Yes Professor.

Aaron was a noted professor in a prestigious university. He taught philosophy and was set in his beliefs, yet open to having his mind changed if the argument was intelligent. They say: "Every thinking man has a muse at least once in his lifetime." Everly was his.

Everly was a first year philosophy student. It was a cold December, at the beginning of her education starting in August, she took interest in her philosophy class, and professor as well. She took his class as an elective in support of her liberal arts degree because she knew Aaron was progressive in thought, yet open to discourse within the coursework yet at the same time, seldom, if ever changed his position. He was challenging, and always engaging but didn't seem to like change.

All of the students held Aaron in great esteem. She of course was taken with him immediately, and he too with her. As we all know, these kinds of interactions were generally frowned upon by staff, he did his very best to ignore her open flirtations, which of course made her even more interested.

Everly was 22 years old. Aaron was almost 30. The age wasn't the real issue with her flirtations, among academics, reputation is truly everything. Gone were the days of Hughes-like flirtations between students and professors. It simply didn't happen that way anymore. So he ignored her as best he could.

Everly was as persistent as she was lovely, and as intelligent as she was shrewd. She didn't do what some might, she didn't dress provocatively to interrupt Aaron's classes, she did something worse, she challenged his resolve. Openly and boldly Everly would instigate counterpoints with precision. It was almost as though she understood the subject matter better than any professor. At times, it seemed as though she understood the coursework and the actual intentions of the philosopher almost as if she knew them personally which of course intrigued, Aaron, prompting him to return her goading with the attention she craved.

While out with a friend for drinks, Aaron confessed his... interest in Everly. Not by name of course, not in detail, but by explaining how there was this brilliant first year student, half way through his course, who understood the complicated philosophies of men like: Sartre, Spinoza, Aristotle, and even Hegel with a precision that most of his colleagues didn't possess. She understood more than most in four months time. He explained how it was almost tormenting for him, to be afraid in this day was common, and he wanted to, but refused to engage her for a fear that it might be viewed as inappropriate.

He was basically asking his friend for permission. He too understood this. As this is what we are all truly doing when we are asking for "advice."

The friend, also a professor in an unrelated course of study, although he was an intellectual, he had been drinking most of the evening, so whatever response he provided would of course be skewed in judgment. Note how the setting was chosen ahead of time, so this was confirmation that Aaron was really just fishing for permission to engage Everly farther than is reasonably permitted, less any guilt that may otherwise keep his intentions in check.

We don't ask advice of impairment, when common sense is the response we seek.

His friend of course answered with the usual drunken revelry that always seemingly intelligent when posed in Latin. He cited Horace's famous quote, and elaborated, which cemented Aarons intent to proceed by saying: "carpe diem quam minimum credula postero!" As the two men clinked oversized mugs of designer APA beer. Anything quoted in Latin makes a foolish idea seem sensible. Drunk intellectuals seem to follow it as if it were a rule, but that is why alcohol was invented. So they continued drinking through the cold December night.

Aaron heard all he needed to hear. He intended to pursue Everly against common sense. He started to convince himself that he might be in love with her. As a scientist, his friend may have been wise to inform him, under more sober conditions, that when we want to have permission, we also tend to justify our feelings by conjuring the chemical cocktail for love, and without realizing it, most of us attribute curiosity, and intrigue to this volatile chemical composition that is more unstable than a Molotov cocktail, in that you can shake it all you like, just make sure to never light it, and if you do, have the good sense to run. Aaron was beyond good sense. He wanted something more, and it seemed that Everly did as well.

For all of his openness to having his mind changed. There was of course (as there always is.) one topic which he never seemed to be able to accept. He was raised in a strict religious home, people from religious background's have specific brain function that is difficult to stray away from completely. As it is said: "faith comes hard earned, and once it is set, it is as difficult to break as a habit, as it is to assimilate in the first place."

Guilt of course is one of the most powerful catalysts within religion. Aaron was heavy laden with guilt. The kind that was designed to make a man hesitate. However even King David succumb to a naked Bathsheba bathing on the roof in the moonlight, even to horrible consequences. Love does that, faith is supposed to work along with love, but when it is not real love, it works as a direct contradiction. This is how infatuation drives on desire beyond where guilt can prevent us from making the kinds of mistakes where we are left merely to chalk our losses up to lessons learned.

