This is the story of a man named Stanley.
Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was employee number 427.
Employee number 427's job was simple: he sat at his desk in room 427 and he pushed buttons on his keyboard. Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk telling him what buttons to push, how long to hold them, and in what order.
This is what employee 427 did every day, every week, every month of every year, and although others might have considered it soul-rending, Stanley relished evеry moment the orders camе in, as though he had been made exactly for this job.
Stanley was happy.
And then one day, something very peculiar happened.
Something that would forever change Stanley.
Something he would never quite forget.
He had been at his desk for nearly an hour, when he realized that not one, single order had arrived on the monitor for him to follow.
No one had showed up to give him instructions, call a meeting, or even say "hi."
Never, in all these years at the company, had this happened.
This complete isolation.
Something was very clearly wrong.
Shocked, frozen solid, Stanley found himself unable to move for the longest time.
But as he came to his wits and regained his senses, he got up from his desk and stepped out of his office.
All of his coworkers were gone. What could it mean?
Stanley decided to go to the meeting room - perhaps he had simply missed a memo.
Stanley walked down the hallway that kept on swerving- left, right, right, and left.
When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on the left.
Yet there was not a single person here either.
Feeling a wave of disbelief, Stanley decided to go up to his boss's office, hoping he might find an answer there.
Coming to a staircase, Stanley walked upstairs to his boss's office.
Stepping into his manager's office, Stanley was once again stunned to discover not an indication of any human life.
What could it mean? Stanley wondered aloud... to nobody.
He began wildly tearing through papers on his boss's desk, pulling books off the shelves, looking behind paintings, desperate for clues to his situation.
But his attention was caught by a keypad behind the boss's desk. What could it's purpose be?
In fact, this keypad guarded the terrible secret that lay buried below his feet, and so the boss assigned it an extra secret pin number:
1-4-2-6.
Of course, Stanley couldn't even know that.
Yet incredibly, by simply pushing random buttons on the keypad, Stanley happened to input the correct code by sheer luck. Amazing!
He stepped into the newly opened passageway.
He went on the elevator and pushed the down button. The elevator gave a groan and begin to descend.
While descending deeper into the building, Stanley realized he felt a bit peculiar.
It was the stirring of emotions in his chest, as though he felt more free to think for himself, to question the nature of his job.
Why did he feel this now? When for years it had never occurred to him?
This question would not go unanswered for so long.
Stanley walked straight ahead to the door that read "Mind Control Facility."
He pushed a button that was labeled with a lightbulb.
The lights rose on an enormous room packed with television screens. What horrible secret did this place hold? Stanley thought to himself.
Did he have the strength to find out?
Stanley pushed the camera button.
Now the monitors jumped to life, their true nature revealed.
Each bore the number of an employee in the building.
Stanley's coworkers.
The lives of so many individuals reduced to images on a screen.
Eternally monitored in a room where freedom meant nothing.
This Mind Control Facility - it was too horrible for him to believe, it couldn't be true!
Was Stanley really under control this whole time?
Was this the only reason he was so happy with his boring job?
That his emotions were manipulated to accept it blindly?
No! He refused to believe it! He couldn't accept it! His own life in someone else's control? Never! It was unthinkable, wasn't it? Was it even possible? Had he truly spent his entire life utterly blind to the world?
But here was the proof. The heart of the operation. Controls labeled with emotions. Happy, or sad, or content. Walking, talking, eating, working. All of it monitored and commanded from this very place.
And as the cold reality of his past begin to sink in, Stanley decide that this machinery would never again exert its terrible power over anyone.
Stanley pushed the "OFF" button.
...
Blackness. And an arising chill of uncertainty.
Was it over?
Yes! He had won! He had defeated the machine! Unshackled himself from someone else's command! Freedom was mere moments away! And yet... even as the immense door slowly opened, Stanley reflected on how many puzzles still lay unsolved. Where had his coworkers gone? How had he been freed from the machine's grasp? What other strange mysteries did this strange building hold? But as the sunlight streamed into the building, he realized none of that mattered to him. For it was not knowledge or power that he had been seeking, but happiness. Perhaps his purpose had been not to understand but to let go. No longer would anyone tell him where to go, what to do, or how to feel. Whatever life he lives, it will be his. And that was all he needed to know. It was, perhaps, the only thing worth knowing.
Stanley stepped through the open door.
Stanley felt the cool breeze upon his skin. The feeling of liberation. The immense possibility of the new path before him. This was exactly the way, right now, that things were meant to happen.
And Stanley was happy.
