Orderly Chaos
By: Omar Imam
Tags: Fiction, Series, Dreams, Orderly Chaos

The Protagonist

“G.,

Skip work today. Call in sick. Meet me at 2403 Inveigle Lane at 7pm. I have some important work for you to do. Here is some money to cover your expenses and make up for any lost work.

-W.”

A piece of paper slipped out from between the folds of the paper as I opened it to read it. I picked it up. It was a check for $10,000. “Is this for real?!” I thought to myself. Who the hell would send me a check for this much money, and more importantly, WHY? What kind of work are they talking about? I’m not qualified for anything. Drug dealing? Is this some kind of human trafficking scheme? Are they going to harvest my organs? Get me addicted to heroin and then use my body on the open market for elites to have their way with me? Is Liam Neeson going to have to come and save me?

I held the check up to the light to check for a watermark. There it was. It’s a legit check. I grabbed my keys and drove straight to the bank. This better not bounce, or I’m gonna be pissed. I had in my checking account $20,000. I had been saving up for a while now. I don’t really have any friends; I go to work and come home every day. Some people would say that it’s a sad life I live, but I’d rather live in comfort than not.

I read a book about millenials not having any money in their retirement fund and one of my biggest fears is growing old and not being able to fend for myself, so I took my mental health issues, stuffed them in my pocket and went to working at Jasper’s. I’ve never really had any friends, people come and go from your life all the time.

I decided to go ahead and cash a quarter of the check and stick the rest into my checking account. I guessed I wouldn’t know if the check bounced or not until tomorrow. I decided to be on the safe side. I went from the bank to a gun shop. I’ve never owned a firearm before, although I had a license. I had taken the required courses last year because “F$%^ being unprepared in today’s world”… or so I thought during a time of paranoid delusions. In the end, I decided against buying a firearm due to the fact that I don’t really feel like accidentally blowing my head off in the event of an unchecked delusion. I finally had an actual reason to buy one. It was a standard handgun. Nothing too fancy.

I went home and dicked around for a few hours, watching TV and sleeping most of the day. I guess that head injury did a number on me. A couple of hours before I was scheduled to go into work, I took a photo of the back of my head in the mirror and sent it to my boss.

*HEAD INJURY. FREAK ACCIDENT. FEEL DIZZY, CAN’T WORK TONIGHT*

I figured that would do the trick, and it did. Like I said, I work and come home. I rarely ever take a day off, I think I might have 1 or 2 instances where I was actually sick where I called in. My boss replied “Please stay safe, get that checked out. U might have a concussion.” I thanked him and looked at the clock. 6:45pm. It was time to drive to the address in the letter.

— — — — —

This story came to me one day while I took a nap. The dream barely made sense to me while it was happening, but everything I saw and felt is described above. I began writing it out in 2020, on Facebook, as status updates. Then I realized that I should probably do the story some justice and put it out there for whoever might possibly see it to see, and not confine it to my Facebook friends list. It’s a series, and I can vividly imagine the characters and the setting in my head. I’ve decided to start publishing the parts of the story I have so far on here. I don’t know if anyone will read it, but at least I can say I put it out there. Hope never dies.

Here is Chapter 4

Here is Chapter 6

©2021, Omar Imam. All rights reserved.