"The Only Day" - Original HUMAN/NON-MLP Version · 12:01am Feb 22nd, 2017
Trying something a little different with this blog post. Basically, posting an old story of mine that has absolutely NOTHING to do with ponies. Well, sort of.
I wrote a story long ago called "The Only Day" that some people enjoyed. It was sad, dark, and depressing. And it was also a duplicate of an earlier story I wrote and then "pony-fied". It's the only story I've ever done that with. Perhaps I just ran out of ideas at the time.
In "The Only Day", a mare starts work on Applejack's farm, only to get stuck in the same day on loop as she continues to age.
In "Day In, Day Out", an office worker starts work at an office, only to get stuck in the same day on loop as he continues to age.
Anyways, looking back on both stories, it's clear the MLP version is a whole lot better. Shorter. Edited. Better paced and in various locations. It even has an actual ending unlike the original!
I wouldn't read it all because it's close to six thousand words; the more interesting parts being the very beginning and the end. Still, it's quite interesting re-reading something over three years old (yes, that repeating date was the day I started writing it). Even the narrator has a bit of snark that's in most of my characters here.
That's about it. Here's the story.
DAY IN DAY OUT
ByTaylorCanadian GuyOctober 23th, 2013
There’s a new guy in the cubicle beside me. He must have replaced Stan when I wasn’t looking. It was his first day and he looked a little nervous. I would have been. First days are always hard. We’ve all been there, done that. New job. Trying to be professional and yet chummy with all the other workers at once. It’s hard. We’ve all been there. Nearing middle-age, a new job becomes that much scarier. That much more nerve-wracking. I think he’s handling it well though. He’s still young—mid-twenties. He’ll get the hang of it.
He says his name’s Jim. Jim Dally. He said he studied in the States before moving back to our side of the border. He also said his last job squeezed him until nothing much was left. Hours were cut, people fired, bonuses disappeared. We’ve all been there. I try and tell him it’s better here, that things are different, but I don’t feel much like lying today.
Jim Dally. He definitely knows his way around a computer. Most times a newbie enters on their first day, they make at least three phone calls to the IT department to get logged in and set up. Not Jim. He’s in and out and makes it look like child’s play. I think he’ll do well here. As long as he keeps his head up and waits patiently for five o’clock like the rest of us. Hell, I’m still waiting for Friday to roll around. Just two more days. But don’t some people say waiting is somehow the best part? I think they’re full of shit.
In the break room Jim eats lunch by himself. I make it there for his last ten minutes and we chat about non-descript whatever. The way I figure it, if I’m too chatty, I might not get my work done back at the desk. But I’m also not looking to be an asshole, either. And who knows? Maybe this Jim is the asshole. Like maybe all I’m seeing is his first-day face, and later on when he’s been situated enough, he’ll show his true colors and be the asshat-type like the asshat he replaced. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’ve just been with this company for too long. Rambling’s always fun.
October 23th, 2013
There’s a new guy in the cubicle beside me. He must have replaced Stan when I wasn’t looking. I know first days are hard sometimes, but man did he look a little out of sorts today. Well, technically, by the end of the day he appeared that way. But what a first day! Holy shit.
Each new employee that enters our doors needs to set up their workstation before they can get started. Seems obvious, eh? Well this new guy—his name is Jim by the way (I never got his last name; he might have been a smidge too busy to include it when I asked)—for some reason believed that he was already set up and ready to go! Like it should be ready to go by the time he gets in. So I’m like, Hello Jim! Sorry this ain’t the Ritz and the wines not at room temperature and all! Maybe I’m being too hard on him. First day jitters and all. It was just how adamant he was about the whole thing, as if he’d gotten his log-in stuff before his shift and somehow it all got deleted by some freak accident. Some newbies are able to figure it out on there own (not many), but Jim merely pestered on and on for close to an hour with that gray box modem of his. I pretty much had to coax him to call up IT. “Maybe have the professionals take a look,” I said, in my most good natured way. (I can be nice when I need to be.) “But I’ve already done this before,” Jim answered, barely pausing from his “work” on the computer. Man, it was bad I tell you. His face started going red, sweat began rolling down his face. He’s in shape, too. He’s no eleven year desk jockey like yours truly, with a couple of lovely love handles giving him that perfect wonky hourglass figure. No. Jim wasn’t tired, it was nerves. Those first day nerves. I almost felt bad for the guy. Almost. But for all I know he was hired to replace me next quarter.
