Short Story | Fred Aiken Writing

May 6, 2022

Nano-New!

They’re all natural, I promise. Organic. Fair trade. All that shiitake, and more. Sorry if I sound crude, but I’m just passionate about them. They cleanse the soul, you know, scrub out all the bad shiitake blooming in your aura, and give you a brand new start. Think of it as an oil change for your inner being.

Just think of the possibility of these little guys. You just take a nanobot vitamin, let it read your thoughts and body, and before you know it, NanoMed sends you a full diagnostic on what’s wrong with you and how they can fix you. The cost is minimal, I promise. I mean, realistically, what sort of price would you put on your well-being?

I’m sorry, but I can’t leave here with a no. I’m going to have to insist you reconsider. I have been permitted to use force.

February 3, 2022

Subscribe to Feel

It’s that time of year again. I need to decide whether or not to subscribe to my life in order to keep living or if I pack it in, let them, whoever they are, come collect my belongings and remains, and drift off to wherever the hell it is we go when the subscription isn’t renewed.

I thought about not subscribing a few years back. Life wasn’t quite great. I made a few poor investments, some on margin with gauging interest rates. I hadn’t found anyone that wanted to spend thirty minutes with me, much less the rest of their lives. I hadn’t even gotten laid in close to three years. I’m pretty sure there was a global pact that every bird in the world shit on me for target practice. My parents no longer talked to me. I dislocated my shoulder getting out of a chair because I was out of shape. My favorite mug broke. I could no longer remember that song that I once liked that helped pick me up. And I’m pretty sure all my coworkers hated me.

Plus, re-subscribing each year requires reading through all the fine print of what it means to continue on with life and I was just never good with reading, especially if the font was half the size of an amoeba. Then my psychiatrist said I had antisocial personality disorder. I asked her what to do about it, and she said take four of these and keep coming back. I routinely forget to take my antisocial pills. I forget to take melatonin. I forget that I committed to taking multivitamins years ago as a New Year’s resolution in an effort to get healthy. I think I was even supposed to start taking some vitamin to help with memory loss, but I forgot about that one too.

But I wouldn’t feel bad for myself. I’m probably a piece of shit when it’s all said and done. I get in these obsessive moods where I play online chess for hours on end, and whenever I blunder a piece, or just don’t like my opponent, then I scream out fuck bitch cunt. It was a word trio I came up with in my head years ago to express my frustrations rather than deal with them in a healthy manner. I don’t think anyone has ever overheard me, though I find it weirdly difficult to suppress the urge to say it while out in public, especially if I’m playing chess. Which is the reason I try to only play chess at home, when there’s no one around, and sometimes even in the dead of night when most people are sleeping.

I also like to get online and troll everyone, including people I probably genuinely agree with. I don’t know why I do it. It’s a compulsion really. But not one I’m particularly proud of. I know it’s only because all of my comments are anonymous. I’m sure if I were to be doxxed then I’d stop. But I don’t think the people I troll seem to care all that much about my comments, my negativity, my contrarian attitude, or even my existence. I’m not saying they should. It’s probably for the best that I’m ignored when I’m at my worst. It’s kinda like ignoring a crying toddler that’s misbehaving for attention.

I’ve also never voted. I’m not sure if that should be included in a reason for not wanting to re-subscribe my life, but I feel like it might have at least a tangential reason. It’s not like I’m one of those people that constantly complains about the state of the world. I know it wouldn’t matter, so who gives a fuck. But I can’t help but think that by never participating in the democratic process, however bs it is, still constitutes as a reason I should throw in the towel.

But the cost. The cost is really where it all falls apart. I mean, inflation has cut into everything. The cost of living has exploded. I would probably need two or three jobs just to stay afloat. And I barely want to work the one job I have as it is. I never bought into bitcoin, or gold, or silver…hell, I didn’t even got the whole fiat fad either. So, yeah, I guess in a way I can’t afford to live anymore. Sure, there’s reasons as to why, but the money Sam. All ya got to do is follow the money.

It didn’t take all that long for me to feel hopeless. I wish I could tell you it was some grand struggle. Something for the ages. But, you see, I think I was born with the will to give up, unsubscribe from life, and let nature take its course. I ask that it be painless, though you really don’t owe me anything.

November 5, 2021

Pleasant Things for Pleasant’s Sake

I started For Pleasant’s Sake after a string of failed business ideas ran into the ground.

There was the coffee shop. The flower shop. The light bulb shop. The general shop. The hair plugs shop. And a few more, though I’m sure it doesn’t matter.

Either way, it’s a bit impressive how much failure defines my business career.

Some might take it as a sign. Stop failing. Or stop opening up shops near Walmart and Target. Come up with an actual profitable idea that customers will actually come out for.

Rinse. Repeat. Recycle. Or something like that.

So, I had this dream. Nothing super out of the ordinary. But I had this dream to open up a store that offered customers the service of pleasantness. It seems ridiculous, I know. I don’t mean to make it sound as such. But I also didn’t want to over-complicate the matter of my business prospectus with some over-the-top dissertation of a business plan.

Instead, all I do is perform various tasks and services for customers’ customized needs that have the end result of being pleasant.

Take for example the case of Mr. Barmoti, this sixty-two year old man widower who hadn’t experienced a home cooked meal in over four years. He hired me to come over to his house, cook and serve him a pleasant meal, and fellowship with him for the evening.

The operation is pretty customizable, and no two jobs are exactly alike, since no two customers have the same definition of pleasantness.

“So, I need to come up with the service for you to do for me?”

I guess, in a way. Or, if you’d like, I have an entire binder of services and specializations that I am known for. Specials, I guess you could call them. But if don’t want to be constrained by what other customers or myself have come up with as a pleasant service, then I’d be happy to develop on for you.

“Would you even be willing to kill yourself?”

That doesn’t sound pleasant. I can’t believe that anyone would find that pleasant, would you?

Don’t get me wrong, of course I retain the right not to serve customers that make ridiculous requests to fit their demented sense of pleasantry. I have standards and policies.

I won’t commit a crime. I won’t harm or injure either myself or others. I guess in a way, it has to be generally agreed upon as mutually pleasant by all parties connected to the service, I would say, or else I’m probably not going to do it.

I do hope you’ll come back and see us some time. I think everyone would enjoy a little pleasantness in their lives. And sure, it might be a little sad that the state of this world requires pleasantry to be dictated by profit. But you gotta get joy out of something in life, am I right? Why not make this your one stop shop for a pleasant experience?