Friday Fiction - The Legend of Bob (Vortex of Doom)

I hope you enjoy this second installment of The Legend of Bob for Friday Fiction. I really have no idea where I am going with this, but I'm glad your on the journey with me to find out. :)

The Legend of Bob
Part 2
Vortex of Doom

With BFFster fame in the bag, it was time to pack up and go home. The digital timepiece proudly pronounced that it was four o’clock in the morning. Had he really been here all night? Didn’t he normally work a day shift from 8:00 to 5:00? Somewhere a blacksmith pounded on Bob’s head as though it were an anvil, sending sharp pains through his cranium and leaving him nauseous. The ticking noise synchronized itself with the pounding in his head. The location of the rhythmic clack eluded Bob as did the reason why he had come into the office in the middle of the night.

Bob stood from his ergonomic office chair and stretched out his arms to the ceiling. Multiple joints popped as though a bag of Orville Redenbacher had been heating up inside the break room microwave.

Popcorn sounds good right now. So do Oreo cookies. Bob tilted his head allowing one last crack from his neck. He began to gather his stuff and clean up. Mountain Fizz cans, Crispy Crinkle chip bags, and empty packets of Skuttles fruit flavored candies were swept into the trash can sitting below the desk. Did I actually complete any real work tonight? The details of this late night escapade would have to be sorted out later as his co-workers were soon to arrive, and he wasn’t about to stay another shift. He’d go home, put on his best “sick” voice, and leave a message for his boss Mr. Wetzel telling him that he had fell ill and wouldn’t be in today. No one had to know this happened.

Cell phone. Check. Car keys. Check. Wallet. Check. Laptop. Check. Bob stuffed his computer in the bag and staggered towards the stairwell. The crash in his head left him disoriented and threw his equilibrium off. The long corridor of cubicles began to spin in a circular motion as Bob made his way to the exit. I’m on the second floor. Only one flight of stairs to go down. I can make it.
The exit door was marked with a green lit sign. The west parking lot could be seen from a massive picture window next to the exit. Bob planted his face against the window in order to regain his balance. He glanced out at the mountain horizon beyond the parking lot. Dark clouds swirled above the peaks and lightning flashed as a brooding thunderstorm drifted its way onto the scene. Bob’s droopy eyes shot open as he saw a giant black funnel suddenly appear from behind the mountain range. The gargantuan black cone devoured its way down the side of Mount Evergreen chucking trees, rocks, small woodland creatures, and any other tasty morsel it passed into its giant, swirling mouth. Though it was a fair distance away, the funnel’s girth covered miles to both sides leaving Bob feeling as though it was right on top of him.

I’m gonna be sucked up in that black vortex soon…if I don’t get out of here!

Where Do Babies Come From?

Well Friday Fiction didn't get written this week, but I plan on having Bob's story continued next Friday (or maybe sooner), so please stay tuned!

The reason it didn't get written was because my household has been crazy this past week with some big news. Namely news of a +1 increase in family size with my wife announcing to me on Monday night that she is pregnant.

She came home with a blue bag and inside the bag was a onesie (spelling?) that said "Daddy's Little Sweetheart" and a pregnancy test with a + sign on it. We both shared a brief cry and kind of sat freaked out and silent not sure what to think of the situation.

She told me that she took two tests and both showed up positive. You would think that a double positive equals a negative, but I guess it doesn't work that way in baby land. So after getting over the initial shock and freak out moment, I finally got to the place where I could become truly excited about the news.

Where do babies come from? They come from God, and apparently they come when He is ready for them to come whether it fits within our plans or not. I'm just giving Him thanks since there are so many couples unable to have kids who really want them. I guess falling in the .1% chance of conceiving while using preventative measures means we are blessed, and I sure plan on giving this baby all the love I can possibly give it. It's going to have a kookie daddy...kookie but full of love.

Friday Fiction

So my plan was to be a part of Friday Fiction with Sarah, but being the amazing computer tech that I am, I couldn't figure out how to properly link my blog post this time around. I guess I really have been out of the blogging game for a while. "The Legend of Bob" is my submission for this week and it's posted below. Even if no one reads it, I do hope you go check out Friday Fiction being hosted by Julie Arduini this week at The Surrendered Scribe. Read Julie's intriguing submission for this week and leave her a comment, ok? Also, read the other great stories being submitted by those who actually know how to link them properly. :)

The Legend of Bob

I've been desparate to write fiction again, but inspiration has not been my friend lately. I whipped this up tonight. It's just a snippet, but perhaps I'll keep adding more to it and see where it goes.

The Legend of Bob
By Josh Janoski

Tick tock...

Tick tock...

Time stood still. The minute hand never budged, and the second hand moved even slower. That would have normally freaked Bob out except that he still had enough coherence about him to realize that digital clocks didn't contain moving parts. Then what was the ticking sound all about?
His eyelids twitched and pulsated to the beat of the sound. Thin red blood vessels slithered over the whites of his eyeballs, itching and burning. Visine was what the doctor ordered, but sadly the bottle of liquid relief had been left at home sitting next to the box of Claritin. The LCD screen's hypnotizing glow covered Bob's face with a blanket of glorious digital luminance.

What to say? What to say?

Bob Shanigan is working really late tonight.

