Quarter Life Crisis

Twenty years ago today, I crawled into this world, looked up at the cold, unfeeling stars and have been silently fuming at my lot in life ever since.

The worst part is that I don't even feel like a proper twenty year old. In my mind I'm still this confused, sad little boy hopelessly out of touch with what's going on around him. I know that's not the case, but I feel like it anyway. I always feel like this when the 28th rolls around; glum, despondent. It's best for everyone if I just stay in my room and try to hide my angst.

I guess the reason why I'm so moody is that, honestly, I don't think I have much to look forward to in the coming years as a proper adult. I mean, look at what Generation Z has already been through since 2000: 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and now the global economic crisis. There's a reason why Time Magazine called the 2000's the Decade From Hell. More happened in those ten years to shatter the American dream then anything since World War II. Our parents got the Berlin Wall tearing down, we get record lows in unemployment. I should know: for a whole year I have been trying, time and again, to find someone, anyone in this God-forsaken city that's hiring and not one has called back. No one's hiring, and if they are they're certainly not going to pick the WASP-ish nerd with no work experience fresh out of high school. It's gotten to the point where I'm fighting tooth and nail with 30 to 40 year olds for the privilege of mopping the floor in a fast food joint and loosing. Hard.

Thankfully there is a little ray of sunshine and my fate as a shut-in manchild isn't completely sealed yet. Tomorrow I'm working with my contractor friend again to help build a water run off system at a local nursery (for plants, not babies). In the mean time I've found a little hobby for the downtime between planning new maps: microfiction!

Yes, microfiction, also known as flash fiction, micro-stories and very very short stories is a literary style of extreme brevity. In general, these stories are limited to around a thousand words or less, leaving out all but the barest essentials of detail. It's a fun little exercise, reminding one of the old Reader's Digests. As far as I know, Franz Kafka and even H.P. Lovecraft dabbled in it. I'll be looking for those soon. In the meantime, here's some microstories of my own, all one hundred words or less each!

Hybrid

It was Autumn and cold by our standards, probably not the best day for a barbecue. It was Jeff's idea. I could tell he was regretting it. His sweater was pulled up to his chin. He was eating a chicken kabob. I was standing by the gazebo, hoping no one would ask me about my operation. Suddenly Debbie appeared.

"Hey is it true you have monkey glands now?"

I tore a chunk of steak with my teeth. It was such a good sensation, I started fantasizing about hunting gazelle in the open plains right there. I wasn't invited to Jeff's next barbecue.

Dirty Money

Her shoulder pads stuck out like devil horns. Her nails tapping on the desk were like daggers. Her hair was wound into a tight beehive, looming over wickedly arched eyebrows.

"Bill, you're fired." She said. "I want you out of my office."

"But-"

"You completely mismanaged the Henderson account."

"But-"

"Get out."

Bill walked out of the office, dejected. His coworkers avoided his gaze. Taking one last look at his cubicle, he gathered his belongings and started to leave. Down the hall was the goat, staring at him. He knew no one would believe him, but it sabotaged his career.

Toddlers & Tiaras: A Fan Fiction

This was the moment she was waiting for her whole life. Her daughter looked perfect, she would crush the competition.

"Don't forget to smile." She murmured from behind the curtain.

The girl did a spin and struck a pose as the music stopped. Her hair was perfect. The judges applauded. She had this in the bag, that harpy Veronica and her brat would have to settle for second place. Suddenly, a giant squid appeared and strangled her daughter as divine retribution. her head popped off like a wine cork.

The pageant was ruined. She felt like she needed another xanax.

The Lament of Doctor Pritcher

The experiment was a failure. He started falling into a quantum vortex and would be forced to relive this moment over and over, forever. He slowly went insane as time passed. With nothing but the incomprehensible void and his own memories, his life started to flash before his eyes; from playing catch with his dad, 4th of July parties, graduating high school, his first kiss, marrying Judith, his son being born, earning his PhD, writing his thesis on the vacuum energy, the day before the experiment...and now this, a life time of research ruined by a careless mathematical error.

He started falling into a quantum vortex.

...

So there you go. I've been cranky and mad at the world and the only cure is tiny tiny stores that could fit on a post-it note. Next year, I'm going to celebrate with the fruitiest, frilliest umbrella drink I can find and have someone drive me home because that's the responsible thing to do.

Also, before I forget:

It's Bunday.

The Pain

My little plan to make a post every day before the release of Black Mesa hasn't really worked out, as you can see. Oh I wanted to, but I couldn't. Maybe my explanation to Mother might help explain why:

Mom this is horrible. For the past two days I've been incapacitated by the most awful, painful stomach cramps. I have no idea why it's happening either. It just started on Tuesday, my eyes were extremely sore and I had a headache. I thought it was from looking at the computer too long, even though something like this has never happened before. Later that day my stomach started cramping. It came and went in waves. I'd feel fine for a minute then suddenly I was doubled-over in pain. There wasn't anything I could do either, I just laid in bed convulsing. I thought I had an ulcer or my intestines were dissolving. I had no idea.

