Happiness

Steven could not remember the last time he was this happy. The entire city was in a state of virtual lock down. The weathermen and the news casters all advised against venturing outdoors. They said that being outside for more than 10 minutes could cause frost bite and hypothermia in these conditions. School were closed and people were scared. The homeless of the city were in a state of peril. Steven was in a state of joy.

Everyone in the city was being forced to live the life that Steven aspires to everyday. His ideal state is at home, shades closed and doors locked, isolated from the outside world. But, life always gets in the way, He inevitably has to go to work, or Susan wants them to go to dinner, or he has to go to the doctor due to his foot infection. Whatever it is, his routine was always cut short. But now that wasn't really possible. Surprisingly, work told everyone not to come in. Susan is content to just huddle on the couch in a blanket, and his infection was well under control. Even the paper boy wasn't a threat. His parents did not want him riding on a rickety metal frame in below zero temperature.

So, Steven was at peace. Nothing to do but sip his brandy and listen to Led Zeppelin records. They had been saying on the news that this cold snap might last a week or more. Steven could barely contain his excitement. This was better than a vacation to some far off, malaria infested tropical island, or some uninteresting historical site filled with knuckle dragging tourists. This was a paradise of Steven's own design, a perfect oasis of control and calm. If nuclear winter descended down, or global warming struck its final blow and transformed the city into a frozen wasteland, Steven would smile, tip his glass, and listen to Misty Mountain Hop again.

Impound

Steven grimaced as the loud, droning elevator music blared over the loudspeaker. The florescent lights and the stifling heat in this tiny room made Steven feel like he was in a sauna. Sadly, Steven was not relaxing on a bench somewhere, he was in a long, slow moving line, waiting to talk to some unhappy person about getting his car back.

Steven had awoken that morning to find that his 2010 Toyota had been stolen right off the street. Worse, it had not been by some loner looking for a quick buck, nor by some nefarious, shadowy organization intending to use it for some kind of fast and furious scheme. It had been commandeered by the city. The very city that Steven pays taxes to and supports. They had decided to arbitrarily post a sign on his street that allowed them to take his car hostage, then force him to pay money to get it back. If he wasn't so angry, Steven would have been impressed at that kind of extortion.

So here he was, fresh off a 25 dollar taxi ride, in a terrible part of town, already late for work. His boss would never let him hear the end of this. Somehow he would make this all Steven's fault, as if he did all of this intentionally. Steven profoundly hated that man. He also hated every other living thing in this room. They were all hindrances to him. It was all a constant reminder of why he hated going out in public, save for occasional forays with Susan and band gigs with Leonard.

The door slammed as another person entered the room, loudly agitated and yelling at everyone he could. Steven avoided eye contact as best he could and tried to make himself smaller. He did not need that now. As much as he agreed with the man, he had to get out of here as quickly as he could, and for that to happen he had to suck it up and cooperate. He could think of few things he would rather do right now.

He finally got to the window, only for the bored, inattentive high school graduate to tell him that the paperwork he needs was in his car, which happened to be in their lot. Now he had to go out and speak with another person he did not care about, retrieve the document, and start all over again. He wondered how many people just gave up. Many of the cities used car lots could be stocked exclusively with the leftovers from these places of despair. This was going to be a long, long day.

The Cold

Steven was miserable. He sat on his couch, blanket pulled up around his ears, and just shivered. It had been 2 days since the heat had stopped working. His landlord had insisted that it was getting fixed ASAP, but Steven was skeptical. He wanted to call his landlord again, to ask what the hold up was, but that involved moving into the cold, and that was simply out of the question right now.

Steven hated the cold. There was simply no way to escape it. When it is hot, you can turn on a van or drink a cold beverage. Cold isn't like that. When you are cold, truly cold, you can feel it in your bones. It seeps into every fiber of your body. Any temporary relief you may gain, like a hot shower, or shopping in a warm store, are simply stalls to keep the cold away for a moment.

Steven thought about all this as he waited for Susan to get home from work. Steven hadn't had work today because his boss Mr. Elliot, didn't want the employees trying to make it to work in this weather. Of course the old man had inadvertently doomed Steven to a day of shivering and sniffling. His coworkers were probably enjoying their day off, sitting in front of a fire with a good book, or enjoying a nice meal.

Not that Steven was surprised by any of this. This was just another case of the universe conspiring against him. This had always happened to him. Once, when he was 8, he was locked in a refrigerator of a gas station for 30 minutes before his parents noticed that he wasn't in the car. Then they made him apologize to the attendant for giving him more work to do. That had taught Steven a valuable lesson about both heat loss and gas station workers.

The phone rang, and Steven briefly considered moving to answer it, but only briefly. The voice mail would get it. Perhaps it was his landlord calling to tell him the heat was fixed and to beg his forgiveness. Maybe he would even give him a discount on rent. But, it was only Susan, telling him she was stuck in traffic and would be late for work. This was Steven's life now, cold and misery.

The Baby

Steven looked down at the tiny person at his feet, and felt nothing. Susan's nephew, Aaron was staying with him for the afternoon while Susan and her sister Nancy went shopping. Without warning, the little primate had been thrust into his arms and they had scooted out the door before Steven could begin to mount a protest. So now he was stuck here with this little moron for the rest of the day.

