Lee Stupendous

I am on fire. 

Burning and waiting until I turn to ash. 

The cause is unknown, but it is swirling, on a continuous cycle. 

The burns have scarred and burned again. 

Never getting the time to heal before it bursts into flames. 

Moments of calm, but not when I choose them. 

Just like the fire, it's all a surprise. 

At this point, I try to shield others from the fire. 

Though this never proves to matter. 

I wonder who wants me to burn up? 

I think it's me, but I can't answer that question. I don't know for sure. 

I'm not ashes yet. 

As I walk through the village, I am greeted by familiar and new faces alike. Things have changed since I last visited, but the foundation is the same. 

The people seem sadder than I remember, but maybe I'm looking more closely now. The villagers are filling their cups and having a second dinner. It is a celebration. 

There is a group of younger folk who are running through the village, much like the celebration, for no reason at all.

A woman is crying, red tears - blood-like. She is the village pariah. Why is she crying so much?

I wave to her and she doesn't wave back. I start to say that I've cried those red tears before, but it's too late; I've walked away. 

The village is smaller than I remember, or maybe, I'm taking up more space now. 

The tears start to flow as I have stayed too long. I have to be careful to conceal my weakness, fearing judgment. 

I wipe my face, and the clear tears are turning in color. I have to get out of here before I am discovered. 

To my surprise, I was not alone in this. Not the Pariah, her face was free of tears. The villagers were now crying these tears, and my tears, like Pariah's, vanished. 

She cracks a smile and goes on her way. 

I, too, must leave this place, but I'll be back sometime soon. 

I began my day with a cup of coffee that I brewed in the large kitchen. I made myself a full spread for breakfast, anything that I could find in the fridge. After that, I watched television for a little while on the 70-inch TV, with a glorious picture. I decided to shower and get ready for the day. The walk-in shower, featuring different temperature settings and heated floors, is a nice touch in the bathroom. I made my way into the walk-in closet, which houses some of the nicest clothes I've ever seen. I tried on a few things before deciding on what to wear for the big day. I grabbed the Tesla keys from the keyring by the garage door. The Tesla is beautiful, and I decided to go meet some of my friends for a great day. 

Everything was going great; I was having drinks and feeling good about how the day was going. All of a sudden, the place that we were at became swarmed with cops, sirens so loud I could barely hear my friend's hilarious joke. "Damn, wouldn't want to be the guy they're looking for". 

The next thing I know, I am in cuffs, and I tell them they have got the wrong guy. 

They ask me one question. Is it your birthday today? I say yes, and now I'm spending the next 25 years in jail because I guess it's "not my house" and "I broke in?" Sorry for wanting to have a good birthday, sue me? 

Update: After I said that, they are so happy. Happy birthday to me. 

Insert witty beginning here *     *.  

OH, hi there. I didn't see you. I was writing a story. 

I wanted to make it equally weird, funny, and appealing to my peers, and I want it to convey something about the state of affairs. I also want the message to be ambiguous, so it remains mysterious. 

I could reference recent cultural events to demonstrate that I am informed and care about what matters to them.

I have to include self-deprecation for the men so they don't think that I'm too full of myself. 

I should probably be careful what I say about women, too, because I don't want them to think I'm too full of myself. 

I can't write something too depressing because it would be too honest, and the reader might not appreciate that. I think I should try to keep it light so my peers think I enjoy my life and maybe want to be my friend. 

I could make my main character a genius because people love relatable genius stories. 

I got it, I will write about a troubled genius who smokes a lot of cigarettes and drinks himself to near death most nights. He is abusive, but that is only because he is a genius, so we give him a pass, right? Yeah, that'll do. 

I need to come up with an ending that truly impresses my readers, something so unexpected and witty. 

What if I reveal that it was all in his head?

That he was right the whole time and all those people who were trying to get him to change were wrong and that he is a genius just like he thought and...... he is a ghost and it was a dream too. 

Yeah. 

There is a factory that provides us with the things we possess now. I know this because I have been there and in it, you'll find all the usual suspects. Make a left when you first get in, and you will find the Old Lady Pixie Cut sector very popular. If you decide to make a right, you'll enter the Teenage Boy Vape & Masculinity Complex sector; you probably don't want to go there. I've been there, and they asked if I was gay. This is not an offensive thing to say generally, but if it comes from a Teenage Boy or a White Man over 60+, you will hear the offensive part. It's something they do with their voices. They got it at the factory, I think. As you make your way down the main hallway, you'll pass several "Urges", some will include: the Female urge to draw their eyebrows on, the Male urge to critique professional athletes on their performance while no longer being able to see their penis when they look down. The mid-20s urge to be productive in an attempt to impress their peers, but end up lying in bed for most of the day. This is a dicey sector, to put it mildly. As we delve deeper into the factory, we will begin to encounter subsets tailored to specific demographics. 

We will come across the 60+ White Male inkling to condescendingly congratulate women and minorities. "I did not expect a female to be able to do that", "You're the smartest black guy I've ever met", and "Wow, you speak great English for a Mexican". You get it. We will also find that 40+ females desire to speak with a higher voice and use very confident language when talking on the phone, and roll their eyes after getting off the phone. "Oh my God, the kids would absolutely love that. We should definitely do that. YES!!" Directly next to this subset is the adult male urge to put their arm around their significant other and essentially put them in a headlock in an attempt to outwardly claim them as their own. Walking a little further, we come across the human urge to learn something new but never doing anything to learn that thing and then telling yourself it's not because you're lazy but instead attributing it to the fact that you just weren't interested and it wasn't meant to be, has its own wing of the factory. 

The factory is a prominent place and cannot be visited in its entirety on your first visit. 

(Brought to you by the millennial inability to finish anything.)

 TiL nExt TiMe.