Who’s Todd?

Who’s Todd? That’ll take a bit of explanation.

It was two days ago. I was sitting at my desk, slogging email on my old G4 PowerBook. Some climate change articles, if memory serves. Up pops a little yellow window. The Stickies program was open.

Funny. I’d never even used the Stickies before. I was about to hit quit when this message appeared in the little window: the chicken sent me

I’ve been around computers enough to know that now and then they get a bit silly, and that I’d probably never understand what had just happened. Annoyed, and wanting to get back to my reading, I quit the program.

Almost immediately another sticky popped up. Great, I thought. A virus. I thought Macs didn’t get viruses. Another message appeared. the chicken said to find you so here I am don’t quit ok

My fingers hit the keyboard. Who the hell are you?

Another sticky popped up, this one green. todd

So how did you hack my laptop, you bastard, and what the hell do you want?

In the next hour or so, on sticky after sticky, yellow and blue and green and pink and gray, Todd told me just who the hell he is, and what the hell he wants.

Todd O’Malley was a bank teller who lived and worked in the Chicago almost-suburb of Spackle Grove. I put this in the past tense because Todd died about three months ago. He was in his apartment one evening, where he lived by himself, when he choked to death on a pizza roll while watching Battlestar Galactica.

I’ve read the obits online. I’ve asked Todd questions and fact-checked his answers as best I could. His story seems legit. I type on my keyboard, in Word, in Mail, in Photoshop, wherever, it doesn’t matter. Todd answers with stickies. I’ve yet to trip him up. As far as I can tell, there’s a dead bank teller in my computer.

I didn’t see that one coming. Deus ex Macintosh.

Why is he here? I’ll let Todd’s own words answer that one: I started to look for a door or something I was scared shitless and there was this thorny stuff all around me and I tried to run and the chicken flew over and said youve got work to do todd and he told me your name and said that I have to help you so here I am

So Todd’s here to help me. I’m not at all sure what that means. He can’t do my laundry or cook my dinner. He can’t walk my dog. Maybe I can get him to do research for me. But I’ll have to watch him. I told Todd what I do for a living and he just laughed, if typing ha ha ha onto a sticky note counts as laughing: you spend your time looking at the collapse of civilization and the extinction of human beings what are you some kind of a nut things are fine humans can innovate their way out of anything and I dont believe for-

Well, you don’t need to hear it. We’ve all heard it before. I can’t seem to stop Todd’s stickies from appearing. But I can sure as hell edit his ass here.

I don’t know what comes next. Todd seems to have settled in. This morning there was a sticky on my desktop with a link to an article about how the hydrogen powered car is right around the corner. I went outside and looked, but didn’t see it.

I asked Todd how he found me. the chicken gave me your url and I just followed the contact link

I have no idea who this chicken is. Todd hasn’t told me the whole story yet. All he says is: dude wait til youre dead and youll see its not what you think and that chicken is really pissed off

So, I have that to look forward to.

Gotta run. Todd says hey. We’ll be back.