio, find the lever, flip it, and see if the world really ends.
The journey is a long one. It’s the middle of winter, on top of the distance, and Nate endures harsh conditions. He makes his way through the wind and ice and snow, he survives thirty days and thirty nights in the freezing conditions. He meets many people and animals.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t learn that the real lever is the friends he’s made along the way, and continues on his quest.
Finally, after over a month of travelling, Nate sees it.
All that stands between him and the lever is a simple dirt road.
Nate begins to cross the road.
This is also the story of a man named Dave.
Dave is currently driving home after a long, hard day at work. Dave is unhappy at his job. He wants to quit and go back to graduate school, but his girlfriend Jennifer is pregnant. He knows he has a responsibility to his unborn child, so he stays at his mindless, soulless accounting job so he can provide for them.
Dave is finding a rare moment of joy in a song that just came on the radio, singing along, when he realizes that he’s about to run over a small lizard that’s crossing the road.
The only way to avoid running over the lizard is to swerve off the road. Dave considers doing this, until he sees the lever that, if flipped, will end the world.
Although Dave is a kind man, a non-violent man, as well as a noted reptile-lover, he runs over the lizard, squashing Nate flat like a pancake, and continues the drive home without another thought.
Nate is dead.
The moral of the story?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Better Nate than lever.
