ATTENTION: This post is part of a series meant to make up a story. It is not complete in and of itself. Books, chapters, and parts of chapters, are clearly labeled in the title.
It all started in the beginning.
I know that's an odd thing to say, but the way I figure, my problem had to have started way back at creation or the "Big Bang" or whatever. When you roll a stone down a mountain, it takes a long time to build momentum. Something like this must have been set in motion a pretty damn long time ago to hit me as hard as it did, and to change everything I thought I knew about life. I'm not going to lie, I believe in God and angels and all that, but something... or worse yet, someone... set itself against me, and it sure as hell wasn't divine.
I had just been laid off from my job as a grunt at the local warehouse. Whorehouse, we called it, on account of you could always find a girl or two there who wanted a little something to take her mind off of how much her life sucked. Usually a lot. I fell to that once or twice myself. After all, my life was hell too, and no matter how much the girls lives sucked, I knew they could use some company on those inebriated weekends.
The lack of employment was fine by me, of course; I hated that place with a fiery resentment, hated the hours of unpaid overtime, hated the fat-ass "supervisors" whose job seemed to entail nothing more than computer games, gorging themselves on fat-laden pastries, and screaming at us workers to hurry up every time we came in for a new load. Most of all, I think I hated myself for dropping out of college to take a job like that. It wasn't that I didn't like school, I just wanted to make money right away.
Hey, I was 18.
Kids are dumb.
When the blow fell (and it had been coming for some time, let me tell you. The hatred was mutual.) I turned into insta-hermit. Just add job loss. I closed myself off from everyone who meant anything to me, including parents, friends, girlfriends, etc. I talked to no one. I saw no one. Hell, I barely even moved for close to three months. Not that no one tried to reach me, because they did; I just never responded. Occasionally they even came to the undersized apartment I had at the time, but I pretended I wasn't home at the time. Which was pretty much true. Finally they stopped coming by completely, and I was left to myself, buried in a constant, wordless, mindless,
lonely
fury. I suppose the loneliness would have killed me if I hadn't been so alive with hatred, and maybe it did anyway. I honestly can't tell.
After a couple months of isolated simmering, I tried to pull myself back together. After all, it's pretty hard to buy groceries when they won't even let you in the store. Okay, that requires a little explaining; you see, under periods of great stress, such as severe anger, the mind tends to snap a little. It was one of those days when every child in the store is screaming, every mother is bitching into a cell phone with terrible reception, and the music... oh God the music! Repetitive insipid fumblings of a no-class music killer with no artistic talent, eternally stuck on loop, creating an ideal sense of torture. I'm positive they play that one in Hell.
I ran screaming down the aisle, both arms extended, ripping as many products from the shelves as possible. at the end of the aisle I whipped around the corner and continued down the dry goods section, screaming from the top of my lungs and bearing down on a stocker. The poor girl looked up at me from her position on the floor, and a look of absolute terror came over her face. she let out a miniature shriek as I sped by, covering her in boxes of powdered milk. I didn't even notice at the time.
Maybe that was it. Or maybe it was the standoff in the canned goods aisle before the cops brought me down. I'm not at liberty to say; that's between me and Hormel.
Nevertheless, I tried to straighten myself out somewhat, and even managed to get back on the store owner's good side. That took a lot of work, and that girl still screams and runs from me, but for the most part it was a successful venture. I got another job clearing power lines, and it finally seemed like my life was getting back to where I wanted it, to where it was supposed to be.
Then I met Lucy.
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