gengar is sitting in his car smoking a cigarette
a parliament, almost finished
he exhales deeply and throws the burnt down butt out the open window
he takes off his shirt, a polo with the logo of the sandwich company gengar works for embroidered large on the front, and throws it into the messy backset before rummaging around, opening various bags
gengar pulls out a blue tshirt that he had made
the blue tshirt features a photo of gengar’s dead dog looking confused next to a beer
gengar had made the shirt with his friend charmander at when charmander had worked in a screenprinting shop
gengar thought charmander wasn’t going to charge him for it but then he did + didn’t even give gengar his employee discount
gengar hadn’t seen charmander since then although they had texted a few times vaguely trying to make plans with no real desire to fulfill them
gengar puts the tshirt on
he gets out of his car and locks the doors while leaving the window open
gengar walks across the parking lot and sees dratini finishing her cigarette right outside the door to the building
dratini flicks her cigarette into the bushes and smiles at gengar
gengar frowns “u really shouldn’t do that, a fire could start that way”
dratini’s smile disappears “no it couldn’t + even if it did it wouldn’t matter cause we’re in a city and it wouldn’t grow into an ozone damaging forest fire”
gengar scoffs as dratini opens the door + goes inside, quickly closing it behind her
gengar watches dratini through the glass as she locks the deadbolt and gives him a “thumbs down”
gengar feels as though he has the strength to open the door despite it being deadbolted, just due to his sheer willpower
he attempts to open the door with all his might
dratini laughs and unlocks it “i’m sorry i shouldn’t mess with u”
out of breath, gengar waves her away “go on i’ll meet u there” he coughs in a way that makes dratini think he’s about to die
“oh shit are u ok?”
gengar waves her on again “i’m fine i just gotta drink some water” he hobbles over to the water fountain outside of the bathrooms while trying to hold in another coughing fit
dratini looks at him with skeptical concern but backs away while gengar starts loudly sipping water from the fountain
gengar walks into the bathroom after drinking water and locks the door
he coughs loudly until he feels enough phlegm to spit out into the sink
gengar washes his hands before splashing water onto his face
he looks at himself in the mirror
“this sucks” gengar says outloud
he dries his hands using an obscenely loud hand drier and walks out of the bathroom
in the meeting everyone looks up as gengar enters the room, sandshrew smiles “welcome gengar! we were just about to get started, as i’m sure u noticed, there are a few new faces, a lot of the same old”
dratini gives gengar a “thumbs up” which he ignores while finding a seat
sandshrew continues with their introduction and shares a mild story of their temptation to use during the last month
someone who gengar has never seen before introduces themself as “rapidash” and begins to tell a horrifying story about the last time they had used meth
rapidash sits down and sandshrew thanks them for sharing while everyone gives a lite polite applause before looking around the room and locking eyes with gengar “how would u feel about sharing, gengar?”
gengar shifts in his seat “ok yeah” he stands
“so last week at work i was closing the store with my coworker victrebell who’s kind of a degenerate”
sandshrew interrupts him “let’s not cast any judgement while sharing”
“sorry sorry ur right” gengar resumes “anyways while i was cleaning + mopping the bathroom, i don’t know how it happened but i came out and victrebell was cutting out coke lines at the sandwich station with our old manager cloyster, who had gotten fired last month for stealing money from the register + doing drugs on shift. so anyways they start going in and i’m like ‘what the fuck did u lock the door?’ and victrebell is like ‘calm down i disabled the cameras it’s fine’ and cloyster is like ‘yo what’s up u wanna get in on this?’ and i was a little nervous but then remembered that i had already locked the money drawer in the safe so i was like ‘no i’m fine i don’t care’ and they both shrugged and did the coke while i finished closing the store by myself, it was like mad annoying but i didn’t really want to use the coke, i never really liked it anyways and honestly the last time i did coke with cloyster i think it was straight up all filler i didn’t feel that shit at all” gengar sits down
he stands back up “oh yeah and i’m uhhhh, 3 months sober”
the room gives gengar a soft applause and sandshrew thanks him
gengar’s old sponsor, drowzee, stands and begins telling a story about using during the war
gengar looks at the ceiling “this sucks” he thinks
he stands up while drowzee is saying “and that’s the thing, we were only there to make sure the growing and movement of poppies went unhindered so i figured, why not take a little for myself”
several members of the group look at gengar while he walks out of the room
drowzee nods at gengar but continues talking “so i convinced a couple of the guys in my unit…”
gengar walks outside and vomits into a bush next to the door, extinguishing the minor fire dratini’s cigarette butt had started
gengar wipes his mouth “what the fuck”
at a red light gengar looks at his phone, there are 2 texts
one from dratini reads “that was so rude!! what is wrong with u?”
the other from drowzee reads “good seein u brotha B)”
gengar pulls over at a gas station and goes inside
the clerk looks at gengar and gengar looks at the clerk
the clerk’s nametag says “cubone”
gengar walks up to the counter “could i get $20 on pump 3 and do y’all sell alcohol?”
cubone types on the register in front of him “no we don’t, just that?”
