Really, I can’t explain what the hell just happened to me. Ever had it like, you get out of your house, and gradually you start understanding that something’s severely wrong with the world around you?
It’s better to tell the story from the beginning, though. So I just woke up normally, did my routine morning business, and headed out on my affairs. Well, I was about to have a date with my girl (let’s call her Mandy for simplicity). We were supposed to meet at 12.30 PM, and as a man I definitely didn’t want to be late, so I’ve left early enough to arrive some 10 to 15 minutes before schedule. I was also planning on getting a gift for her, so a small detour was planned just as well.
The moment I’ve left home, the strange things began.
First, it was cold outside. Freakin’ cold. It was barely above 50 degrees outside (10 Celsius, for you metric system guys). Nothing unusual, yeah, unless you live in Orlando. And there is basically no reason for weather to be this cold, but I was, “fuck, whatever”, got back home, put on a warmer shirt and got out. There was another thing that bugged me, I didn’t notice it though until some time after my supposed date…
Well, so the next strange thing I’ve bumped into is Mr. Cocksploosh. He’s my neighbor, and an old fart with a particularly nasty personality. So just as usual, I threw him a quick “G’day Mr. Sploosh” and walked away. I half-expected to hear his ramblings ‘bout how dare I miss the “cock” part of his last name (The old fart is very upset when somebody calls him ‘Sploosh) and how insolent and ill-mannered we the young people are these days. But. The old fart had a sudden burst of friendliness of warmth so uncharacteristic of him! “Oh g’day Randy! I see you’re in good spirits today, is that because you’re going to meet that girl of yours, Mandy or what’s her name? Ha-ha!” - that’s roughly what he said to me. With a warm smile, so unbecoming of him.
It looked more creepy than wholesome to me, though. The dude who is always grumpy and aloof - the old dude who never appreciates anything - and he’s now like this? The fuck? I quickly replied something, just to get the dude off me (sorry, the good version of Cocksploosh, but I was really creeped), and went to the store to get my girl a present.
There was that thing at the store, where I simply couldn’t find her favorite chocolate sweets. Heart-shaped chocolate sweets with vanilla cream filling, packed into a big, red, heart-shaped box wrapped in silk. These stand out just well among other sweets, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t just miss them, especially after looking around the store a few times, thinking they have some sorta re-arrangement or something. Well, I ended up buying a different set of sweets, in a bigger box and in an assortment. “Hope she’ll like them” I thought.
Well, with all this and that, I’ve finally arrived to the place of our meeting some two minutes before the right time. “Phew. Not late.” thought I as I sat down on a bench, waiting for her.
Mandy didn’t arrive after five minutes. Ten minutes later she isn’t here. Thirty minutes… not here. “Okay, I’ll call her”… no answer. “Now, what the fuck?” thought I as my third attempt to call Mandy turned out to be a total failure.
I’ve waited for her for another hour, made sure my clock isn’t playing pranks on me, and after a hour and a bit more, I was, like, “really, Mandy… fuck you”. Then I went home. As for the chocolate sweets, I was already going to eat them in peace, alone. FUCK YOU, MANDY.
And that’s it. I went to the store, to get myself some beer, also bought myself some fast food chicken. At least my favorite beer was still in place. Somewhat cheered up, I went back home.
That’s where the really weird shit kicked in. I finally came to my district, but for some reason I just couldn’t find my home! No, here’s the Splooge’s house, there is my another neighbor, a single mom with three kids all from different fathers. My house was right in the middle! What the fuck…
Okay, but I do surely remember leaving my house today, from this neighborhood. So maybe I should take a look around, maybe my consciousness is playing some tricks and my house isn’t actually between those two (though dude, it’s been more than five years since I’ve moved in, what the actual fuck is happening?) Oh well, I’ve found a house which looks just like mine right behind the single mom’s house. Try to open it with my keys. The door opens alright.
Whew. What the fuck is happening?.. These were roughly my thoughts. And right before I’ve opened the chocolate box, a thought flashed across my mind, “well, maybe Mandy’s got in serious trouble, and I’m being an asshole and thinking she decided to just ignore the date”. So I tried calling her. No response, again. It’s a fuckin’ shame I don’t know the number of her mother or father or any relative.
“Facebook. Might wanna check her Facebook.” Holy shit! How come that thought didn’t hit me. That’s right, an absence of activities from her on Facebook would likely hint that she’s indeed in a trouble! So I’m trying to load my page and…
“Site not found”. Not even some sort of “Site down, check back later” page. The browser telling me that it can’t find the site at all.
Okay, a quick web search if the website is down… And none of the search results are even closely relevant to the Facebook! I mean, not even the word is known to the search engine. The search results are all made of some pages containing the words “face” and “book”, but no mention of the social media network itself. At all.
