The Agenda

   There is no less significant of a tragedy than that of Kevan Stennett. Kevan was the type of white-collared, business-suited, briefcase-carrying man you’d swear you passed by already on your way to work. In two words, exceptionally average; sort of a reverse Mary Poppins. In spite of his overall immense lack of ingenuity in character, however, Kevan did have friends, although, even given that, he didn’t have the chance to spend time with them too often, only as much as his schedule permitted it, and his schedule was quite full, after all. 

   Kevan, on this particular Friday of days, was rather excited (Well, as excited as Kevan Stennett can be). Not so much about the traffic jam, but more so about the Mets game he had won tickets to after being the highest earner at the company for 2 months straight. He’d figured as much, his boss came by to compliment his reports more than any of his coworkers, but regardless, a Mets game he would attend. He still had half of a work day, though, and the internet would go down for his department, hindering the quarterly report that was due the Monday of the week after next week. Spring always had some surprise within it, which, even that in itself, made it not too much of a surprise to Kevan when the internet went down. Oh well, he didn’t work in IT, that’s their overnight problem, now, he has a Mets game to see! 

   Kevan had stopped by Citi Field much earlier that day, before even the rest of the maintenance crews had arrived to repair a screwy light on one of those big light poles that overlooks the field and gives the anxious heart problems, sporting much different attire, and had left himself a jacket and some cash, knowing that he’d go to work without it and leave his wallet in the car. The plan did work, as when he arrived at his seat, the fleece sweater that perfectly complemented his button-up in an entirely innocuous way, and, more shockingly, the bit of cash he needed to get a stadium hot dog remained. What a day this was! 

    He sat down and checked his pocket planner one last time, just making sure he really was good for tonight’s game, all the way through. The schedule saw nothing but blue skies for the evening, at least until he had to get back to his apartment to rest up. Kevan looked up as the commentator’s mikes warmed up and the organist played some introductory themes, slipping the helpful book into his pocket. Out stormed the players, filling the stadium with cheers and the field with fools who look good on the covers of sports magazines and copies of The Show ‘26. It was all good fun. 

    The game turned out fine. The food was just alright. The crowd was how you’d anticipate any crowd in New York to be, meaning loud, opinionated, and full of expletives. Now, Kevan was on his way to the 111th Street Metro station (Mets-Willets was far too crowded to be viable), ready to take the line down to his house on 36th in Astoria. It’d be a walk, but he needed a detox from the high-octane game that preceded this. He once more checked his agenda, and, seeing no change and a predictable, on-time route in his future, he began to approach the station’s platform and took a nice seat on the railing to calm himself. 

    The wait was not unbearable, but not short either. He watched the train make its gargantuan approach, as if it were a great worm of myth, and made his favorite move of the day as it happened. He turned around and started scanning the streets, looking over each individual person with enough scrutiny, which was not much at all, to find what he was looking for. Ah, there’s one now! A helpless individual who is sprinting towards the platform and is looking awfully panicked. Kevan watched as they crossed the street that ran under him and couldn’t help but chuckle to himself at the foolishness of such an individual. Just before the doors closed, the unnamed individual bounded to the top of the stairs and launched into the train, practically diving to barely ensure that they would be taking this train. Kevan didn’t quite understand as to why you might allow yourself such variability, to the point that your day has a chance to be derailed by actions that are your own. He pondered this as the train took off, but only for a moment, as his phone buzzed, so he checked, and subsequently got sucked into an internet video of a cat repeatedly failing to jump onto the roof of a building. 

    What an apartment. A casual place, so casual, in fact, that there was not a photo on the wall, nor a sofa to sit on, nor a coffee table to drink off of. It was a toy that had been opened, looked at, but never used. The bedroom was relatively furnished, but was a decadent palace when compared to the rest of the flat, having not one, but two bedside tables, with a lamp per, and, get this: even an alarm clock. The time was quickly approaching when Kevan would be arriving home, ready to use the bed and get his required sleep. If it were the case that he had no need for sleep, he wouldn’t get it; it’d increase productivity. Alas, the body was not built for such escapades, so sleep he must progress towards (after all, the agenda had him asleep at 9:47, and he was walking into the apartment at 9:21). He snuck into his pajamas, ate a late-night reheatable meal from a few days prior, and hopped into bed, drifting into stage 2 NREM just as the little digital display beside his head flipped to read 9:47. 

    And awake he goes! Welcome to Saturday, the day of leisure, joy, and just doing the things that your boss assigned you during the workday that was obviously never attainable during the given hours, and the lack of the ability to work overtime, as mandated by your employers, likely won’t help get it done. Regardless, Kevan checked the morning agenda. He was to go down to the coffee place he always goes to on Saturday mornings, ordering his usual, a caffeinated tea, and work on the one or two things that he needed to get done for work. Then, he’d be off to meet up with a buddy and catch the Orange Line down to one of the only things he had somehow avoided seeing in the city until that day: the Museum of Ice Cream. After, they’d see a film back at his friend’s place in West Village before taking a ferry to Liberty State Park, where they will watch the sunset and then head out for dinner to then stay the night that night at his buddy’s house. This looked to be quite the day. 

