mirevolver

During my rather uneventful weekend, I came up with an idea for a series of short stories. These stories would not be written in my usual writing style for fiction, but in a much more lighthearted and perhaps humorus way.

And without furthere ado, here is the first installment.
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The Chronicles of What’s His Name

Disclaimer: The following is a complete work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons real or imaginary is purely coincidental and overly exaggerated.


I. INTRODUCTION

The following is a series of short stories about a not so ordinary person who lived in ordinary times that were about to become not so ordinary on a not so ordinary planet.

Jared was by definition, a genius. He just didn’t know it, nor would he let anyone tell him he was. More to the point, Jared was an antisocial genius. He lived in a city that was located about twenty miles up the road from hell, or at least it felt like that in the summer months, which for this city the summer lasted from April through September. But Jared enjoyed living in Phoenix anyway, despite the fact that it was also one of the larger metro areas in the United States. So why would such an antisocial person like Jared enjoy living in an area inhabited by several million other people? Because it was the logical thing to do. At least according to Jared it was. Just as fish swam in schools to hide from predators, Jared hid from people by being surrounded by people.

But there were really three reasons why Jared enjoyed living in Phoenix. First of which was the layout of the city. The layout of most cities, with exception to Houston, tends to follow some sort of logic or reason. Take for example most European cities. The streets of most European cities are narrow, winding, often turn back upon themselves and in general tend to go in the direction you least expect the street to take you. They were designed this way because when they were built, there was the constant threat of the army from the neighboring land invading, claiming the city as their own, then deciding that the place smelled funny before looting and pillaging the place and leaving. So the streets were designed to be the most confusing things in the world, until the Rubik’s cube was invented, in the hopes that the invading army would take the wrong turn and then be forever lost in the city. And as the armies of the time were made up entirely of men, they would never bother to stop and ask for directions.

Phoenix on the other hand is the exact opposite of most European cities. This is extremely clear if you fly in or out of Sky Harbor International Airport, which is located in the middle of the city. The streets of Phoenix are laid out in a nearly perfect grid which was really only broken up by the highways that run through the city. Not only was the layout logical in the mind of Jared, but it also gives way to his second reason for why he enjoyed living n Phoenix.

Jared liked to drive fast. And the perfectly wide, straight streets of Phoenix were perfect for driving fast. Many a weekend he would be found in his silver Mercedes CLK convertible cruising along Scottsdale Road or better yet, just driving around the city on the Loop 101. There was really only one thing he didn’t like about driving in Phoenix, the other drivers. To him they just simply impeded him from having a good time and the lot of them needed to go back to driving school. Worst of all were the blue hairs and the snow birds; oddly enough, those who fit into one category would usually also fit into the other. The blue hairs were the retirees living in the city and for some odd reason their cars were unable to exceed 35 miles per hour. It’s as if there’s some secret law that says when you turn 65, a special task force from the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles will sneak up to your car, pop the hood and install a governor set to 35mph.

As for the snowbirds, Jared dreaded when he was behind a car with a Minnesota, Montana, or God forbid any Canadian license plate. Every winter, they came to Phoenix in order to avoid the frigid, absolute zero temperatures and the twenty foot snow drifts that could be found in their hometown. Then while in Phoenix, they would drive at a speed of ten miles per hour below the posted speed limit. Jared could only fathom that this was because they stared directly into the sun as they drove around. He would imagine that the conversation inside their cars went something along the lines of:

“Hey, look. It’s the sun.”

“Oh, wow. It’s really bright.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know the sun could be that bright.”

“Yes, it’s very bright, so bright in fact that… Oh God, OH GOD, I CAN’T SEE! I’M BLIND!”

Then there was also the possibility at least for the cars with Canadian plates that the person driving was unable to accurately convert between kilometers per hour and miles per hour.

But aside from the other people on the road, Jared absolutely loved driving in Phoenix, especially when the driving was taking him to his third reason for enjoying life in Phoenix, the local Indian casinos.

Jared was a gambler, though in his case the word is used rather loosely. Most people who walk into a casino are immediately distracted by all the bright lights and noises and free drinks. But Jared would walk into a casino with a mission and that mission was to make money. His main game was blackjack and he was good. So good in fact that it didn’t matter that the casino was using eight decks, he was still counting the cards. As an idea of how good he was, his Mercedes and his house in Scottsdale were purchased with his casino winnings.

Why did he take up gambling? One may ask. The reason is as follows, casinos are the most antisocial places on the entire planet. The moment you walk into one, you can feel the sheer amount of distrust everyone has for everyone else. The managers distrust the employees and the players. The players distrust the cameras watching them from every possible angle. The security guards distrust everyone. The slot machines distrust the granny feeding nickels to them and slapping the spin button twenty thousand times per minute. The grannies distrust the slot machines which in the past hour have taken their entire social security check and have yet to pay off and forcing them make the long drive home, made longer by the fact that they can’t drive faster than 35mph. The distrust in casinos had an effect on married couples as well. As soon as they walk into a casino, the wife can’t trust the husband for fear that he’ll gamble away all their money and the husband can’t trust the wife for fear that in an attempt to regain the money that he is about to gamble away, she’ll sleep with the first guy who offers her a million dollars to sleep with her.

Casinos were home to someone like Jared and it was not uncommon to see him at one on a Friday or Saturday night. He liked them because he had no intention to speak to anyone else there and they had no intention to speak to him. If there was a Friday or Saturday night and he wasn’t at an Indian casino, it was because he was spending that weekend in Las Vegas.

While Jared wasn’t driving fast or gambling he was often managing his business. Now it may seem odd that someone as antisocial as Jared is a businessman, and under ordinary circumstances in an ordinary business he would be a spectacular failure. But he ran his business the way any antisocial businessman would, on eBay.

At this point in Jared’s 26 years of being on the planet, things were going absolutely wonderfully amazingly brilliantly swimmingly. But unbeknownst to him, it was all about to change. This is his life…

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Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions.