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- Jan 13, 2007
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I wrote this for a class. Everyone's stories were so serious. I was sick of reading about rape or breaking up with a boyfriend. I thought some people here might appreciate it.
He used this list as a guide. Every action was a step towards knocking another goal off his list. He thought of little else. He was obsessed. He was mechanical. Tall and lean, with a sharp face and indifferent look about him, he was handsome. Being so handsome, he succeeded in everything that he did. He was full of potential, and fulfilled every bit of it. Everyone wanted to be him. He was a winner.
Accepted into University of Pennsylvania in '69 (number 18), he graduated summa cum laude in '73 (number 19) with a degree in Finance and Business Management (number 20). At 22, he started a career at a multi-national corporation, worked his way through the ranks for almost ten years before being named CEO (number 59). He held the top job for only a few years, years during which the company stock tripled. After a jealous board member started a public campaign to label him as a socialist, he bankrupted the company and quit. He sold all of his possessions, bought a plane ticket to Italy, and gave the rest of his money to an underground socialist group.
In Italy, Flinn lived out the next ten years working various part-time jobs and completing his goals. He wrote a book (number 55) about his experiences. It was on the New York Times bestseller list, of course. His face was on the cover.
He occasionally came back to America when he needed to, though he avoided it when possible. It had been on one of these trips that had met the President of the United States (number 3). It was an accident.
Flinn was a quiet man overall. He cared little for politics. He had been working as a mason building high income housing in Washington, D.C. when the President was making a speech nearby regarding the importance of some vague policy or praising some select demographic. It must have been an election year.
All of the other masons hurried over to listen to him talk. Flinn left to smoke a cigarette around the corner. He was thinking some pointless thought when the President suddenly appeared in front of him, surrounded by faceless men.
“You wrote that book, didn’t you?”
A dumb smile covered the lower portion of his face, dried white saliva stuck to the corners of his mouth.
“You were on the cover. Yeah, it was definitely you! I would remember that face anywhere!”
The President shook his hand vigorously, still with that stupid smile on his face.
Flinn took a plane back to Italy.
On his fiftieth birthday he flew back to New York for good. He took stock of his list. It was winding down. He had only a few left.
It was shortly after he returned to America that he fell in love (number 71). He was the most concerned about this particular goal. Almost all of the others, as ridiculous as they were, could be accomplished through hard work and dedication. Falling in love required a certain amount of luck.
She was a beautiful woman. She had to be. Flinn wouldn't have fallen in love with her otherwise.
They met while Flinn worked as a mascot at the local zoo. He was taking a break, smoking a cigarette. His elephant head was on the bench next to him, the slight wind cooling the sweaty salt-and-pepper hair matted to his forehead.
"Must be hot," she said.
She spoke no louder than necessary. She was not shy. She wanted the world to quiet down and listen to her. It did.
She was thin, blonde, and tan. Exactly how he liked them. Her hair was pulled back out of her blue eyes. She wore an exquisitely crafted black dress, cut low to show off her perfectly shaped arms and breasts.
He stared at her, slowly exhaling his cigarette smoke.
"Want a cigarette?"
"I don't smoke."
"That's a shame. I think you would look good with a cigarette."
He retracted his arm through his costume and fished around. He extracted a thin white Marlboro and held it out. She examined it for a second and put it in her mouth. He ran his hand through his slight, four-day beard.
"Perfect. It makes you look like you have life figured out. People secretly look up to people who have life figured out."
"Do you have life figured out?"
"Something like that."
"Does it require you to be dressed as an elephant?"
"It's on my list. ‘Number 44 - Get paid to dress up as an animal’."
"You have a list?"
"I made it in high school."
"And you have been following it since?"
"I only have three left."
It wasn't love at first sight. It took two more weeks of sex to convince him it was real.
He fell out of love with her three years later (number 72). She had been growing fat and had developed a nasty smoker’s cough. So was no longer the beautiful woman that had forced him into falling in love with her and forgetting about his list. In his early fifties, it was time to finish the list.
Just one more goal. He couldn't believe he saved this one for last. He always thought it would be appropriate to end his adventure by renting a video from a porn store in the middle of downtown Baltimore (number 16).
He stood in the street outside the porn store. It was quiet, though he heard cars in the distance. An older man, unshaven and unkempt, stared at him from across the street. Flinn flashed the man a smirk and walked into the empty porn shop. It had a musty smell and was dimly lit, with a few almost dead fluorescent bulbs lighting the store. Shelves of toys, magazines and other contraptions called to him, tempting his baser needs. He ignored them as he walked toward a bored looking man tending the store.
"Do you sell videos here?"
"What do you think?"
