All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 2: Zen as Zen

MUSIC TRACK LIST:

MARK LANEGAN - When your number isn't up

A SWARM OF THE SUN - Zenith

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David's POV

I shut the app off and dropped my phone-puter on the couch like it was a hot potato. This shit was way too weird, even for the likes of me. And I'm into some pretty weird shit if you don't mind me saying so -- my current collection of guitar picks belonging to dead dudes being the least esoteric subject up my sleeve. But I digress.

I needed to get some air. Get out of the apartment. Get away from my phone. Disconnect. You ever get that feeling?

I decided to walk to MacArthur Park, which was a ten-minute walk from my place. Figured I'd just put my feet up by the side of the lake in the center and just sit for a bit.

Back where I grew up, surrounded by fields of corn on either side of my house, I used to dream of living on a lake view property: the crisp clean air, the sun broiling on the calming waves, hot chicks in scantily clad clothing. Asking to rub me down with suntan lotion. No more farmers' tan for me.

And then my dream came true when I moved to the "big city" to work and slave up for school. But let me tell you: lakes in the city suck ass, man.

1) It stinks...especially in the summer. It stinks like a hot mess vomited a hot mess and then licked that hot mess clean off the plate only to shat itself out in explosive diarrhea. It stinks so bad I have to shut my windows at night on the hottest day of the year. So much for counting on that lake cool breeze on sultry summer nights in absence of air conditioning.

2) Second of all: fish flies. Fish flies covering everything. Covering your doorways and windows. Getting in your sandwiches. Getting in your eyes and on your tongue. I even got one that flew into my mouth and landed on my uvula. And it got stuck there and tickled my uvula the rest of the night. Try, just try, removing a fish fly from the back of your uvula with big fat sausage fingers like mine (I ended up using my tooth brush – an operation of which I never would like to repeat).

3) Rats. Giant fucking rats. With big buckteeth. And beady little eyes.

Need I say more?

But today, my need to get out of my apartment trumped my need to escape the smell and the fish flies and the rats. So off I went, through the Mexico city wannabe popup shops along sixth street, which was right where I happen to live, past the stalls of knockoff soccer jerseys and fresh fruit stands and cases of knives and pipes and walls of boxing posters and trinkets carved in jade and 10 cents a minute long distance calling cards, down through the soccer game on the grass and past the dogs, and found myself at the water's edge.

I took off my socks and Cons, rolled up my indigo skinny jeans (which took some effort), and grabbed the smoothest stone I could find and then flicked it across the water, watching it skip.

What the hell just happened?  I tried to make sense of the events any way I could. My fortune, from a fortune-cookie factory in Los Angeles, had my name printed on it. And then I got a mysterious flyer from Sweden that linked me to a site, which gave me the exact same fortune. Maybe Bob was playing a mind game with me as revenge? But Bob had no idea I was going to steal that bagful of fortune cookies. Or that I would find that last fortune right before the mail came.

Maybe I was going insane. That was a possibility. Wasn't Uncle Rollo supposed to be a full-on whacko? Wait...did I ever confirm Uncle Rollo was ever really my uncle?

And exactly how would my name go down in history? I quickly recounted all the entries of famous people I knew on Wikipedia and decided that usually eternal notoriety of that sort implied something epic: an epic win or an epic fail.