After another half-hour of swears and annoyed grunts, I finally had had enough and called IT myself. Since they had dick-all to do, a single IT guy arrived six-minutes later, that arrogant look of dismay and higher-intelligence already plastered on his bespectacled face. Man. If there was a list of people in the office I’d like to slug right in the kisser, I think in the top five would be that damn IT guy. And yes I do know his real name. But I won’t mention that here. In here he’s that damn IT guy and that’s that. Anyway, I’m rambling.
So the IT guy arrives and stands by my desk for what seems to be forever, completely ignoring the panic-stricken new guy in close proximity to the left of me. After a time the IT guy finally says, “You called.” Out of his view I roll my eyes. “I did. But I didn’t need the help. Maybe try the new guy swearing at his monitor.” I didn’t spin around to look, but I’m pretty sure the IT guy did his own version of the eye roll, maybe a bigger one that involved his neck. Anyway, he trudged over and stood next to Jim.
“Your friend called for you?” he asked.
“Yes. And I still don’t need you,” Jim answered curtly.
The IT guy managed to choke back the smart retort brewing in his head. I could tell it hurt, too. “Well, now that I’m here, maybe I’ll save myself a secondary trip here later. What’s the problem and why is it a problem?”
Jim stopped his frantic search for a moment. “The problem is that all that log-in crap I set up yesterday is gone. I came in and poof, gone! So now I waste another hour getting set up and now all my work from yesterday is also gone with the wind! I don’t know if this is some new guy shit or—”
At this point I raise a finger to add a nugget of info into the mix—say, perhaps, the fact that Jim wasn’t even here yesterday—but the IT guy cuts me off before I get the chance.
“Jim? I wasn’t told you’d be coming in on Tuesday,” the IT guy said with a puzzled expression. “Usually they give me a heads up, but—”
“You mean Wednesday,” Jim said absently.
The IT guy smirked a tad. I knew he liked dealing with idiots just as much as more learned fellows. Sometimes it was good to feel smart. “No. I still mean Tuesday.”
Jim rubbed his knuckles into his eyes and said, “Whatever,” under his breath. Whatever indeed, Jim.
I could tell the IT guy was getting antsy and wanted out of there, so he chugged along without resistance. “So you’ve set yourself up then?”
Jim brooded. “Yes. Again.”
“Then I don’t see the problem. You’re good to go.” He paused, then added with inflection: “Jim.”
Jim didn’t waver from his gloominess. “I was good to go yesterday, too. So good, in fact, that I actually started on a project and then did this crazy thing called saved the fucker! And now it’s gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone!”
The IT guy crouched beside Jim’s chair. “So you’re saying it’s gone then?”
Even I smiled at that.
Jim nearly bit his tongue in half. “Yessss,” he hissed.
“Then I’ll look into it. Some… hiccup in the system, or on the computer—that computer perhaps.” He extended a finger toward it. “I’ll let you know if I find anything. You let me know…” He waved his finger around like a wand. “If anything else should arise. All right, Jim?”
Jim took a breath. “Sure. Fine. I better get back to it then. Thanks, I guess.”
The IT guy stood back up and stretched out his back. “A job well done is its own reward.” On his way by me he slunk to my desk and whispered, “I don’t give him a week,” before scurrying off. Oddly I didn’t bother arguing with him. A week? Hell, try a day!
Oh that poor, poor Jim.
October 23th, 2013
There’s a new guy in the cubicle beside me. He must have replaced Stan when I wasn’t looking. At least Stan was punctual, coming to work when he was supposed to. But first day shit, right? We’ve all been there. Maybe the bus was late or the car wouldn’t start . It’s happened. I’ve heard it happen to others. But for some reason I don’t believe it happened to our new guy, though.
