The Human Condition (and other stories)

I’ve been working on a bunch of short stories for awhile now, and I am finally close to publishing them. It’s important for me to mention that this is not just something I’ve been doing as a hobby due to quarantine-induced boredom, it’s something I’ve been working on for awhile. I consider writing my profession. I’m not some loser with an acoustic guitar playing like a lunatic on Instagram because I’m bored: I have put a lot of time into this.

Anyway, at this point I have enough for a book, and it's called “The Human Condition.” They’re a bunch of stories about humans struggling in some way, they hopefully teach life lessons, and all begin with a quote that the story hopefully exemplifies. It’s exactly what the title suggests: it’s about humanity.

Below is the titular story from the collection. I’ll make another post when the book is finally ready for purchase (which should be very soon). Thanks for your time.

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I. The Human Condition

All the children of Adam are members of the same body. When one member suffers, all the others suffer as well. If you are indifferent to the sufferings of others, you do not deserve to be called a man. 

—Muslih-ud-Din Saadi 

It happened on an average day, like any other. That’s how these stories usually go. Some people like to say things about tragedies, like the fact that 9/11 was an unusually pretty day. I’ve heard that kind of thing a thousand times:

“The sky was blue, the sun was out, it was such a beautiful day!”

I think that’s kinda bullshit. People need their delusions to live, and it helps to make the story juicier. The truth is: life is always a mess, even when it seems “nice” out. It’s all meaningless. It’s all chaos. Nobody knows what’s going on most of the time, so we search for things we think mean something to improve our perception somehow.

This story’s not about 9/11, so you don’t have to worry there. The day this particular tragedy occurred was many years later. It began with a man the news report later revealed to be named Franz Brod. I was told he left his home at around 7:30AM or so, his normal work commute time. He entered his car, and got on the highway to head to his job as a schoolteacher on time.

Mr. Brod was not unlike many other teachers in his position; between grading papers he enjoyed reading books, watching his favourite shows, and learning various skills on the internet whenever he had time. The point the story takes a turn, however, is poor Mr. Brod’s affliction from allergies.

It wasn’t just seasonal either, those that knew him well would later attest to the fact that it could be quite bad. One of his co-workers made the comment, “He suffered badly. BADly. I don’t think I’ve ever met a guy with a harder sneeze than Franz....before or since.”

If untreated, it could almost appear as though the man had somehow been possessed. His condition was so intense, he had no option but to take 50mg of diphenhydramine every morning with his daily vitamins. I don’t know how much you know about that drug, but it’s the official term for Benadryl. If you’re unfamiliar with its effects: 50mg would make most people pretty sleepy, and Mr. Brod had to live like that every day.

The day the tragedy happened, Franz ran out of his stash of allergy meds at home. The day before, he was in such a rush to leave for work he hadn’t realized he was on his last pills. It was just one of those things that became part of the background of his life. He must have thought, “This bottle always has my pills, I’ll always be fine.”

Mr. Brod apparently kept another bottle of his magic pills in his desk at school. On particularly tough days, staff members would notice him reach for his stash to cope.

“Oh yeah, I definitely saw him take them a few times,” the gym teacher would later tell the news. “We used to laugh about it: I kept protein powder and weights near my desk, and he had allergy pills.”

At some point in his morning commute, he found himself feeling a strange, itchy discomfort in his nose. He immediately recognized it as a sneeze, but it just wouldn’t come to be.

We don’t know all the details, but according to the reports: Mr. Brod called his wife to vent about how he was feeling. She told reporters the call was unlike him, as he rarely ever called home so soon after leaving it. He was the type of guy that liked to call during his lunch break, so she knew something was amiss. 

“I just knew it. I knew. Something was wrong. As soon as I saw the caller ID I knew it wouldn’t be like any other day,” she said.

Mr. Brod’s uniquely awful condition got increasingly worse. I can’t imagine how he must’ve felt sitting there trapped in traffic, and although callous to point out: a problem that was pretty much his fault. I mean, it’s bad enough to be going to work in the morning when you’d rather sleep in - we’ve all been there. But feeling like you may have made a mistake that could cost you your health? It’s so much worse.

