Flint
On his 27th birthday, Flint Parker was given a gift. Sitting at his favorite table in the Sea Crab Pub, he was approached by a dwarf with a well pronounced beard and large glasses that seemed to cover half of his pudgy face. The dwarf wore baggy overalls that seemed to make the man seem even more miniscule then he actually was. Observing him, Flint's sluggish mental capacities made him look similar to what he would expect one of Santa's dwarves to look like.
“Mind if I sit here?” asked the dwarf as he deftly attempted to climb a proportionately large and shaky bar stool.
“Shure, be my guest.” Replied Flint half heartily in an obvious slur as he downed another shot.
“Well… you seem to be in a chipper mood for lunch.” Exclaimed the dwarf as he fuddled with a piece of paper and pen from one of his many pockets. “Might I ask the occasion?”
“You already have, so I guessssss that you may.”
“You're a quick one, you are,” replied the dwarf, laughing in a husky tone that didn't seem to match his manner.
“If you mush know, ish my birth day, and assuch, I'm spending the day regretting I was ever born. La la la!” and with that, another shot disappeared down his gullet. Putting down the paper and the pen on the table, the Dwarf asked Flint the reason for this self-loathing.
“Do you really care?”
“Of course I care!” exclaimed the dwarf in an overly annoyed squeak. “I wouldn't be here if I didn't.”
“Right.”
Flint then proceeded into a long tirade on the various recent tragedies that were his life. His girlfriend of three years had left him two weeks ago, his mother had just been diagnosed with cancer, his job was an on going drudgery that saw no opportunity for promotion, his dog was stupid, his landlord was ugly, he could only buy hotdogs in packs of twelve, and the whiskey sour he had ordered had yet to arrive.
“Quite a list.” Replied the dwarf.
“I omi…omitttt… left out the unimportant things for times shake. La-le-lei-lo!” another shot disappeared.
“Oh, don't forget to sign your bill” replied the dwarf, sticking the paper and pen in front of him. Stumbling over his signature, Flint eventually managed to write out his name, even if did take five tries.
“Tomorrow, things will be better. I'll leave you a present at your door step. Happy birthday!” With that, the dwarf climbed down from the stool and disappeared out the front door, leaving Flint questioning whether he had actually just had a conversation, or merely imagined it. As he pondered that quagmire, his whiskey sour arrived. Raising a toast to himself, he exclaimed.
“Happy Birthday!”
Flint awoke to the sound of cymbals in his head and a storm in his stomach. After emptying his system in the bathroom, he slowly bumped his way to the couch and sat for a moment recapturing his senses. After managing to acquaint himself with his surroundings, he moved to the kitchen to make a pot of black coffee.
His place was a mess. It had been clean the morning before, but now, glasses and bottles lay across the floor, the carpet had become stained with alcohol, blood, and what seemed to be pudding, the pictures on the wall were all crooked, his window was broken, and his TV had been busted in. Feeling his typical supposed apathy to his situation, he simply continued on to the kitchen.
The freezer was open and everything within it had either melted or gone bad. Opening the refrigerator, Flint found that everything in there had gone sour as well. He didn't really care. Taking the coffee grounds from the freezer, he crossed to the Mr. Coffee and removed the pot. It was then that the knock came from the door.
Lurching like the Frankenstein monster, Flint went to open the door. If it were a burglar, he might just leave out of revulsion, he thought. Opening the door, Flint found the hall to be vacant. All that stood there was a large package on the floor with a tag that had his name on it. Picking up the package and giving it a shake, somewhat hoping it wasn't a bomb, Flint moved inside with the package.
Placing it upon the table, Flint slowly got at the task of unwrapping it and found an old fashioned type writer inside. Removing it, he found at the packages bottom an instruction manual. The title read, “The Magic Typewriter.”
Skimming it, Flint let out a small chuckle. Who ever had come up with this joke was fairly creative, he thought. According to the instructions, whatever the type writer wrote happened. Returning to the kitchen, Flint finished making his coffee and returned to the table with the black brew. Taking a long gulp, he came to the bitter realization that the coffee didn't seem to be helping his hang over at all.