Everly changed under the weight of his loving gaze it was an intense month and the feeling of peace and goodwill was in the air as Christmas was fast approaching. Everything she said suddenly seemed to draw Aaron in to pursuing his foolish endeavor even stronger. Like that infamous song by the Police. "Don't stand so close to me." Where were these prompts of common sense when you really needed them? As far away from us as could possibly be, and even if someone drove by blaring that song out the window of their car, once Aaron felt he was genuinely in love with Everly, none of these things applied to his intentions. Love is pure of course. Religious faith, and the guilt that precedes us, is excused away into something more acceptable than it is.

Everly began to engage him more, the more he pushed back, he was now pushing back, to drive her intent to match his. This is how this sad situation works and it was playing out in full color right before both their eyes. Aaron however wasn't listening closely enough when the subject of discussion changed to his least favorite philosophy of them all, that of the stoics. Heraclitus, and Leucippus; Determinism was a problem for Aaron. He didn't like change, and needed desperately to believe that man controlled his fate, and the idea of a creator acted as a rudder. Everly was a atheist, and she began to challenge him, which only made him want her more.

Within the auditorium, among at least 50 other students, standing small, unassuming, and almost mouse-like, this young girl began to hurl examples to back at Aaron, to justify her position like a juggernaut. She came for Aaron with a fire that both confused, and surprised him. There were moments within her arguments where he was left speechless, but just said whatever came to his mind, like stitching weak patches of thought together just to have something to say, even when they made no sense to back his argument. She began to check his every thought, and his desire for her suddenly began to take a turn.

Everly was approached, called out intentionally to pose a reflection on her reasons for believing in a deterministic universe when all around us, men displayed pure empirical evidence of there being proof of free will given to us by the intelligent design of our conscious understanding, as a part of our evolutionary process through our time spent within this lifetime.

Everly posed Aaron one question which set his teeth on edge, and rendered him completely speechless. She boldly stood and asked: "Professor. Free will is not impossible, but improbable. When you woke up this morning, was your course of action preset into the events of your day? Did those actions stem from choice, duty, deference, or were they merely something held on automatic somewhere within your brain? Is free will then subject unto something more likened to a conscious understanding of what is expected of us, of what we have been guided to accomplish our entire lives in every moment which preceded it? Moment to moment, from the very beginning of our conscious development are our choices truly ours, and are we therefore the creators of our circumstance? Did you choose to wake up and come here this morning, and if you chose not to tomorrow, was that decision too, not preset into a longer now that we aren't privy to as a whole?"

Aaron stood there practically drooling on himself. He was caught. He wasn't sure how to proceed to respond. She got him, she had the tiger by his tail, and she wasn't going to let him go. His thoughts were caught. Not on her beauty, not on any want, or desire to be intimate with her, to hold her, feel her presence and life against him. He was struck silent in contemplation. Luckily the timer buzzed to indicate to him the class had ended. He stammered for a moment as the entire class sat at the edge of their seats waiting for him to respond. He said to himself silently: "Saved by the bell." And said: "Unfortunately, I do not have the time to respond. I will, when we meet again as a first order of things. Fate it seems has given me time to consider the inquiry. The class began leaving, Aaron stood up tall to see if he could find Everly in the crowd. He wanted to ask her to stay afterward to ask her if she would like to discuss her question in private over coffee.

Unfortunately she was gone. He sat silently and thought hard about the question. Mulling it over and over, again and again, piecing the events of his life together like un-solving a rubicks cube backward in slow motion to the current state of its chaotic position, from an initial place of a perfection. He pondered the question, probably for the first time in his whole life. He quietly said: "Is this life mine? Have I created this by my will, or have I followed some invisible, or long forgotten spark that is so far removed from my current state, that I simply don't remember it?"

He put his face into his hands. He was frustrated, vexed even by her inquiry, annoyed that he simply wasn't sure. When he opened his eyes, Everly was standing there. She simply said: "You called?" Aaron jumped back in his seat, startled. She chided: "Did I get to you?" Knowing the answer already. Aaron had no cards in his deck that would trump her, or counter her. He simply looked up at her defeated and said. "Yes, you did." She seemed pleased. "Coffee" she said? "Sure" he replied. Give me one second to collect my things.

They walked to the coffee shop down the street, off campus of course, and the song lyric finally hit him as they walked silent. The Christmas decorations were out, and the twinkle lights were lit. Just a few days till Christmas. He thought to himself. Then immediately the song came into his head: "Don't stand so close to me." He sang silently to himself. Wow! What am I even doing right now? He thought to himself.