His voice was unnaturally gruff for his short, thin body. He had inflamed scratch marks on his neck.
"Where at?"
"Behind you. Down the hall. And don't think you can just look at the covers like the rest of the bums that come in here. I expect you to buy something."
The doorway at the end of the hall had no door, just beads. Tacky, red beads. The room behind the beads was only slightly better lit than the main section of the store. The walls were lined with VHS cassettes. The floor had a faded blue shag carpet. There were stains on the floor. He understood what the man meant about people just looking...
There were two men in the room. One was sitting on a chair in the corner and the other was looking at a video. The man in the chair had a thick, muscled body and a shirt to show it off. He was there to intimidate. He had a large book lying next to the chair. He was obviously there to stop people from “looking at the covers”. When Flinn walked in, the guard quickly looked him over than turned back to the man scanning the videos. The other man was doing an admirable job ignoring the guards gaze.
Flinn moved up next to the awkward man.
"Hello."
The man jerked his head around to look at Flinn. His body was tense, his eyes darting. He looked more like a child than a man. To be spoken to clearly made him nervous. Flinn sensed this and, with a smirk on his face, continued to talk to the man.
"This is my first time doing this. Got any good suggestions? Anything that would really work me up?"
The man narrowed his eyes.
"Come on, can't you help me out a bit? You seem like the kind of guy who would know your way around the video section at a porn shop. Just something to help me get off for the night? I’m sure that is what you do every night, so you must have some experience in the area. It’s okay, there is nothing wrong with spending every night alone."
The man's face twisted in anger.
Flinn laughed, his smile widening. He didn't expect this trip to be very eventful, but it was turning out to be appropriately entertaining for the last of the list. It was pleasing to him how agitated this man was getting. He felt it was his duty to **** off the creepy man at the porn store.
"I’m sick of all those women making you buy them things for sex. Sometimes it’s better to just do it yourself, you know what I mean? Probably not..."
Flinn's laughter grew louder.
The man pulled something black out of his coat.
Bang.
Flinn's jaw and neck exploded into bits of blood and bone. Flinn collapsed onto the shag carpet, adding to the stains.
There was a yelp and a crash. Flinn's eyes focused on the now empty chair, with the book on the ground next to it. Atlas Shrugged. That was number 35!
Machine
High school, sophomore year. He was young and directionless. Required to attend a motivational assembly about setting goals, Flinn created a list of seventy-two goals to pass the time. He decided that he would complete the list before he died. Seventy-two goals, a mix of both the difficult and the absurd. Work as a window washer (number 11). Have sex with at least twenty different people (number 62). Live in rural China for a year (number 64). It was a list that would take him across the world, a list that would define him as a human.He used this list as a guide. Every action was a step towards knocking another goal off his list. He thought of little else. He was obsessed. He was mechanical. Tall and lean, with a sharp face and indifferent look about him, he was handsome. Being so handsome, he succeeded in everything that he did. He was full of potential, and fulfilled every bit of it. Everyone wanted to be him. He was a winner.
Accepted into University of Pennsylvania in '69 (number 18), he graduated summa cum laude in '73 (number 19) with a degree in Finance and Business Management (number 20). At 22, he started a career at a multi-national corporation, worked his way through the ranks for almost ten years before being named CEO (number 59). He held the top job for only a few years, years during which the company stock tripled. After a jealous board member started a public campaign to label him as a socialist, he bankrupted the company and quit. He sold all of his possessions, bought a plane ticket to Italy, and gave the rest of his money to an underground socialist group.
In Italy, Flinn lived out the next ten years working various part-time jobs and completing his goals. He wrote a book (number 55) about his experiences. It was on the New York Times bestseller list, of course. His face was on the cover.
He occasionally came back to America when he needed to, though he avoided it when possible. It had been on one of these trips that had met the President of the United States (number 3). It was an accident.
Flinn was a quiet man overall. He cared little for politics. He had been working as a mason building high income housing in Washington, D.C. when the President was making a speech nearby regarding the importance of some vague policy or praising some select demographic. It must have been an election year.
All of the other masons hurried over to listen to him talk. Flinn left to smoke a cigarette around the corner. He was thinking some pointless thought when the President suddenly appeared in front of him, surrounded by faceless men.
“You wrote that book, didn’t you?”
A dumb smile covered the lower portion of his face, dried white saliva stuck to the corners of his mouth.
“You were on the cover. Yeah, it was definitely you! I would remember that face anywhere!”
The President shook his hand vigorously, still with that stupid smile on his face.
Flinn took a plane back to Italy.
On his fiftieth birthday he flew back to New York for good. He took stock of his list. It was winding down. He had only a few left.