He says his name is Jim. I call him Tim first because he says it so fast. He doesn’t bother with a last name, either. Odd guy. But it’s his first day, so I let it slide.
Even his entrance to the floor seemed off, like he was afraid of someone or some falling debris from above that didn’t exist. When he came in it was like he was in a dream or something—slow, with his eyes as wide as saucers. Sorry Jim, but I’ve always considered work more like a nightmare than a dream. I start to introduce myself but he already knows my name. Odd. But I guess the receptionist that told him where his work space would be also told him who I was. But that’s fine. We can cut the introductions.
He turns on his computer and then closes his eyes as it warms up, like he’s expecting it to blow when it starts. Jitters, one could gather. Once it gets to the log-in page he hesitates touching the keyboard. Just getting weirder and weirder. “You’ll need to create one to get started,” I tell him. Jim looks at me with oddly red eyes and says nothing. We’re off to a great start, me and Jim. He plugs away anyway and then lowers his head when the system rejects him. “I told yeah,” I says. “You need to create a log-in before you get going. It’s kinda’ complicated for some. You want me to call the IT guy? He could probably shave a good twenty minutes off the whole complicated mess.”
Jim bites his lip and shakes his head from side to side, like a child that doesn’t want to finish his veggies. He looks like he might pop at any moment.
Odd guy, that Jim. I don’t know if he’ll make it a week here. This life isn’t for everyone.
Boy, can I be wrong sometimes. Two hours after our lukewarm introduction, Jim’s already in the system and thrumming along on his first project. I didn’t even see anyone tell him about it yet and yet there he is, info in hand and tables already taking shape on the screen. Maybe he’s one of those, what-da-ya-call-its? Idiot savants? I don’t know. Let’s say a Rainman-like character. Social skills? Zero. Computer skills? One-hundred percent! I guess I should have noticed earlier. On his first day to work he wore a wrinkled suit and no tie. Even his hair looked run over somehow. Well as long as he gets the work done I’ll be happy. As long as he doesn’t make me look bad I’ll be even happier. Maybe the silent types are better anyway. More time to daydream, am I right?
And just when I label Jim as a social introvert, here he comes during my lunch break to sit and chat. It was a pleasant surprise, I must tell you. I don’t like to see new people struggle, especially prospective good ones like Jim, so I let him sit. And we chat. And then Jim gets weird again. So close.
“You bring a lunch today?” I ask when I notice nothing in front of him.
“No.”
“Forgot it?”
“Never made it.”
I pause. “We have a cafeteria. You could always buy something there. Today’s special I think is—”
“Meatballs and sauce. Yes, I’ve tried it.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” I stop for a second, eat a bite of my garden salad. What did he just say? “You already went on break?”
Jim looks around nervously. It was like he was when he entered our work floor. “Not… exactly.”
“Oh.” I chew more of my salad with low-fat ranch and let the topic slide. I never saw him go on break that day and I definitely didn’t see him in the cafeteria on any other Wednesday, but whatever, meatballs and sauce doesn’t change all that much wherever you go.
So this was already weird, I thought. I thought wrong.
“What day is it?” Jim asked, pulling his chair in a little closer.
“Wednesday—hump day,” I say automatically.
“You’re sure it’s Wednesday?”
“Yep. Got a calendar on my fridge and on my computer and on probably another damn dozen things. It’s Wednesday.”
He pauses. “I wish it was, I really wish it was.” Jim looks down at the table, slowly shaking his head.
“Well, it is,” I say. “You doing okay, Jim? You feeling all right? I know new jobs can be—”
Then Jim abruptly looks up from the table, the annoyance in his eyes replaced by one of mild anger, oddly focused at me. To say it didn’t shock me would have been a lie. He started out by saying my name… and then he said more.
“You’re originally from Regina but you moved here at a young age,” he said. “You haven’t gone back there because there’s no more family there. You’ve been working at this company for fourteen years and you’d secretly love to quit if not for your two kids and the sweet pension coming your way in due time. You hate the meatballs and sauce here, but you hate your wife’s garden salad more. You wear the purple tie on Wednesday and that’s the only tie I ever see you in.”
