The Commandments

Steve woke up to take a piss. He always woke up at around this time to empty his bladder.

He left his bedroom and tried the doorknob of the bathroom door across the hall from him. It opened without problems and Steve stepped inside.

When he flicked the switch, he was surprised to see the marker and envelope that the gentleman had given him last night sitting on the counter surrounding the sink. Instinctively, he checked his pockets, and, indeed, they were empty. He briefly wondered if someone had taken them from him while he was sleeping, but dismissed the idea out of hand. He always locked his bedroom door before he went to sleep, and in any case, he was a light sleeper. He would have woken up if anyone had reached into his pocket.

Suddenly, the marker and envelope seemed more sinister--less nondescript--than they had been when the gentleman had handed them to him. Nevertheless, Steve felt drawn to them, as if they emitted a peculiar magnetic wave that attracted emasculated, college men.

He grabbed the corner of the envelope between his thumb and index finger and held it between his eyes and the ceiling light. However, he found that he couldn't see through the envelope.

He sighed and looked around, as if expecting to find someone in the bathroom with him. He checked the bathroom door. It was locked.

He tore open the envelope.

Inside was a regular-sized printing paper. White. There were words on one side. The paper was surprising because it seemed so strangely normal.

At the top of the page was

COMMANDMENTS

printed in bold letters, all caps, and underlined. Below were ten 'Commandments', listed in the following order:

1. All rules must be written before 6:00 am and will last until 10: 00 pm. Rules written after 10:00 pm or before 6:00 am will take effect at 6:00 am.
2. New rules cannot be written between 6:00 am and 10:00 pm.
3. Creators can only write up to three rules.
4. Rules lose their effect after 10:00 pm.
5. Rules are effective only within the domain in which they are written. People who are not within the domain are unaffected by the rules.
6. Those who become unaffected by the rules, either by leaving their domain or because the rules have expired, will forget that the rules had ever affected them.
7. The rules must obey the laws of Logic of the world in which they reside.
8. Commandments 5 and 3 do not apply to Administrators.
9. The rules will affect only those who have seen them.
10. In the case that a Creator or Administrator dies, his or her Stylus can be given to a Candidate, upon which time the Stylus will revert to Creator privileges.

Steve read the paper twice. Very little of it made sense. He suspected that the marker that had been given to him was a 'Stylus' and that he was most likely a Creator. He thought that commandment 7 was referring to the laws of physics. That it seemed to imply the existence of other worlds was something Steve tried to ignore.

He folded the paper back into the envelope and into his pocket. He still had to take a piss, and did so now. Then, he left the bathroom and walked into the kitchen.

There was a small white board on the fridge's door. It was also just a few minutes before 6. Given what the Commandments had said, he likely had time to write only one rule before 6:00 am. Steve didn't know why he was even attempting this experiment; obviously, it wouldn't work. The gentleman had been some prankster. At any moment, Ashton Kutcher would jump out of the fridge and inform him that he had just been Punk'd.

And yet, the envelope and marker (Stylus) had certainly been in his pocket. However, they appeared in his bathroom, as if knowing that Steve (and no one else) would be there very soon.

And yet, the gentleman who had given him these things was strange. And unfashionable,_ _Steve remembered.

And yet, it didn't matter if it worked or not. Steve was curious. And curiosity was an exciting thing.