I mean, dude. Come fuckin’ on. What the hell could theoretically happen to Facebook so it got erased from all the internet?! Some super evil carnival plot of some party interested in taking down one of the larger social media networks? Regardless, Mandy isn’t answering my calls, her Facebook page is gone - assuming she HAD one, now that I think about it, and no way to figure out WTF is happening…
…actually, there is. Jerry! Some time have passed before I’ve remembered about his existence. He’s a good friend of both me and Mandy. Perhaps he’s more aware?.. I’ve no idea how to contact him via internet, so I call him.
The phone rang for about thirty seconds before Jerry answered my call. And when he finally took the phone, the first thing I’ve heard from him was-
“Dude, are you an idiot?!”
Right as he answered the phone. And I was like–
“umm, hello Jerry?”
J: “Dude, are you a fucking idiot?! Not only you’re calling me like that, but you seem to be calling from your house?”
“Umm, Jerry, are you alright?”
J: “That ‘s what I would like to ask you! Did you forget you’re being hunted? It’s been almost a week since Mandy have declared you an asshole!”
Now, wait a minute. What the fuck is that bit about being hunted and declaring me an asshole… and we were, like, chatting on Facebook literally yesterday like usual! So I ask:
“Jerry. Now can you elaborate on what the fuck are you talking about?”
J: “What do you mean? Randy, your girl have declared you an asshole, per your dating contract, when you’ve ditched your fourth date with her. In a row. She decided enough is enough, so next Monday, she went to the DMB and declared you an asshole. Which means, you’re now eligible to be hunted by anyone who’s hungry for blood!”
Dude. What. The. Fuck?
J: “Look, dude, you’re in some real shit now. That was a stupid contract you’ve made with her, so you better move somewhere real far away, create yourself a new identity, forget all of your old friends and start a new life somewhere… you hear me, dude? Randy?”
Jerry called for me a few times from the phone before I ended the call. What the fuck was that shit he just said?.. Something about a dating contract, and hunting… And what the hell is DMB? I was confused as heck, so I was just sitting there for some time. Really, what the hell should I do now, I’ve had no idea.
At some point, I took a look at my window, the part which wasn’t closed off with the curtain. The sky outside was whitish-green. Unlike the aquamarin-ish hue which was during the day, when I was out. That’s the thing I’ve noticed earlier in the morning today, but didn’t give it much attention earlier. The sky was giving off an aquamarin-ish hue instead of the usual light blue, but it wasn’t way too different from the usual, so I didn’t pay much attention to it at first. And now it was green.
Well, and you know what did I do next? I just stood wherever the fuck I was. At my home. Well it might be not the wisest option, but what should have I done in this kind of situation, really? The closest options were “run outside in panic”, and “run outside and keep running in a single direction, not knowing where or why”, and “cry like a little bitch and do nothing useful to resolve the situation” and “stay here for a while and think of what to do”. I chose the latter because, hey, I didn’t feel like running around in panic when it’s so freakin’ COLD.
So, the sun started setting down after some time. You know what did it look like? The sky became even greener at first, then switched to orange hues, and finally, when the sun was already below the horizon, it turned crimson-red before darkening completely. RIGHT after the sky became charcoal black, I’ve realized I could’ve snapped so much pictures of that! But I didn’t because I was all pre-occupied with the “WTF is going on” around me. Fuck.
The “transition” back to the normal, known world was just as sudden as me getting into the Unknown Place where I was allegedly hunted for sport for missing out four dates with Mandy (while I haven’t even missed out one of them in the real world). I was just sitting, fiddling with my phone since there wasn’t anything to do, when the phone rang. “Mandy”.
For several seconds I was even thinking whether to pick up the phone or not. I finally did.
“Um… Hello?”
M: “Randy, are you ok? I’ve tried to reach you today for, maybe, fourteen times already!”
“Wait, didn’t you declare me an asshole a…” Wait. This Mandy was trying to reach me fourteen times? That means…
M: “Umm… Asshole? What do you mean, Randy? I didn’t call you any mean names! What’s going on?”
So. This means I’m back in the normal world, right?
Of course, Mandy was mighty pissed at me for missing her out. I couldn’t really explain jack shit to her since my tale would sound outrageously insane. C’mon, just how often do you get lost in a foreign world with no clues as for what the fucked is going on around? And the only evidence of me being in another world is that box of sweets. I’ve looked up anything like this in our shops and found nothing similar.
So… It all happened yesterday, Mandy is pissed at me for missing our date, and honestly I’ve got no idea how to explain what TF happened… because I’ve barely got any idea as for what happened. And yes, today is a warm, sunny day. The sky is blue again and my house is right between Sploosh’s place and the single mom.
Maybe I should think of moving somewhere else again…