Bootstrap

Chapter 1

There are plenty of places in time to begin this story. We could start at the dawn of time, the day humanity first crawled into existence, or the day Charlie, our main character, was conceived. But instead this story will open on a Wednesday. This particular Wednesday was the most important Wednesday in all of Charlie's life. Simply because of a few coincidental events as he will put it.

At 2pm, on that special Wednesday, Charlie was about to go on his last break of the day, then continue working in his cubicle at his nameless job. Charlie was a good, average, everyman, just not very important. He had a dull life at a dead end job that was populated with people he couldn't care for. Charlie often had thoughts about killing them. Ending their pathetic and meaningless lives then leaving the city. Although this man, along with every other person, had something called empathy, and a fear of imprisonment. No one was ever sure about why.

Prison is a very nice place with cozy rooms, food, water and, other people. The very best part is that all these things were free. But not a single person enjoyed it.

He got up from his standard issue wheely spinny chair and stepped away from his boring wooden desk to go outside. Charlie didn't smoke, in fact he was against it. But he always spent his breaks outside to look at the city and breathe the fresh air, and smell anything other than fresh printed paper and nervous sweat. He stepped over to his boss' office to alert him of his break, as he does everyday. But on this Wednesday the conversation went a little differently.

"I'm gonna step out for my break, I'll be back in 15-20 minutes," Charlie said.

"Not today, we need you to skip your break," said the man sitting in his office, at a desk that clearly cost more than his employees'. On his desk was an assortment of items such as a mug, a phone, and a long black slab of plastic with the words "Rich Stevens, head of business," which basically means important man who tells you what to do. Curiously enough his desk was also covered in pens and pencils despite almost never having any paper on his desk. When he did have paper it almost always meant bad news. Unfortunately on this Wednesday, he had an especially bad piece of paper.

"Why exactly do I need to skip my break, I've been getting all my work done, I'm practically done all the paperwork for today. I think I deserve my break," Charlie began to feel very angry.

Rich flipped the paper so Charlie couldn't read it. "More work came in. We need you to finish it by 9."

Charlie realized what the paper was and could barely contain his anger. "I get off at 5."

"Not tonight, we need you to stay another 4 hours." Rich stared down at his paper. "Charlie you're a smart man. I won't hide it from you, we have to lay off most of the people on this floor, including you. You're one of our best and I didn't want to lose you."

"No, you just didn't want to lose my work skills" Charlie exclaimed.

"Exactly. That's why I'm making you stay late."

"What if I just get up and leave,"

"Then you don't get your severance package and instead of laying you off, we fire you,"

"That's blackmail, "

"No, it's business"

Charlie walked back to his desk and sat down. He began to type and do his work. His mind began trailing off and his imagined killing everyone. Bursting through the front door and shooting every single one of his coworkers. Then marching to his boss' office, bashing his head with the mug, and stabbing him with every single useless pen and pencil on his desk.

As he imagined it there was a loud bang followed by several gunshots. Charlie ducked under his desk as a man in a black hood shot every single one of his coworkers and his boss. Charlie watched in horror as his imagination became reality. The man in the hood rushed out the front door dropping the guns. Charlie sat on the floor against the wall listening to the sirens of the police officers. He looked at his computer screen and realized he wrote everything he was thinking. Including everything that just happened. He ran to the computer and deleted it all before the police arrived.