William Cantor Jr., a man with a new job.

For a moment, William just stared at the barista, his coffee forgotten beside him, unable to completely believe what he had seen. Just to make sure he hadn’t been hallucinating, he gave himself a somewhat subtle slap on the cheek, a pinch of the arm, then writes in the rule again, seeing the woman’s top vanish, erasing the rule, and watching as the woman’s top reappears. He does it once more, this time he writes it as a new rule instead of an old one, and watches in amazement as the woman blushes, pulls the apron over her head and manually removes her top, tossing it somewhere under the counter.

Any other man might be concerned about what might happen if he erased the rule now, worrying for the poor girl’s reputation, William was not one of those men. He erased the rule and watched as the woman looked down with horror and covered herself. He heard the gasps of the customers around the counter as she bolted away and through a door neatly labeled “employees only”. She would be unable to explain why she had removed her top, and likely would be fired. He had seen all he needed to.

It wasn’t that William Cantor Jr. wanted the woman to get in trouble, it was that he simply did not care, which was in itself its own kind of cruelty. If it was the intention of whatever left the rulebook here that it fall into the hands of someone who had any shred of empathy for those whose lives would be changed by the rulebook’s changes, that entity would be sorely disappointed in Will. However, if it was their intention that the book’s new owner would do exactly what he pleased without remorse, regret, or empathy, they would be delighted with Cantor.

In short, when movies and books talk about artifacts of great power “falling into the wrong hands”, his is the pair of hands they mean. Will smiled in spite of himself.

The first thing he did was remove his phone from his pocket and call his boss.

“Cantor? What is it?” his boss and principal of North Hale Junior High School, Norbert Johns, asked on the other line.

“I quit,” Will said, in a voice that was shockingly calm to his own ears, “no more of those ratty little shits, no more grading papers, no more parent-teacher nights—"

“Whoa, whoa, slow down Cantor, what are you talking about? You were a year from tenure—”

“And no more answering to you, you insufferable bag of spiders.” With that, William hung up the phone and then turned it off. He was about to have a job interview and wouldn’t want his old boss calling in the meantime. That would be pretty embarrassing.

He went to work in the notebook immediately. He found himself surprisingly good at coming up with ideas. Suddenly every fantasy he’d ever had came rushing to him, and he made sure to account for nearly every one of him. Not all of his changes were seamless ones, unbeknownst to him, the world was changing around him to accommodate the changes. The gears and engines of whatever machine silently worked behind the scenes to make the rules in the book turn into a reality were hard at work with William’s tight and neat script.

He was dully aware of the pretty barista girl storming out of the café with tears streaming down her cheeks, and an angry-looking man stepped to the counter, he guessed it was her boss. It seemed Will wasn’t the only one out of a job, not that he would be for long. Meanwhile, not far from where he was sitting right now, a new office building had appeared in an empty lot. A car had appeared in a gap in traffic heading toward the café. All at once, nearly every bra, save for those used in swimsuit sets, vanished causing many pairs of breasts to drop slightly, but not sag. Any advertisements or locations that had previously contained brassieres were now occupied by panties of equivalent value wherever they might have been.

Couples everywhere, those of which involved men in any capacity and who were in public places, taking part in love-making suddenly stopped and righted themselves. More than a few women who were chatting with each other casually or as friends began to get a little more than friendly with one another, including touching, kissing, flirting, some even taking part in sapphic acts of sex. It was almost as though the romantic energy from the former group had been transferred to the latter group instead.

Closer to home, quite literally in Cantor’s case, the dingy apartment he owned suddenly had gained new occupants. It was the family of one of his former coworkers, Dirk Manor, a man who William hated immensely. They now lived in this apartment, and Cantor now lived in the house the Manors used to call home, which was closer to the city’s university and a much nicer place by comparison. The only exception to this latter move was Manor’s oldest daughter, a college student that Will always lusted after in his fantasies, who now believed him to be her loving husband despite being almost twenty years his junior.

Finally came the changes to Cantor himself. Gone was his pot-belly, back was his hair full with a salt-and-pepper coloring that looked much more handsome than his thinned, greying hair. Gone was his heart-condition, his high blood pressure, and the early-onset arthritis that was beginning to creep up on his wrists (this change was made spur of the moment when the furious writing he had been doing began to cause aches in the joints).

He smiled, his work done for the time being. He had changed everything he could think of at the moment. No, the rulebook’s new owner wasn’t the sort of hesitant and morally questioning sort. Too many years as a schoolteacher and seeing the worst humanity had to offer, not just in the students but in the parents that raised them. Too many years of watching his dreams get pissed away for the sake of safety and normalcy. Too many years being belittled by his slightly more successful colleagues and “friends”. Too many rejections, and too many disastrous acceptances. William Cantor Jr. was more than happy to do with this stinking ball of filth what he pleased.

The door to the café opened, and someone came in looking for him.