Today I would like to share with you a little more bonus material I've written for my April A-Z Challenge story Adam's Apple. (If you're interested in reading the story as written for the challenge, you can find it HERE.)
George seemed like a fun character, so I wanted to delve into his rules for surviving life. This is not the entire list I've written for him, but a sampling of the first few. Please let me know what you think!
George’s
Cynical Rules for Surviving a Comically Absurd Cosmos
Dear Reader,
My name is George, and though I don’t particularly enjoy
taking the time out of my day to do this, I’m writing this to offer you some
words of wisdom and advice. Not that
they’ll necessarily do you any good. If
anything is inevitable in this life, it’s failure. Even the most valiant efforts to make things
right frequently go up in flames.
There’s one pesky fact you need to keep in mind at all
times, and it is so important I’ve made it the first rule
Rule #1: The universe is
out to get you.
Try to ignore this fact all you want, but the fact that
there are so many gruesome ways to die that I cannot help but conclude one
thing. This conclusion is summarized in
the next rule.
Rule #2: We’re all screwed.
That doesn’t mean we should all give up and die, of
course. There are ways to extract
entertainment value from the worst that life has to offer. After all, why not? We’re stuck here anyway. Would you like to know the key to doing this?
Why do I even bother to ask that question? If you’re reading these words, it means you
haven’t yet walked away in boredom, and that fact could be counted as an
implicit desire to hear more of what I have to say. Of course, as I write this, I have no way of
knowing whether you’re actually still reading or not, so I’ll keep
writing. If anything I write beyond this
point scars or offends you in any way, it is entirely your fault for
continuing.
Rule #3: Don’t take
anything too seriously.
I may live my life as an eternal grump and general pain in
the posterior, but it isn’t because I take things too seriously. It’s because I’m a realist, and people don’t
like what I have to say because they don’t want to admit that I’m right.
I make it a point never to set goals, because that leads to
disappointment. If you start out from a
point of having nothing, you’ll usually end the game with nothing. There are the success stories that people
like to hold up as a shining example of what you can get through hard work, but
they frequently neglect to include the fact that part of any victory can be
directly attributed to luck. That’s one
thing I don’t have.
So what’s one to do?
You can set a goal and hope life will work out in your favor, all the
while risking disappointment. Or you can
accept your life for what it is and strive for mediocrity. This may not be seen as a laudable goal, but
it’s an achievable one.
Besides, if you did manage to make some headway in pursuit
of a dream, someone is likely to cut you off and take all the credit for what
you did. Why? See the next rule for an explanation.
Rule #4: Scoundrels usually
win.
The universe is filled with people whose goal is to get to
the top by any means necessary. They’ll
lie, cheat, steal, and drag your name through the muck until people think
you’re the reprehensible one. It’s a
disgusting fact of life. Just look at politicians.
