Chapter 2

You always hear about the guy that woke up the day that his life changed and it felt like any other day, like he would never have guessed. That wasn't me. Before I opened my eyes I knew something was up. The prospect of change was so exciting that I rushed downstairs to see if June Cleaver had a hot breakfast waiting for me. Nope. No hot breakfast. I reminded myself that there probably wouldn't be any more surprises today and my funny feeling was probably Dante and Andromeda's food tricking my stomach into thinking regular nutrition was a possibility. I shrugged it all off until I got to school.

Any ominous feeling I had when I got to my first class didn't return. The same went for my second class, and my third. The touch of fate I hate felt in my stomach didn't actually return until I arrived to work. I wanted to tell Miegan all about this general weirdness, not because it was in her realm of expertise, to look mysterious. Alas, when I went into my foot funk cage there was no one tinkering away with changing crap plastic plates or dirty bearings. It was an empty hole in my day and to someone who lived one day at a time, it was an empty hole in my little world. The moment I had resigned that she was just late Steve came over to my corner of the Whirl and told me that the best part of my day was taking hers off. No sooner than I registered what he was saying the ominous gut twist came back.

I wanted to chalk it up to a wrench being thrown in my regimented day. I wanted to be able to just throw up and get on with my work, but even if I did there was the uncomfortable silence only making the aerosol sounds louder until they were a roaring in my ears. Eventually I just quit working. The wonderful and prepubescent patrons of weekday RollerWhirl were just going to have to chance some built up foot foulness, I wasn't in the mood. Work went by like a time lapse video while I was stuck in reverse and all of it was awful. Finally the rink closed down and I was free from the Miegan less existence I suffered through.

I ran out the emergency exit management paid the fire chief not to inspect like I hated the place. The dummy door let out into the empty lot adjacent to the rink and gave me a clear line of sight to the street that led me home. Maybe the happy couple next door can shed some light on this bleak day, I thought. At a brisk pace, I set out to that same task. I had only gotten a few feet when a man in short shorts stepped out of a shipping van that had parked in the lot. He had a small package in his hands and looked back and forth between it and myself. I was trapped by the question burning behind the man's eyes and the intercept trajectory he had set himself to. In the half second I recognized the gut twist became a gut punch.

"Hey kid, is this 1313 Brolly Boulevard?" the man shouted.

"Well... , the rink is 1315 and that gas station is 1311 so yeah I guess." I assume the answer was good enough for him because his face lit up like a working man on his way home.

"Good enough for me. Will you sign for this? I gotta go man." He thrust the package in my hands along with a tablet computer. I signed and he took back the tablet like it was his ticket home. The package was rather weighty, and in an unprecedented display of boldness I yelped my current biggest fear.

"How do I know this isn't a dildo or something like that? I don't exactly do anal beads or anything." I was white in the face when I heard the words leave my mouth. His response was that of an experienced deliverer of faceless packages.

"The box says electronic so whatever it is, have fun. Or not. Your choice kid." And with that the man in short shorts drove away.

I tore open the box like it was a manifesto from fate answering all the questions I had built up since that morning. Between my frenzy and the lack of lighting I didn't recognize the sleek black box, or the artistry of the graphic design around the words that identified the weight in the box as the newest, most advanced smartphone available to the public. That's okay though because the phone slipping free from the packaging and shattering on the ground spoke volumes. As soon as I saw it burst into a million pieces I knew both what I had and what I had literally let slip through my fingers.

I can't remember how long I just sat there and starred at it. It must have been long enough for me to get knocked on my ass by the violent winds that blew through the lot. I held my hands in front of my face to shield my eyes and in the dim light I saw the pieces of the phone begin to shake a rattle on the ground like the wind had no effect on the small plastic and metal shards. They, rather, moved like there was an earthquake under them, bouncing and shaking so fast as to cause a blur of motion to my eyes. It got worse before it got better and before soon I couldn't make out what was happening just a few feet away from my face. The winds picked up at a ridiculous pace to point that the sands carried in their wake cut at my face.