jared

by nick nelson

jared woke up in the middle of the afternoon and decided to go for a walk, because it was a nice day. as he walked along, he did not meet anybody he knew. he did not know a lot of people, and the people he did know he did not like very much, and they did not like him. he had had a dog when he was a little boy and he had liked the dog very much. but the dog had been dead for a long time. the dog’s name was butch. jared no longer thought about him very much. but when he did, the thought of butch still brought a tear to his eye. jared had been married once, to a girl named pam. he thought of pam even less than he thought about butch, but when he did think of pam it was always with a snarl of rage. as jared walked along the street past all the people whom he did not know or care about, and who did not know or care about him, he thought of all the things he had never done. he had never conquered the world. he had seen shows on the history channel about alexander the great and napoleon, and been impressed, but had never conquered the world himself he had never saved the world. he had seen tom cruise and bruce willis save the world, but he never had saved it himself. he had never hunted down any serial killers or other bad guys and delivered swift justice to them, although he had seen it done hundreds of times on various screens. he had never killed anybody. or any thing, except bugs. he had never starred in a movie, or been in a movie at all. he had never been a professional football player. he had never played football even in high school, or gone out for the team. he could not win for losing betting on football, or at cards. he was afraid to try betting on the horses, after listening to stories about them from his dad and his uncle roy. he had never had a mansion or harem of willing sex slaves, or even one willing sex slave, not even pam. especially not pam. he had never made a billion dollars. or much money at all, and he owed a fortune to credit card companies, and probably would for the rest of his life. he had never written a best selling novel, or any novel, but thought he might give it a try one of these days. but he had a job. with weird hours, but he had a job. he was not a freak. people did not point to him in the street and laugh at him. he was white. life was not as bad as all that. he would not even mind living forever. maybe he would. scientists were working on it, weren’t they? suddenly jared was hungry. there was a burger king on the next block and he decided to drop into it. maybe they would have some new kind of burger they had never had before.