He paused then, perhaps to let it all sink in, or for myself to give a rebuttal. I had none in store. At that odd moment, my tongue felt the size of my mouth and I was damn near choking on it. It was only then—during this milieu of silence—that I noted the forkful of green salad gently hovering a few inches from my face, completely forgotten. I returned it to my bowl and tried to speak. “Uhh…”
“Your kids’ names are John and Rosy and they’re six and eleven. Your wife pressured you for a third but you nipped that in the butt with a backhanded fat comment and she’s never brought it up again. You feel bad about it but not too bad. Does this sound like you?”
I sat there for a moment, studying this weird new guy that had just started today. “Who told you all this?”
Now Jim went back to being annoyed. “You did. Yesterday and the day before that.”
“No, I didn’t.” I shook my head lightly, perhaps just to show him how much he was wrong, or perhaps just in a vain attempt to wake myself up from this bizarre dream. Yet still he sat, never averting his eyes from mine.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“You’re going back up?”
Jim stood. “No. I’m leaving work. I need some time off.”
“But it’s your first day! You wanna get canned?” In my sudden alarm I had completely forgotten about our prior conversation.
Jim paused before leaving the break room. He stammered out his next words: “We’ll see about that.”
So with that Jim left me to my cold salad and my heated thoughts. What a weird man and what a weird first day. Should I tell my superiors or let it slide? I delegated. Maybe he wouldn’t come back tomorrow. I’d be glad if he didn’t come back tomorrow.
Some people just aren’t cut out for this line of work.
October 23th, 2013
There’s a new guy in the cubicle beside me. He must have replaced Stan when I wasn’t looking. Not that I’m complaining. This kid’s a wiz! Maybe even something better than that. I mean… holy shit!
He comes in on time, sits right down as if he owns the place, and then just gets right to work as if he’s a veteran. It truly is something to behold. A youth with vigor! Even setting himself up in the system seemed like nothing to him. Only problem—if you could call it that—is his social skills. He’s not a retard or anything, or an asshole (thank God), but he sure doesn’t like to talk much. I’d ask him a question and he’d retort a tiny blurb right back, as short as can be. So after a few of these, when he wouldn’t ask anything of myself in return, I kind of stopped my line of questioning. Maybe he’s just not the talkative type. Or maybe he’s just trying to look good for the bosses—no chit chat, just hard work and the like. I understand it. I do. But if you’re going to possibly be sharing a workspace with someone for a long period of time, you’d think you’d try to make friendly. Hell. Maybe I’m looking into it too much. But I guess what really threw me off was just how fast he answered my base questions, as if I’d already asked them before. But I guess if a person makes small talk with one person at a new job he’s made small talk with everyone. I’ll keep that in mind for the remainder of the week. I’ll make it like a quest: to thaw out the socially inept Jim. I still have hope for him, I do. He’s smart and he’s good with computers.
I’ll just blame it on first day jitters.
October 23th, 2013
There’s a new guy in the cubicle beside me. He must have replaced Stan when I wasn’t looking. Fuck do I miss Stan now. Sorry to swear; I’m usually not the type. But what a prick this new guy is.Jim. He tells me that small fact sometime in the middle of the day. After I ask for the fifth or sixth time. I want his name when I report him to my superiors. I don’t even think he’d mind—it’s almost like he’s trying to get fired.
So he comes in, forty or so minutes late, plants his thin ass right down in the chair next to mine and already looks like he’s on the verge of shitting his pants in rage. And for no reason at all! Young people these days, nothing but cell phones and alcohol and emotions it seems… but maybe that’s being a bit too harsh on the rest of the youth population. Unless he’s an asshole to the core. I’ll have to see come tomorrow.
Anyway, Jim punches at his keyboard for a time—managing to log in successfully, oddly enough—and then stares at his screen for what might have been ten to fifteen minutes, barely blinking. I don’t mean to stare, truth be told, but in some odd way I found it fascinating. Like some bomb that’s gone off several hundred feet away from you; you can’t help but watch the destruction.
