What Would You Choose - Aftermath

"Actually, Choice number Two was a certainty if you picked that, Jack. I would have made sure it happened."

Jack realized he needed to be warry of this Stranger and not let his guard down.

"Choice One had a lot of moving parts and a lot of players exercising their free will over an extended period of time. Choice Two neither you, nor Amanda, would be aware of the impending danger for her driving that night. So there was no free will to exercise. The only variable was if that bus driver was going to take his meds that night before he started his shift. He had a prescription to take those meds for 3 weeks, and this was the fourth night into that. So it was a certainty that he would take them. But like I said Choice Two, if you chose it, I would have made sure it would have happened. We didn't have to worry about the 'free will rule' getting in the way on that one."

Jack felt he needed to close out this conversation and change direction from the casual way the Stranger was talking about the demise of his wife, "So am I going to forget this conversation ever happened like last time?"

"No, Jack, this time I'm going to gift you the knowledge of what you did. Last time you chose your loved one over yourself. Even when no one would have known your good deed you chose to sacrifice yourself instead of your wife. You knew that meant the loss of your wife and children. You thought you would be left behind alone to suffer in hopelessness and poverty. You could have saved yourself all that pain and could have had riches and at least your kids, if not your wife. So many fantasize about what kind of revenge they would take when they are betrayed. Here you could have prevented the betrayal and the pain to start with and at the same time become rich.

"Even though I had some limits to what I could say to you, I made you believe last time that Amanda and Brent ending up together was almost a certainty. Your true choice was really a yes or a no on Option Two. If you said yes to Option Two, Amanda would die and Option One would never happen. If you said no to Option Two (and by default chose Option One) then Option One would happen, because you were made to believe that's what Amanda would choose for herself and your children.

"These last few years you have proven to yourself, with the help of some others, of what you are capable of. You had inherited the construction business from your father and when it failed your self-image was shaken, even though you believed the Great Recession was to blame. You felt that you had simply been lucky. You had inherited an already successful business that deep down you felt you had run into the ground. Not being successful at a job you hated shook you up even more. But you have shown that you have what it takes. You have that knowledge about your character now and I'm going to give you a gift and allow you to remember the choice you made. A choice you can be proud of.

"Coming through your tough times has allowed you to see Amanda's true character and deep love for you. It has allowed you to see the character of people like Brent who do the right thing for the people they care about even if it gets in the way of their self-interest. That kind of knowledge is a true gift, Jack.

"You had always taken for granted that you're a good man and that you would do anything for your family, even at extreme cost to yourself. But now I'm going to allow you to remember so that you would KNOW that you are a good man, and that you WOULD actually do that."

Jack was truly touched by the sentiment this Stranger shared with him. Both to make light of the moment, and because the thought hit him he remarked, "You made it seem like you guys were dispassionate, disinterested parties when it came to us humans. You seem to be much more interested in our welfare than you were pretending."

The Stranger smirked once more, "Well, maybe I've taken a little more interest in you than I let on. After all I've been watching you for a number of years now... even if I lost the bet because of you."

Jack looked up at the Stranger with eyes wide open, "I knew it!"

*****

There was interest by some readers in writing a second part and taking it in different directions. Initially my goal with this story was to write a preemptive BTB story, and direct the question towards the reader, "what would you choose." I needed an instrument to be able to have a preemptive BTB or at least the MC to be able to prevent his wife's cheating and betrayal and losing her and his kids to his nemesis, her lover. This brought about the idea of the Stranger.

Readers in their comments of part one took more of an interest in the secondary and tertiary themes of free will and destiny, and good and evil than my actual point with the story which was what would you choose if you could prevent your wife's betrayal and your subsequent pain, at the cost of the woman you say you love.

So in this part I extrapolated on the Stranger and gave an idea of who he may be. For those choosing to write their own part 2 you have my permission to make him whatever you wish him to be.

The point that the idea of "free will" or "fate" was somehow specific to Christian theology is incorrect. All major faiths deal with that to one degree or another. If you think about it they all have to. And it's not just theology that deals with this concept. Human beings have been struggling with the idea of how much input they have with what happens to them for a very long. Even in Greek mythology you have the actions of humans (free will) being limited with the will of the gods. If I remember my Greek mythology well enough, sometimes man's will was able to override the will of the gods as well. It's a universal human experience and not limited to one religion or philosophy.