With a large amount of skepticism, Flint sat himself in front of the typewriter and put in a fresh sheet of paper.
“I must still be drunk,” he assured himself.
Deciding to type the first thing that came into his mind, Flint typed the following line:
My hangover immediately disappeared.
As he typed the period, it happened. A feeling of his general unease replaced his feeling of extreme unease and his nausea disappeared.
“Simply a coincidence.” He exclaimed.
As such, he attempted to test the apparatus again. He decided something a bit more random. He willed for his apartment to be clean. However, this time, nothing happened. Feeling a tad let down, Flint returned to his room and decided to try to sleep the rest of the day away.
When he finally awoke again five hours later, he found his room to be spotlessly clean. The stains and trash piles were gone and his destroyed television had been replaced by a new rustic bookshelf.
It was then that Flint's skepticism disappeared.
Flint's room had returned to a desolate wasteland. With every passing day, the mounds of trash rose higher and higher, reflecting his own unkempt mind. Sitting atop one such mound was the dwarf, pinching his nose in an attempt to alleviate the stench.
“Hallo!” Anyone alive?” the dwarf yelled through cupped hands.
Emerging from several layers of blankets, Flint rubbed his forehead as he squinted his eyes, slowly focusing upon the dwarf. After a series of blinking exercises he put on his bifocals. Making out the disproportionate shape Flint's chin dropped. Leaping from the covers, he tackled the dwarf through a mountain of Coors light cans.
“You! You did this,” he exclaimed as he slammed the dwarf to the floor.
“You seem less than glad,” replied the dwarf in a sputter. “Things aren't working out?”
“Didn't work out?! Fuck! No! They didn't!”
“Simmer… simmer” whispered the dwarf, wriggling out of Flint's grasp. “Now, what happened?”
“Bad… Stuff…”
“Elaborate.”
Flint lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply as he recalled the last several months. “Things seemed to start fine. My mom's cancer was on the mend, or so the doctor said. Upon checking outta the hospital though, she got run over by a street sweeper and sprayed across the crosswalk. I tried to write her back to life when I heard, but apparently, she must've come back as a zombie, cause the coroner saw her eyes open and stomped her outta existence. He then committed himself to an asylum, I'm told.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Meanwhile, my girlfriend came back to me, however, she continued to fuck guys on the side and contracted syphilis. So, I wrote her outta my life, but then she got hit by a fucking street sweeper too.”
“What're the chances?”
“Ha! This led to me being depressed and writing myself happy. So happy, in fact, that I laughed hysterically as I danced upon her casket during her eulogy.”
“That so?”
At this point, Flint gave a mean spirited snarl to the dwarf.
“Yes, yes it is. Then, being the fucking genius I am, I asked for unlimited income with no effort. As such, my bank account grows daily, but so does the amount of trash in my apartment, which has become a mandated land fill.”
“So it has. What about the other things?”
“Well, I wrote for my dog to get smarter, so it ran away. As for my dumb ugly landlord, I asked to not see his dumb ugly face again, and now I can hardly make out anything unless I wear these triple bifocals due to the fumes in here.”
“Well, that is a dilly.”
Throwing himself upon a pile of discarded stuffed animals, Fling slowly massaged his temples.
“Please… just tell me… what the hell kind of magic typewriter is this?”
The dwarf, sitting up and readjusting his suspenders, gave a small chuckle.
“Magic… what magic? All that typewriter does is tell my brother and I what to do. Ever since you signed the contract-“
“What contract?”
The dwarf quickly removed a piece of paper from inside his trousers and handed it to Flint. It basically stated that all his resources had become the joint property of Beckerson Cleaning Services in exchange for the employees of Beckerson to accomplish any task he should ask for in any way possible. At the bottom was his signature.
“But… my mom… from the dead…”
“Ever think the guy might've been insane beforehand?”
“But… this isn't fair.”
The dwarf smiled and rubbed his glasses as he took back the contract.
“Flint, I thought you'd know better than anyone else… life isn't fair.”
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