Just as I can’t take anymore, I turn to Jim and prepare to speak my mind—my blunt mind. But Jim seems to know exactly what I’d say already. “You think that I’m on drugs,” he says, without brothering to even face me. “You think I should take the rest of the day and go home and try again with a better attitude. You tell me we’ve all been there. You tell me to get sorted out and restart come tomorrow. Would that I could, friend.”
I gulp a little too loudly and return to the spreadsheets on my monitor. I look at them without seeing them. What Jim had said affected me a little too much for work at that moment. He hadn’t been dead on with his predictions of what I was about to tell him, but he was damn near close enough to cause worry. Maybe I’m just too old to relate to a young man such as Jim, twenty-something with the world supposedly balanced precariously on his head. Maybe he’s heard all the spiels before today, from different old men at different jobs. Maybe Jim’s just a stooge, passing from job to job, paycheck to paycheck, dicking the world around as he sees fit. I don’t mean to sound like some bitter, old curmudgeon safely secured behind a desk, cussing out every adolescent that crosses his path… but then maybe I do.
I don’t know what to make of Jim. I just know he scares me. I just feel like he knows too much, too much about me in particular. Maybe I’m going mad. Maybe I’m rambling on like I always do.
Jim sticks around until lunch, by which point security has been called. I wrote a bit during my coffee break, so I can gladly take back what I said before. I won’t need to be messing with the bosses upstairs. Jim is done. Gone. Period. End of story.
And what a way to go.
Just as the office floor had reached its peak of silence, Jim picked up his fat monitor as if it were a shopping bag and tossed it to the carpeted floor between us. I was almost afraid it might have hit me, if not for the cord that securely attached it to the desk, cutting its flight neatly in half. When it smashed (and it did smash, most spectacularly) I heard at least a half-dozen gasps in surprise. Mine included. With that little matter of housecleaning done, Jim then gathered up his ratty looking coat and stormed off, kicking the cracked monitor along the way. As he walked down the line of cubicles, I called down for security. I didn’t think Jim had anymore malice in him, but it’s always best to be on the side of caution.
Jim left our building with little fuss a few minutes later. Now the question would be if he would ever come back. Wouldn’t that be a riot?
October 23th, 2013
A new guy was supposed to replace Stan today. It looks like he won’t be replacing Stan after all.
October 23th, 2013
A new guy was supposed to replace Stan today. It looks like he won’t be replacing Stan after all.
October 23th, 2013
A new guy was supposed to replace Stan today. It looks like he won’t be replacing Stan after all.
October 23th, 2013
…
October 23th, 2013
A new guy was supposed to replace Stan today. But with the conversation I just had, I don’t think I give a tin-shit about new guys or the vanishing of Stan.
So, how can I start this all? Ok. Normal day until lunch. I do my work, I check my numbers, correct all around as always, I turn to my side, see the empty chair and desk where the new guy’s supposed to be and I simply don’t give a crap. It’s his life to do with as he wants. If he doesn’t want it, then he doesn’t want it. Simple as that. Plus, his absence gives me new material to use on my fellow employees—ones that may discredit the youth generation as a whole. But I’m getting sidetracked.
It all started after lunch.
I return to my desk (after digesting another one of my wife’s tepid garden salads) only to find a person in the cubicle next to mine. My first thought was that, “Hey! That dick-face of a new guy finally did show up!” Only as I drew closer did I realize how wrong I was. The new guy was supposed to be in his mid-twenties, the guy sitting in his seat must have been in his mid-sixties at least, possibly older. Gray hair, thin face, clothes that looked way too big for him (and also a little out of sorts—sorry, but an old man in blue jeans? It just doesn’t happen anymore).
So I sit down, flip on my monitor, and try and get to work. Fat chance. Not when there’s an odd old man sitting merely a few feet away, staring aimlessly at a blank monitor. After a minute of this, as I hope against hope that some other employee will come and claim him, I turn and said, “Need help with anything?”
At first I don’t think the old man hears me, so I prepare to repeat myself. But just in time he turns to me—his eyes slow and tired looking, his mouth never quite shut, always appearing in the middle of some deep thought.
He said in a weathered voice, “No, thank you. I’m fine.”