Aaron was almost two. He spoke but little, preferring to just stand there and stare at Steven with those cold, lifeless eyes. This was not the worst part. He would bother Steven while he was trying to work with his senseless crying. This was also not the worst part. The worst part was that he was mobile. A child that age, who has just learned to walk, is basically a divining rod. It immediately sough out and found any possibly dangerous or life threatening things in the room. Twice already Steven had to keep Aaron from frying what little brains he had in the light socket.

He had come up with a novel solution. He had completely encased the child with pillows, thereby negating his ability to move, see, or pretty much do anything. The child continued trying to get around, however, and ran around the home like a giant marshmallow with an Iron Man shirt. Steven had turned on CSPAN, to keep him occupied, but that had not yet peaked his interest. Steven had tried playing some Rush, as well, but Aaron did not appreciate Getty Lee as much as he did.

The child seemed hungry, but Steven did not know what small children eat. All he had in the fridge was old brie and chicken Pad Thai. Neither one peeked the tiny person's interest. Steven thought he could get some macaroni and cheese delivered, but he didn't want Aaron getting sick and ruining his beautiful carpet.

In the end, all Steven could do was sit here trying to work, with a small child grasping at his leg, as he waited for the mother to come home

Halloween

Steven sighed as he peaked through the blinds out onto the street. They were everywhere. Witches and ghosts, football players and cheerleaders, orcs and goblins. All the tiny morons in their ill- fitting store bought costumes. He pitied them. They had become part of this money making scheme known as Halloween.

As a child, Steven had an important relationship with Halloween. He refused to participate. When they would have Halloween parties at school, Steven would sit by himself, at his desk, in silence. All his classmates would prance around the classroom like idiots, delighting in their own stupid antics. Steven's parents had told him to never participate in this dreadful holiday, and he had always taken them at their word. The whole thing was a scheme by big candy companies to make lots of money by fattening up generations of children with their awful tasting candy.

Steven had dressed up in costume once. He was in college and his roommates convinced him to go to a costume party at a local fraternity house. Steven went as an accountant. He thought the costume was pretty self-explanatory, but apparently no one else got it. Just because he wasn't dressed as a slutty something or other, didn't mean he wasn't in costume.

That was the first and only time. Since then, every Halloween, he had locked his doors and turned all his lights off. This did not deter the odd child from wandering onto his property and ringiung his doorbell. That is why Steven was sitting here, with a bull horn in his hand, ready to drive them off. He had no candy to give out, no tricks or treats. All he had was the fierce desire to show these children that they were being mindless drones influenced by the media.

Steven yelled, blew the horn, and drove off an 8 year old in a poorly made Joker costume. This was going to be a long night.

Overload

Steven looked at the mountain of work piled on his desk with wide, sad eyes. The top of it seemed to grow ever further towards the ceiling. Periodically, that troll of a secretary would bring in another pile and toss it onto the pile. He wished the whole thing would just tumble over and crush him. That would mean an end to this torture.

This was all his bosses fault. That cantankerous old wizard had “volunteered” Steven for some extra work. Steven did not remember ever being consulted about this. He just standing there, trying to get through another terrible morning meeting, and the next thing he knows, he is in charge of converting all old client files over to the new database. This was clearly a punishment. There was no reason to be handling files from 20 years ago unless someone was torturing him. This was the stuff of Tarturaus, and Greek legend. He half expected to see Orpheus descending at any moment to rescue him.

Sadly, that would never happen, so he was stuck here, filing and typing and coming up with creative reasons to call in sick tomorrow. He had run out of dead relatives, so a funeral was out of the question, and his boss now required a doctor's note after his two week long battle with the boogy woogy flu. This is one of the few times Steven wished he had a cat, as a well times vet visit would do the trick quite well. Maybe he had a no-good brother who had to get bailed out of jail? Or a sister who needed help moving. Or maybe he could just get raptured right there in his bedroom.

The ogre woman brought another stack of files and Steven could not help but smile. This was how his world was going to end, not with a bang, but with the quiet shuffling of papers. This would be his tomb, this mausoleum of envelops and files. Centuries from now, archaeologists would uncover this strange site and conclude, ironically, that this was a man obsessed with his work.

Movers

Steven sighed as he watched the movers struggle with the couch. It was clearly to wide for the door as it was and yet they had not figured out that turning it on it's side was an option. He could not believe that he was paying these people to move his entire life. He never trusted anyone with so much as his umbrella. Now here were a number of large, men, tossing around his vintage vinyls and furniture as if they were sacks of rice.

He had been dreading this day for a long time, and it had finally come. He had been so, so comfortable in his old surroundings, with his familiar things and faces. He did not like his neighbors, but at least he knew them. This new abode promised new people that Steven would have to pretend to get along with, new paths to learn, new things to try not and see. He would have to learn all the new places to get food from on Netflix, and a find a new path to get to work.

It was the little things that bothered him the most. He loathed having to change his address with his bank, his work, the electrical company, and all the other places that required it. They should have to find that information out for themselves. Why should he have to do it? Also, this whole moving thing was too much for him. That he was paying these ogres to destroy his belongings was just too much to deal with.

He watched again as they finally got the sofa in. They had completely scratched the sides of both the door frame and the couch in the process. Susan, oblivious to the damage, squealed with delight as the last item was moved into place. It was over, mercifully, at long last, over. Now, the long, hard task of unpacking lay ahead. Steven shuddered as he thought of how long it would take him to get everything exactly right.