It was shortly after he returned to America that he fell in love (number 71). He was the most concerned about this particular goal. Almost all of the others, as ridiculous as they were, could be accomplished through hard work and dedication. Falling in love required a certain amount of luck.
She was a beautiful woman. She had to be. Flinn wouldn't have fallen in love with her otherwise.
They met while Flinn worked as a mascot at the local zoo. He was taking a break, smoking a cigarette. His elephant head was on the bench next to him, the slight wind cooling the sweaty salt-and-pepper hair matted to his forehead.
"Must be hot," she said.
She spoke no louder than necessary. She was not shy. She wanted the world to quiet down and listen to her. It did.
She was thin, blonde, and tan. Exactly how he liked them. Her hair was pulled back out of her blue eyes. She wore an exquisitely crafted black dress, cut low to show off her perfectly shaped arms and breasts.
He stared at her, slowly exhaling his cigarette smoke.
"Want a cigarette?"
"I don't smoke."
"That's a shame. I think you would look good with a cigarette."
He retracted his arm through his costume and fished around. He extracted a thin white Marlboro and held it out. She examined it for a second and put it in her mouth. He ran his hand through his slight, four-day beard.
"Perfect. It makes you look like you have life figured out. People secretly look up to people who have life figured out."
"Do you have life figured out?"
"Something like that."
"Does it require you to be dressed as an elephant?"
"It's on my list. ‘Number 44 - Get paid to dress up as an animal’."
"You have a list?"
"I made it in high school."
"And you have been following it since?"
"I only have three left."
It wasn't love at first sight. It took two more weeks of sex to convince him it was real.
He fell out of love with her three years later (number 72). She had been growing fat and had developed a nasty smoker’s cough. So was no longer the beautiful woman that had forced him into falling in love with her and forgetting about his list. In his early fifties, it was time to finish the list.
Just one more goal. He couldn't believe he saved this one for last. He always thought it would be appropriate to end his adventure by renting a video from a porn store in the middle of downtown Baltimore (number 16).
He stood in the street outside the porn store. It was quiet, though he heard cars in the distance. An older man, unshaven and unkempt, stared at him from across the street. Flinn flashed the man a smirk and walked into the empty porn shop. It had a musty smell and was dimly lit, with a few almost dead fluorescent bulbs lighting the store. Shelves of toys, magazines and other contraptions called to him, tempting his baser needs. He ignored them as he walked toward a bored looking man tending the store.
"Do you sell videos here?"
"What do you think?"
His voice was unnaturally gruff for his short, thin body. He had inflamed scratch marks on his neck.
"Where at?"
"Behind you. Down the hall. And don't think you can just look at the covers like the rest of the bums that come in here. I expect you to buy something."
The doorway at the end of the hall had no door, just beads. Tacky, red beads. The room behind the beads was only slightly better lit than the main section of the store. The walls were lined with VHS cassettes. The floor had a faded blue shag carpet. There were stains on the floor. He understood what the man meant about people just looking...
There were two men in the room. One was sitting on a chair in the corner and the other was looking at a video. The man in the chair had a thick, muscled body and a shirt to show it off. He was there to intimidate. He had a large book lying next to the chair. He was obviously there to stop people from “looking at the covers”. When Flinn walked in, the guard quickly looked him over than turned back to the man scanning the videos. The other man was doing an admirable job ignoring the guards gaze.
Flinn moved up next to the awkward man.
"Hello."
The man jerked his head around to look at Flinn. His body was tense, his eyes darting. He looked more like a child than a man. To be spoken to clearly made him nervous. Flinn sensed this and, with a smirk on his face, continued to talk to the man.
"This is my first time doing this. Got any good suggestions? Anything that would really work me up?"
The man narrowed his eyes.
"Come on, can't you help me out a bit? You seem like the kind of guy who would know your way around the video section at a porn shop. Just something to help me get off for the night? I’m sure that is what you do every night, so you must have some experience in the area. It’s okay, there is nothing wrong with spending every night alone."
The man's face twisted in anger.
Flinn laughed, his smile widening. He didn't expect this trip to be very eventful, but it was turning out to be appropriately entertaining for the last of the list. It was pleasing to him how agitated this man was getting. He felt it was his duty to **** off the creepy man at the porn store.
"I’m sick of all those women making you buy them things for sex. Sometimes it’s better to just do it yourself, you know what I mean? Probably not..."
Flinn's laughter grew louder.
The man pulled something black out of his coat.
Bang.
Flinn's jaw and neck exploded into bits of blood and bone. Flinn collapsed onto the shag carpet, adding to the stains.
There was a yelp and a crash. Flinn's eyes focused on the now empty chair, with the book on the ground next to it. Atlas Shrugged. That was number 35!
