Chainsaw woke early. Something felt coordinated.
By 8:02, six texts. By 8:05, an email from his boss. By 8:10, even the spam had joined the cult. The mailman held eye contact too long, performance-review style.
“May the Fourth be with you.”
Chainsaw nodded like a man being sized for corporate re-education. He’d always hated enforced merriment — mandatory fun, team-building, synchronized clapping. Today the entire grid had decided the dumbest meme in history was mandatory.
At the store the cashier didn’t scan. She simply waited, customer-service smile locked and loaded.
“…May the Fourth be with you,” he muttered.
She lit up like he’d just paid his carbon offset. The register pinged happily back online.
By noon the whole city had joined the performance. Doors paused like they were buffering. Screens dimmed expectantly. Strangers froze mid-conversation, social credit on the line. When he tried silence, reality itself throttled — Wi-Fi dipped, traffic slowed, even the fluorescent lights seemed to hold their breath. Saying it twice made people flinch like he’d committed a micro-aggression against the brand. Saying it early earned him polite, empty stares until their turn came.
At 6:00 PM the spell broke. No pings. No expectant faces. Just blessed, ordinary silence.
Chainsaw leaned forward on the couch and said it anyway. To the void.
“May the Fourth be with you.”
Nothing responded. No likes. No engagement. No algorithmic pat on the head.
He sat back, smiling for the first time all day. The machine had either glitched… or he’d finally opted out.
For once, the coordination lost.