When the sneeze finally arrived, it would have disastrous results. Never failing to let a good headline get past them, the media used titles like, “The Sneeze That Changed the World,” and “One Person Can Make a Difference.”

Mr. Brod went from being unable to sneeze at all to being unable to stop sneezing. These weren’t normal sneezes, they were painful explosions. It was like a shotgun blast that kept forcing out of him.

In a moment of desperation, he started searching through his glove compartment. According to the autopsy, his body suggested he was in the middle of reaching for something when it happened. He must have sneezed again, at which point his foot stomped down hard on the accelerator. His car went crashing into the truck in front of him at full speed. If there is any positive to be found here, it’s the fact that he didn’t suffer: experts say the crash was so bad Franz died instantly.

I wish I could say that was the craziest part, but if you think about it.....that was really just the beginning. Franz Brod’s mistake(s) that morning led to a chain reaction that would be felt for generations to come. I know that sounds like I’m exaggerating, but it really was something. The case was so wild that Malcolm Gladwell even wrote a book about it at one point.

To give you an idea how wild this case was: in traffic, right behind Franz Brod was another teacher on the way to the same school. What are the odds of something like that happening? It’s amazing. Here’s where it gets even wilder: that second teacher failed to react to Mr. Brod’s blunder in time, and crashed her vehicle as well. Fortunately, she survived. But she was hurt so badly she ended up having to miss months of classes.

Two teachers from the same school abruptly missing. Needless to say....it had a terrible effect on the students of both classes. The principal was left scrambling to find adequate replacements for both teachers, and although other teachers stepped in, some would argue they never quite pulled it off. For the rest of that school year both classes of students failed to adapt to such a sudden change in the dynamic. As a result, the students suffered setbacks that persist to this day.

And yet....that’s not even the worst of it. This is where the story gets a little darker. I take no pleasure in telling you this, I am merely relaying the facts. The third vehicle involved in the chain reaction set off by Franz Brod’s gaffe were a couple. They actually happened to be on their way to the hospital at that very moment to give birth to what would have been their first child. Unfortunately, the impact of the crash led to a miscarriage.

Even crazier: there was a second couple expecting a baby involved in an accident. I know it sounds like I’m making all this up at this point, but that’s exactly what happened. It’s just one of those things that lined up perfectly to make us all scratch our heads about the existence of whether there’s a higher power or not.

Interestingly, the second couple was not actually planning to have the child. At the time of the crash, they happened to be on their way to an abortion clinic. When they realized they had survived such a freak accident, the woman made the announcement she wanted to have the child after all. They ended up having the baby successfully, and that kid grew up to be me, and now you’re reading this. Funny how these things all work out, huh?

There was even an instance of tragedy that didn’t even occur on the highway. An old man was spending time with his grandkids nearby. It was a typical day, until they were crossing the street: a pair of police officers speeding to the scene ended up hitting the man, missing the kids by a baby’s breath. 

I have to say, though, my absolute favourite case would have to be the one with the old lady. At the time of the accident she was 100 years old, and still driving. Now, here’s the crazy part: she was one of the few people to react in time properly, resulting only in a scratch on her car.

“I can’t believe this at all,” she later told the news, “I’m not even sure how this happened. Never thought I’d live this long.”

She would actually go on to live another 26 years, becoming the oldest person in the world. How crazy is that? She broke the world record, you can look her up.

“I don’t know what advice I’d have for anyone. I have no idea how I made it this far. What can I say? I use a lot of olive oil, maybe that helps, I don’t know...”

“But isn’t there one word of advice? Come on.”

“Try to have fun. Be safe. Eat your veggies. All the things people already know but don’t do.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, one thing I’d like to stress is try not to worry too much about how long you’re gonna live. We do what we can in life, but the house always wins. When it’s time, we all gotta go. So much of life is just whimsical and silly anyway. You really never know what could happen, so don’t worry about it.”