    There goes the planner, right back to where it always rests, which brings comfort to Kevan. The thought had never occurred to him that he just followed what the planner had said all this time. If it told him to order a particular menu item at a restaurant, he would order it; if it told him to take this train this way at this time, even if it was during the workday or in the middle of an event, he’d just do it. Claiming that he wasn’t autonomous would not exactly be wrong. Kevan was not thinking about this, he was far too distracted with the prospect of seeing one of the few big things he had yet to see in this city he had come to love so much. Thus, he walked out the door right at the given time of 10:04 a.m. to head off to his first stop of the day.

    The coffee shop was just like every other coffee shop in New York, that is to say, overpriced, overcrowded, and possessing an unnecessary gimmick in terms of shop theme (this shop was bazaar-themed). But it was the closest and cheapest place around his apartment, so he had to go there. Plus, he made it out to be worse than it was: the coffee was great, the community was kind, something shockingly hard to find in the Big Apple, and, most importantly, it was right there. Come on, why would someone pass up on such an opportunity? Undoubtedly, this wasn’t the most interesting of topics, so Kevan didn’t think on it too long. The real interest was in his agenda, which had been updated to include a stop by the restroom before hitting the train to the meetup point near the Orange Line. He had to keep an eye on it at all times, as it tended to disregard limitations regarding where he was in relation to things. Regardless, there was no reason to worry; he knew it’d work out in the end, like it always does. 

    Just then, a man walked in. He was a taller man, with long hair that was thickly tangled and visibly was once a vibrant purple, but now is but a dull ferra, and he was just thin enough to be clearly underweight. There was no doubt about it, this man had called some shots in his life. He walked with swagger up to the counter, slamming a Hamilton and a Jackson on it with such force that, certainly, if his hand had not cracked, the counter must’ve. “Surprise me,” he stated loudly. “With what, exactly, sir?” the comparatively small barista asked. “Anything up there. An assortment of those words on the board on a plate for me to eat. Chop Chop!” He then slammed a Lincoln for dramatic effect. “Here’s a tip.” Perhaps it was his demeanor that solidified in Kevan’s mind that people like this couldn’t actually exist, yet the bizarre man was right there, standing as a testament to how invalid his claim is. It wasn’t long before the man was presented with his plate, featuring a grilled chicken sandwich and some chips, and it took even less time for him to ball up one half of the sandwich, gulping it down in one bite, and then transfer the rest of the sandwich to a small leather bag and the chips to a paper plate that nobody could quite tell the origin of. 

    Kevan sat in an uncharacteristic silence, in that it was out of surprise. The man had made him think back on his time before the agenda. Everything was once a possibility to him. He could fly, he could speak any language, and he could be happy for something more than filling the spot of the book. But that was when he was young. Too young. He understood now that things were going to happen, and he was okay with that. After all, it wasn’t like he had ever deviated from what the book said since he’d had it, and his life hadn’t gone awry up to this point, so he figured that there was no harm in continuing to follow the agenda. 

    But he needed to wrap it up. Time was dwindling, and he had a strict schedule to adhere to. He finished up his drink and food, gathered his few belongings, and headed right out the door. Making his way down the streets, Kevan held every individual passerby with a bit more reverence. Each one of these people chose to do what they did every time they could do something, and this led to no one person living the same sort of life. He descended the stairs as his planner marked off “Get to Orange Line,” granting a great satisfaction like every other time he accomplished one of its tasks. There, his buddy was already waiting down on the platform, glancing aimlessly every once and a while to try and spy Kevan through the crowd. Kevan happened to catch his buddy on a downswing, so he remained undetected until he placed a solid hand on his buddy’s shoulder.

  “Hey, man!” His buddy said, turning around to face Kevan. “It’s been a- well, quite a while since we’ve seen each other, how’ve you been?” “Eh, same old, same old. Nothing’s really changed about me. Sort of just the same person from all those years ago, albeit with a better job.” His buddy chuckled. “It’s that damn book, I’m telling you!” “Nah, nah…” “It’s the book! It’s- come on, man. When was the last time you chose something for yourself, huh? Live a little, man! Christ!” Kevan knew that these jabs were harmless to him, but deep down, he felt that the truth was, it really was the planner. Had he disobeyed even one order from the agenda, he would be a vastly different person. Kevan Stennett would be a name known the world over, or a name on a well-kept tombstone in a cemetery, or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He wouldn’t be the relative nobody that he is right now. What would be the purpose of continuing the life of mundanity when grandiosity was just around the bend? 

   Kevan mulled this over during the small talk that occurred between him and his buddy before the train arrived, and in one terrifying moment, he decided to let go. No, he wouldn’t go on like this, suffering at the hands of a bored god, forcing a man into a life of no control! He would fight back! Why did he decide to do so? We were about to find out, before he jammed his hand into his pocket, lifted out the book and, with a slight but noticeable degree of uncertainty, held it over the tracks of the now approaching train. Kevan’s buddy was confused, but glad, congratulating him on finally coming around after all these years. In horror, we watched as the book fell directly onto the rail of the subway, the front car of the soon-to-arrive train rapidly slowing but still barrelling towards the platform, and, in an instant, the train smashed the book to bits, shredding each individual day as though it did not or would never come to pass. The inner monologue of Kevan Stennett slowly faded from our heads just before we could find out what in the world he was doing. We were past the point of no return; all we could do is watch as his eyes became objects to view as compared to objects we viewed from. What a shame. What a shame.

Collin McCormick is a 10th grader at Lafayette High School. He loves to write journalistic articles and non-fiction essays. When he's not writing, he is jogging around his neighborhood or playing video games. He's also a political activist who likes to speak out about what he thinks is right.