I woke up November 6th, 2022 at precisely 6am, as I always do. I rolled over to shut off my alarm. I turned to my wife, still sleeping, and smiled at her, placing a kiss on the back of her head. I dragged myself to the bathroom, shut the door to dampen the sound, and brushed my teeth. Then I flossed. Then I put on deodorant. Then I washed my face. Then I brushed my hair. Then I sprayed the leave-in tonic. Personal hygiene is very important.
The house was silent – a fact I rather appreciated at the time – on account of the implication my children were still sleeping soundly. This is important, because if they are not sleeping, they are usually annoying me about which doll’s head was bitten off or the action figure who is missing his sword. I went to the kitchen, started the stove to cook breakfast, and opened my news application to catch up on the events of the world. Staying informed was, of course, essentially important.
The world, as it turned out, was not falling apart today. The news was still dire. Places without water, still didn’t have them. A few cities over they were on their second day without power. Their power was knocked out by a snow storm. But that was okay, because snow storms did that.
I was tempted to search my phone for more information on the power outage. Information, after all, was my real addiction. I blamed it on my occupation, since software engineers were often required to think in data. My addiction was keeping my family clothed, fed, and keeping them off of my back, of course.
With the burner heated up, I went to check on the fridge. The eggs were fine, so I pulled them from the fridge to start the basis of my breakfast. I checked the mushrooms – the not fun kind – and found them to be a little suspect. They were starting to liquidate, which I knew was not what mushrooms were supposed to do. I tossed those suckers into the trash. Loser mushrooms.
Berries were plentiful in my fridge – also not the fun kind – so I pulled out several types to make a bowl of fruit. They wouldn’t help me hallucinate other people being actually competent at their jobs, but they would be tasty.
There were avocados on the kitchen island, so I set one to the side to add after I was finished cooking. I added avocado oil to the pan, which I owned, because my wife thought it would be more healthy or some such nonsense. I, on the other hand, didn’t care at all about oil and didn’t want to argue about it.
I started to dance around the kitchen like nobody was watching. First of all, nobody was watching, and I was the polite sort of person. I kept my dancing to myself, so everyone wouldn’t know I was bizarre-o. Everyone was bizarre-o, but not everyone needed to know it. I tossed the eggs in one by one, trying to hype myself up with my dancing energy. I was not looking forward to dealing with Gerralt, whose parents apparently thought they lived in the middle ages, and his insipid requests to create even more work for my team.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” my sweet little six year old asked. I stopped dancing immediately. It was hard enough to get my kids to listen, even when they thought I was normal.
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“Lizzy, honey, what are you doing out of bed?” I asked. I stepped away from the slowly cooking eggs to pull her up into my arms.
“You were shaking everything, daddy,” Lizzy said, “cause you can’t dance. I’m better.”
“Uh huh,” I said, unconvinced but unwilling to crush the dreams of my little girl. “Do you want to do some cooking with me?”
I walked her over to the range, keeping my eyes on the eggs. They were still cooking. No chance of burning yet, which I was well pleased about. It was much harder to season with only one hand, but I took the salt and pepper shakers, one by one, and added some flavor to the eggs. My phone started to ring in my pocket, but I ignored it.
“No, set me down!” Lizzy demanded. “I’ll show you how to dance right.”
I set her down before she could start wriggling and cause a horrible accident. I continued to cook while she showed me her awesome dancing. More or less, her better version of dancing was jumping jacks where she twisted in midair. Speaking of shaking the whole house, she was much better at the task.
“Can I have some strawberries?” she asked as my phone rang for the second time in my pocket. I took a couple of the strawberries, chopped the tops off, and handed them to her. I prepared the rest of them, while I grabbed the egg mixture off the stove.
My phone continued to ring for the third time in my pocket, so I answered while starting to shovel food into my mouth. My poor avocado was completely forgotten. “Yeah, huh?” I asked.
“It’s Gerralt,” he said from the other side of the phone.
“Yeah huh,” I repeated, continuing to shovel food into my mouth.
“I need you to come into the office. We need to discuss these application environments. Staging, UAT, and Production aren’t doing it. We’re going to create an extra Staging and UAT environment. And a Sandbox.”
I almost choked as Gerralt went over his newest stupid pitch. Holy, did they want to bankrupt the company? Creating those environments was going to cost thousands more per year for each additional environment. I swallowed the rest of my food, clutching my chest, and shot back.
“Yeah, we need to talk, and if you’re committed, we’ve got to call the other technical department directors into a meeting. This week. I keep telling you Gerralt, it’s not that easy. Look, I’m headed in now.” I turned away from the phone and faced Lizzy, “Honey, go wake mommy up. Daddy’s gotta go into work.”
“Hey, Will, what was that last part?” Gerralt’s voice came from the phone, which wasn’t even to my ear anymore.
“I said I’m on the way. We’ll meet in fifteen,” I said. I hung up as I watched Lizzy walk off toward the master bedroom, which was fine with me. Let Carlie handle her, I figured. I stepped into my sleek, black luxury sedan and threw the phone on the seat. As I sped off, I tried to connect the bluetooth, so I could call one of the other directors, but couldn’t solve it. I picked up the speed.
I made my way to the office as fast as I could. I was lucky enough to avoid being pulled over. I parked in the street parking, instead of the employee lot, so I could run into the building a little faster. I was in such a rush, I flung the car door open without retrieving my phone; That’s when the bus hit me.
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My name is… well, it’s not important. Suffice it to say, I’ll be joining you for this journey we undertake together. This is the story of an aging, mostly unhappy married man named Will. Will’s life is the focus of our story. Unfortunately, his story is going to get rather complicated. Because he’s dead.