I woke up this morning feeling fine, my stomach still hurt. I was fine for most of the morning too, I even went for a little walk around the sports park. When I came home I had a glass of orange juice thinking "Hey, it's not like fluids could make it any worse." Next thing I know I'm balled up on my bed riding these awful waves of pain. I was pale and sweaty, completely defeated by this aching. I could barely eat dinner, I had to stop every minute and wait until the pain went away enough. I had a glass of milk, thinking it might drown out the acid from the juice. Later I took some ibuprofen. Bizarrely that actually worked and I've felt fine more or less since. But I still have no clue what's actually happening to me. Is orange juice really THAT destructive to me?

Am I dying? Because if I am this mean's I'll never be able to finish my novel.

So there you go. I still have no idea what's wrong either! All I know is that my body is not ready for Black Mesa. Still, we must preserver! In just thirty-two hour's time it'll be released and there will be much rejoicing.

Except from me because I'll be dead.

Triumphant Return

Well it's been two days now since I've escaped from the death grip of Texas. Don't ask me how I managed that because it felt like the entire state was trying to kill me near the end. I've already mentioned the ungodly heat. It was so awful and humid I'm still surprised I wasn't cooked like a Thanksgiving turkey the moment I stepped outside. The air was so thick with vapor that I felt like I could cut it with a knife on an especially bad day. It was like being in some prehistoric jungle, like Jurassic Park. So it was only appropriate that huge, blood-thirsty insects would thrive there. I was bitten four or five times every day by grasshoppers as big as my hands. And there were scorpions. They didn't bite me but they kept looking at me with their beady little eyes like they wanted to.

Oh, it wasn't just small crunchy animals that wanted to kill me; I got attacked by dogs too. See, every so often I would go for little walks in the evening. One day someone left their gate open, so when I walk by, thinking everything is fine and good, swarms of angry dogs can bolt out to tear me limb from limb. The first time it happened they just barked at me and ran around in circles.

Yes, the first time. It happened a second time, but the second group of dogs were more belligerent. Thankfully I was able to power walk away before they could catch up with me. But after that I didn't go on too many of my walks anymore. I figured that was the neighbor's way of warning me that they didn't want me creeping around anymore.

So I narrowly avoided the trained attack animals, but Texas wasn't done trying to kill me. It still had it's most potent weapon at it's disposal: flash flooding. Because the land is so flat there's nowhere for all the water to go when it rains. This is bad enough, but it doesn't just rain there; the skies open up and huge torrents of water come pouring out to drown the land. So there I was, sitting pretty inside, pretending there aren't murderous animals outside when suddenly the house was surrounded by nearly a cubic meter of water on all sides.

So much wind was buffeting the house that I was afraid it was going to tip over and then we would all be head first in the freezing cold water and hailstones. Thankfully it wasn't the house that tipped over, that honor belonged to a big aluminum shed next door. We heard a crashing sound outside, so we all ran to the window to see what was happening. What we saw was a huge red sheet of metal tumbling around outside, threatening to destroying everything it touched.

Now, when a jagged sheet of twisting metal is rolling around the natural instinct would be to run and hide, waiting for the wind to die down so it be dealt with safely. But Mother wasn't having any of that, instead she ran out into the rain because...

...well we weren't really sure why. But she ran outside and under the porch of Lou's shed. She stood there for a while because I think her previous plan of stopping it with her body wasn't looking to good anymore. In any case everyone relatively unharmed. I say relatively because Mom was suffering from a severe case of the "looking silly in front of the children".

Besides nearly dying we had fun going to the Natural Bridge Caverns. I always knew I would be most at home deep in the crust of the Earth, creeping around dark, damp caves. I'm serious, if I could get away with it I would live in a cave. I think I'm naturally subterranean. We also went to see the Alamo but big whoop right? The Ripley's Museum was right across the street and it had this crazy hallway. It was a metal walkway surrounded by a rotating tube, painted black with little white dots so it looked like I was walking through space. That's cool enough in itself, but the tube spun, upsetting the internal equilibrium of anyone inside, making it feel like they were about to fall off the walkway at anytime. Of course this wasn't really the case and anyone watching from outside the rotating tube would just see a very foolish looking person stumbling around drunkenly.

I want to try and replicate the illusion in a map because it would just be so cash.

All in all, I had fun in Texas, even if I said I wouldn't before I got there. It's just such a bizarre, deadly place that I think it was inevitable I would assimilate into it's culture. I felt myself becoming one with the madness. The endless fields of corn and Whaddaburger restaurants became a security blanket of sorts.

But one thing I could not get used to was Buc-Cee's. See, Texas is home to the largest gas station in the United States. I didn't know this at first so I was confused why there were all these billboards with this ridiculous looking beaver mascot everywhere. There was no explanation for it, but it was absolutely everywhere; on people's hats and shirts, billboards, everything. And because no one ever tells me anything I didn't get any explanation for what it meant. Eventually we actually did go to this Buc-Cee's place ourselves. As it turns out, it was this ungodly, enormous gas station, with more than sixteen pumps. And a deli section. And a gift shop. I could not deal with that.

"It's just a gas station!" I kept yelling. "It doesn't need any of this!" But no one could hear me, Mother just kept telling me to get a Buc-Cee's shirt or else she would cry. Eventually I decided to just try and ignore it. It really was for the best, because my mind would break trying to contemplate it.

Well that's all for now. But before we go, remember: Don't Shake The Baby!