I give him pause to say more, but he doesn’t. “You… waiting for—”
“I’m almost surprised to find you here,” he says, as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “By my calculations you should be well into retirement.” He chuckles dryly; a slow grin appearing on his many-lined face.
“I don’t follow you,” I said, plainly confused. “I’m still well away from retirement, sadly.”
“I know. It’s just a little humor that you wouldn’t understand.”
“Okay.”
I return to face my screen, momentarily forgetting the question I was going to ask before.
“You know how hard it is to travel in just twenty-four hours?” he asked me, as if it were a normal question, like how the weather is or how the local sports teams are doing. “To leave at midnight and just see how far you can go? Only to return to that same bed at that same time on that same day? Only for everything to reset itself and start all over…” He saddened for a moment, then brightened briefly. “I always wanted to go to China. But no flight leaving from this city or nearby city would let me get there in time. Believe me, I’ve tried. Many times. What else is there to do but try some days?” He blinked slowly, sleepily. “Although it’s quite jarring to sprint from a plane traveling several thousand feet in the air back to your bed precisely at midnight…”
I had to cut in. This was going on much too long. “Do you want me to call someone? Are you meeting someone here? Your son or daughter or relative or someone? I can call them if you want… I just truly need to get back to my—”
“Reading was always tricky too,” he continued, unperturbed. “I had a modest collection of books in my youth and still do. I’d try and make it to the library or the bookstore as early as possible, read as much as I could that day, but always I’d lose them come the next day, only to repeat what I’d just done. A person learns to keep track better that way. A person needs to, I guess. No matter what I write down, no matter what small note I make, it will only be lost come midnight. It’s that type of knowledge that could make anyone go mad.”
I know someone who might be a little mad, I thought, hesitantly glancing around to see if anyone else was picking up on this one man show. To my dismay, no one was.
“Movies were easier. I could download one or rent one and watch it in a day—some days that’s all I’d do. Only they never make anything new anymore. What was out was out and I was stuck with them. I’ve seen all the classics… even some of the shit to help keep things in perspective, but it’s all those sequels that were in the works that I never got to see—or maybe it’s never get to see. Perhaps that’s for the best. Sequels have a tendency to be terrible in general… but you never know, eh?”
“Sure,” I said. “Sure. Whatever you say, pops.” I felt a tad bad about calling him such a slang term, but my patience was wearing as thin as spider-web by then. I had work to do. Things to get done by the end of the day or face the consequences. Old windbags like this hardly knew of such things anymore. Life was over for them. If they wanted to spend their last days chatting the wallpaper off, they could. My only wish was that they wouldn’t include me in the mix.
“For close to a decade,” he continued, “I made trips to visit my family, arriving early in the morning, taking them by surprise before making them worry. I’d spend the whole day with them sometimes. Going out, staying in, figuring out the perfect day for each of them. Getting drunk sometimes.” He smiled thinly and said more to himself: “Hangovers don’t exist for me.”
I raised my brows and said nothing, merely waiting for the windbag to run out of wind to blow.
“After a time I had to stop seeing them,” the old man said. “The cons outweighed the pros. They’d comment on my age and even try and rush me to a hospital. That was always a fiasco, so I made the decision to stop seeing them altogether. At least up close. It’s hard sometimes. It’s very hard.”
The old man began to get red around the eyes and I saw tears brewing near the surface. My annoying problem was getting more annoying by the minute. Could I just walk away from all this? I thought pathetically. Would anyone blame me?
“Death has always frightened me,” he labored on. “It’s an absolute. Or I still believe it is. If my aging has taught me anything, it’s that death is still possible. I’ve been tempted to see before, but too cowardly. There’s still a small piece of me that believes this’ll all end tomorrow… that I’ll actually see tomorrow. I doubt it, but I still want to believe in such a thing.” He paused, cradling one deeply veined hand with the other. “Perhaps the hardest part is knowing I’ll never leave a mark on this world. Anything I do in a day will only be erased by the day come anew. I’ll never write a book or finish a song or even flesh out a single idea. None of it will ever be recorded. Sure, they’re in my head, all the time they are. Dancing and twirling and calling for me to write or make a record of them… to tell someone about them… but I can’t. This game won’t let me.” His eyes fixed upon mine. His own were filled with tears but he looked sharper than he had since I’d dumbly sat down next to him. “That’s what I’ve called it since near the beginning: a game. A very long one. I’ve played fair and I’ve played dirty and I’ve done things that I’m so glad I could erase but I’ve never in all my years been able to cheat it. It’s… impossible, it seems.”