Everly noticed he was deep in some thought, so she engaged him in conversation to ease some of the tension she understood he was feeling. She said: "Randomness is merely a lack of sufficient information you know?" "What?" Aaron said, snapping out of his mentally taxing internal music shuffle. Correcting himself immediately, "Sorry, yes, I'm a bit, off today, I apologize.

Yes, in some context, this is true, but not always. "What do you mean?" Everly asked. Aaron replied: "Well, randomness doesn't determine anything. We still have choice, and free will. I can change my mind at any minute. Do I want, coffee, or tea, for instance?" He responded, as they opened the door to the café. "If this were a deterministic universe, and nothing was subject unto free will, and therefore nothing could change its course, Why do we have choices at all?"

Everly responded without thinking. "Well, randomness would prove free will, if all of the choices were present, and possible, if they were presented within this current moment, and within this particular circumstance and we knew that ahead of time. What if, you chose ice cream, but they only had tea or coffee here? You would be forced into making a decision based on the choices provided, which are predeterminate instances of deterministic circumstance. No?"

They sat and began to dig into the conversation. "He said, I can change my mind outside of the parameters of choice, I can still choose nothing, or to leave, or to take my business elsewhere."

"Can you though?" She said softly.

Aaron thought, of course I can. Come on, let's go somewhere else, right now. That's spontaneity. I get to choose.

What time is it? Everly asked. "It's four o'clock." He said. "Okay, maybe you're right, let's go somewhere else. I agree, let's go." Aaron was happy she indulged him. He felt for a second that he had his power back. And with that, the attraction to her was present in his mind again. As they gathered their things, and motioned toward the door. Everly said something strange. "One more second." Aaron didn't think about it much, and proceeded out onto the sidewalk. Everly followed him, she smiled sweetly, and stopped, kissing him passionately. Aaron succumb, all of the tension releasing from his body in a moment, allowing her, even to his great surprise to kiss him openly in the street just a block away from campus.

Everly smiled warmly, stepped out into the street to cross to the café on the other side and in that same instant, a bus sped by and struck her down right before Aaron's eyes. He stood there completely frozen. With their breath still lingering in the chilly air between them.

A crowd formed quickly. Everly was gone. She was hurt too badly to save. Aaron watched in absolute horror as they gathered her lifeless body and placed her into the ambulance. With that, an odd thing happened. A butterfly haphazardly drifted past. It was too cold for them this time of year, it seemed out of place against the snow piles and the slush, it clumsily fluttered by battered by large snow clustered sticky snow flakes, and Aaron caught his gaze on it hard. He thought suddenly, still in a bit of shock. " The Butterfly effect?" Aaron thought, fast snapping out of it, as a police officer stopped to ask him what happened. "She just, stepped off the curb, she never saw it coming, I didn't either." "Alright son, thank you for the information. I'm sorry." It was determined to be an accident just a month ago, she was alive, happy, engaged in her studies. And now, right before Christmas she was gone. Irreparably gone. And it was almost as if she knew. That was the kicker. Why did she make pause to leave. That kiss was fatalistic. All of this became too much too fast.

By Christmas, the driver, who had an otherwise impeccable driving record, riddled in guilt, drank himself to death out of despair. His family who was almost completely dependent on their father and husband, never completely recovered and their lives were changed forever.

The café owner installed a barricade outside of the shop, to prevent any accidents in the future, but it wasn't enough to help people forget the scene that took place outside that day, less and less business eventually forced him to sell. By mid January, the café was closed forever.

Aaron became despondent. Caught with a feeling of unrequited love and riddled with guilt, he was unable to adjust, or to deal with the circumstances that he believed his greed and infatuation inevitably caused Everly. He felt that his lust, and pride caused her death. He retired early from teaching, and became a lecturer on grief, and loss, never teaching philosophy again; determined to agree that change is the one great catalyst to our existence and that we have little control over the larger picture, but we are only able to make small diverging steps to the left or to the right.

He thought how everything changes, and it is best to allow it to. He thought about how much more time he might have had with her had he simply not hesitated a few months, a month, at least they might have had December, even just that. Everything changed for him in a month, but sometimes it only takes one second within that larger frame of time. We are an aggregate account of our moments, but we have so little control over the larger picture.

Citations:

The Police: Don't stand so close to me. Zenyatta Mondatta. A&M Records. September 19, 1980.