No. Too plain. And besides, I don't want any potential whackos to know that I'm alone in the office. They might try to break in and murder me. I really love all 546 friends of mine, but I haven't met or talked to some of them yet, so I don't know what they might be capable of.

Bob Shanigan loves Mountain Fizz soda!

That won't work either. As much as I want to declare my love for Mountain Fizz, I risk starting a riot. I can already see this generating an extensive comment thread debating how Citrus Dropkick is at minimum equal, if not superior to, Mountain Fizz. I best refrain from starting a quarrel.

Bob Shanigan :)

You can never go wrong with a smile emoticon. Actually, that may not be true. My smile could be interpreted as snide or nasty. Questions will arise as to what I'm smiling about. Am I laughing at children in third world countries who are going hungry? Do I find the sufferings of the world to be amusing? What if someone of the opposite sex sees my smile on her news feed? Will she take it as a flirtatious gesture and de-friend me? No..I cant take the risk.

Three hours passed on the digital display that hung inside Bob's cubicle. The ticking sound continued, acting as a metronome guiding the rhythm of a late night at the office. The screen's image remained static. Groogle Titanium web browser still opened to the same page - BFFster. Pronounced Biff-ster a.k.a. Best-Friends-Forever-ster. You weren't recognized as a part of the human race if you weren't a member of this premier social networking site.

The only thing more important than joining BFFster was having the most friends on BFFster. The only thing more important than having the most friends on BFFster was having the most witty status updates on BFFster. Bob had been working on said status update for an extended period of time before he finally came up with the perfect notification of his state.

Bob Shanigan is ready for the Zombie Apocalypse! His weapon and food cache is good to go!

Perfect! Everyone loves a good Zombie post. This one will be gold! Hundreds of people will be clicking the "Totally Awesome Post!" button on this one!

So much for that wisdom and wealth stuff eh?

I have a One Year Bible that I read daily on my Kindle (which I love, but my Kindle romance is for another post). I just finished reading about King Solomon. There is something intriguing about a king who was the richest and wisest.

Solomon was kind of the rap superstar of his day (minus the rap). I could totally see him bringing people on a tour of his "crib" - the palace he built for himself. He'd probably also give a tour of the temple he built for the Lord, the one his father David didn't get to construct.

I read a lot about how Solomon honored the Lord in all he did. In fact, he really aimed at being pleasing to God and asked God for wisdom to rule His people justly. God granted him that wisdom and made him wealthier than any other king who had lived before him.

Solomon's wisdom can be found in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes too (though he's a bit more emo in the later book). What saddens me is how in the later years of his life he let himself be turned to other false gods. I guess when you have 1000+ women in your life, your bound to feel outnumbered and cave into the pressure. No offense ladies. We can discuss what a player Solomon was in another post. :)

Reading about Solomon's life just made me realize that no matter how wise you are and no matter how much you seem to have your act together, if you take God out of the picture then you're going to fall and fail. Solomon's ancestors could have forever sat on the throne as Israel's king, but he gave it all up for his own desires. Israel's leadership went on a downward spiral after that.

I'll stick with my one wife and my simple life, but I'll gladly take a big heaping dose of that wisdom stuff. :)

Cubicles

Still a bit groggy from lack of sleep over the weekend, I find that my brain has already shut down yet again and inspiration has left me as I try to write something brilliant this morning. So I'll just talk about cubicles instead.

Cubicles are joked about in the Dilbert comic strip and most office monkeys will agree that cubicles are the evil little enclosure in which they are placed in order to have lab experiments conducted on them by their managers. I can't say that I completely disagree with this viewpoint, but I will openly admit that I am excited to now have a cubicle of my own at work.

Excited? How can one be excited about a row of square shaped corrals used to herd in the day's workforce and hold them captive until all deadlines have been met and all projects completed? I guess it goes back to the fact that I have never had my own personal space. Every job I've held up to this point had me working in an open office environment with co-workers desks near mine. I'm sure some would prefer this over their small cube spaces, but I longed for a bit more privacy.

Ok. So maybe privacy is overrated in an office environment. It's not like I'm stripping down inside my cube and taking a shower or anything like that. Shower in my cube....hmm that's an idea. But that's beside the point. The truth is that nothing I do at my desk (or at least nothing that I should be doing) requires that it be completely private from everyone else. But there is something to be said about being able to set your stuffed beanie baby Yoda on your desk and know that he will be safe and out of arm's reach from you co-workers.

Sure it's a box. Sure it's really kind of inhumane in many ways. But it's "home" while I'm at work. I think we all want our own personal space where we can focus on doing what we do best, whether it's at work or at home. All I need to do now is add a door with a deadbolt lock and a roof and I'll be all set.

Rant complete. Time to get ready for work.

I'm back!

So the title isn't all that creative but it pretty much sums it all up. I'm back to blogging. This may mean that I need to build my reader base back up since no one keeps reading a blog that never has new posts. I'm willing to do that. I need to do something to get excited about writing again.

I look forward to showing my fun side more since most of my past posts have been very serious. I also want to trim my posts down to a few hundred words at most so that they are easier to digest. The only exception will be when I post short stories, but even those will be kept to about 1,000 words or less.

The closed sign has been flipped to open and Just Joshing is back in business!