The old man leaned back in his chair and wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. He sighed and glared at his monitor, a wry smile surfacing on his lips. “I remember when I smashed this thing. That was a very long time ago.”
“What?” I asked. I was not understanding any of this.
“Nothing. But I’m glad this conversation went better than the last one.”
My mouth popped open a bit. I couldn’t help it I was so confused. Then I watched him button his coat and stand up, winching as he did. He pointed a thin finger toward my phone, the one I’d been lightly touching since he’d started speaking.
He told me, “I wouldn’t bother calling anyone. They didn’t stop me leaving before and they won’t today. Not that it matters, really. Goodbye. Maybe we’ll do this again sometime.”
My mouth still hung open, dumbfounded. “Yeah, sure, yeah, ok.” Unknowingly I pulled my hand away from the phone and onto my lap. Some part of me was still waiting for the old coot to start raving about UFOs and satellite radio-waves burning holes into the ozone, but he never did. Instead the old man left and turned and walked to the elevators, where he swiftly disappeared behind two large metal doors. Despite his warning I called security anyway (there was a chance he might have stopped at another floor to tell another tale), but security found no person of my description. The old man had left the building without so much as a fuss. Maybe he only wanted to unload his complete lunacy on some random bystander.
Hell, I think we’ve all been there.
October 23th, 2013
A new guy was supposed to replace Stan today. It looks like he won’t be replacing Stan after all.
October 23th, 2013
A new guy was supposed to replace Stan today. It looks like he won’t be replacing Stan after all.
October 23th, 2013
…
THE END
Wow. That was really good. I liked that. I have never seen a time loop story like that before. Usually time loop stories don't have aging characters. You never wrote another one? Other than the "pony-fied" one?
4431645 If he wrote another, I'd guess it'd be practically the same.
What else can you do? You loop, you adventure, you do stupid shit, and you reset, just a day older. That's about it.
Unless it's like Hard Reset, or The Best Night Ever, where you can break the loop somehow.
your stories are strange, even in case of complete horror you still manage to have a comical attitude. And in your comedic stories you hold a dark and strange attitude, which manages to disturb me more than your horror stories.
4431794 I guess that's just me then.
Wow, that's depressing. And amazing.
Though one wonders how many more eternities that loop will last.
I preferred the ending of the MLP version, but this was perfect for my little dose of horror for the day.
Steven King, is that you?
This was equally beautiful and depressing. thank you for writing this magnificent work of literature
4438534 Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it.
4437552 I wish. He's my favorite author...
4444714 Honestly, you are very good with your horror. I don't know how someone can be so skilled on comedy, as well as horror. I mean, those are pretty much complete opposites, and yet, you some how master them both. I am truly impressed with you, now that might not mean much coming from a total stranger, but I really am, and I am certain many others share this sentiment.
4445078 Believe you me, comments like these mean a lot. It's not just "lol" or "funny stuff, dude!", but an actual comment. As someone with very little backbone, I get discouraged quite easily. So when someone says they like not one story of mine, but several, that's pretty damn cool! I'm not just a one hit wonder!
I really don't know why I do comedy and dark/horror so much. In real life, I guess I joke around a lot. And I guess in my head, I think of some pretty awful stuff.
Who knows why they go hand in hand. I just know I like 'em!
4445948 either way, whether it is dark or comedy, or if you try anything else, you have a tendency for doing it good. I don't know why most people barely write their thoughts. Too lazy perhaps, or perhaps they are too brain-dead to think up a comment, but I am one of the people who says what they think, and I think you have real talent as an author. Honestly, you ought to write an actual book (if you aren't already), you could make some money off of it. Best of luck, my friend.
Why can't we like blog posts?!
4457765 To give a like, right?
And not a dislike?