gengar slides a $20 bill across the counter “yeah thank u”
cubone presses more buttons on the register and the drawer opens up “have a good nite” he puts gengar’s money into the register
gengar goes back outside and pumps $20 worth of unleaded gas into his car while smoking another cigarette
cubone watches him from inside the gas station
gengar waves
cubone waves back
gengar finishes pumping his gas and disconnects the gas hose from his car
he turns the ignition then rummages around his backseat before grabbing a large binder filled with cds
gengar flips through several pages before taking out my chemical romance ‘i brought you my bullets you brought me your love’
he places the cd into the car’s cd player and drives off as the album begins on a medium volume
“this is a great album” gengar thinks “my chemical romance was a really good band when they all did drugs and got fucked up and wanted to have sex with vampires”
he drives home
the lock sticks while gengar tries to unlock his front door
he wiggles his key until the pins line up and the deadbolt slids open
“i’m glad i got in” gengar thinks as he walks into his 4th floor single bedroom apartment “that would have sucked so bad lol” he turns on the entrance light and drops his coat to the floor
gengar leaves his shoes on as he enters the kitchen and opens the fridge
he pulls out an unlabeled plastic 2 liter bottle full of homemade rootbeer
grabbing a ceramic mug, shaped and painted to look like a basketball, from the cupboard, gengar then presses it into the refrigerator door’s indent, which, after whirring, deposits 5 ice cubes into gengar’s basketball mug before he pulls it away
he pours from the unlabeled bottle until fizz reaches the top, then returns it back into the fridge
gengar walks with the mug of rootbeer out of the kitchen and into the living room without turning on any more lights
he slumps down on the couch and stares at the dark quiet tv, darker and more quiet than the darkness and quiet around it
gengar takes several sips of rootbeer, it tastes wonderful
he smiles and turns on the tv using a remote, breaking the darkness and quiet
the president is on the tv
the president tells gengar that he should be afraid of butterfree and his terrorist organization, that currently they are in hiding but will soon reveal themselves once again to strike the very society which scorns them
gengar wishes he had the drive and willpower to join or create a terrorist organization as he changes the channel
there is an old black and white movie on
in the old black and white movie vulpix is smoking a cigarette and trying to convince eevee to race cars at a stoplight
in the movie, vulpix flicks his cigarette at eevee’s car and it bounces off the window
the camera shows eevee’s eyes from the front, they flash red through the black and white film and as the stoplight turns, eevee peels off leaving vulpix’s car struggling to catch up
“woah” gengar thinks “that was so sick, i’ve never seen an old movie do something like that” he presses the “guide” button on his tv remote to find out what movie is playing
the movie minimizes and a list of channels showing the scheduled broadcasts for each grows out of nowhere and takes over most of the tv screen
the movie goes to a commercial as gengar reads “road runners (1954)”
“dam, i gotta go back to that” he begins scrolling through the broadcast list
gengar selects a channel playing family guy
in the episode of family guy, stewie is standing at a buckcherry concert nodding his head along to the music while drinking a whiskey sour
stewie walks outside the music venue then walks back inside then holds hand with a girl while watching buckcherry perform on stage
gengar begins to feel sad
he opens his phone and texts his ex girlfriend quilava “hey : )”
gengar immediately feels embarrassed and stupid, he turns off his phone and changes the channel to local news before turning off the tv and standing up from the couch
in the kitchen gengar turns his phone back on and begins to play an ethiopian jazz mix from youtube
gengar stares blankly at his refrigerator before opening up the freezer
he takes a ziploc bag filled with loose frozen blueberries and sliced bananas and places it on the counter
next gengar opens up the fridge door and scans its contents until he pulls out out: a ginger root, a turmeric root, a lime, a carrot, a jalapeno, a medium sized container of bulgarian yogurt and 2 leafs of lacinto kale; placing them all on the counter next to the sink
gengar retrieves his blender from the kitchen’s bottom cupboard along with a cutting board and positions them both next to the treasure trove of ingredients
he measures out approx 2 cups of the frozen fruits into the blender
after rinsing off everything else, gengar gives a ruff chop to all the veggies with his litely dull chef’s knife before tossing them in to join the fruits, minus the jalapeno stem and carrot butt, but with the lime rind and roots/carrot skins
after two heafty scoops of bulgarian yogurt into the concoction, gengar stands back looking at the blender with pride on his face
as he is reaching to place the lid on, his phone goes off, chiming the unique ringtone he had set for texts from quilava, which sounds like a highly distorted organ going “bum bu bu BUMMM”
gengar’s heart leaps as he turns off the music and opens his texting app to read
“lol who is this??”
all of gengar’s organs feel the sensation of being pulled to the center of the earth, as though due to perhaps an organic matter magnet down there being turned on
gengar’s rapid heartbeat takes over his ears as he stares at the floor
almost robotically he walks over to the closet and rummages though a few boxes of clothing until he comes across the emergency killswitch bottle of absolutely horrible bottom tier vodka
gengar holds the plastic 1.75 liter bottle in hands breathing heavily before leaping up and walking back to the kitchen with purpose
gengar slams the plastic bottle onto the countertop next to the open blender and stares at it as his breath returns to a normal pace
he cracks open the bottle and holds it over the unblended smoothie with his arm shaking, thinking thinking thinking thinking thinking
gengar’s cellphone chimes again, a normal text noise, breaking his spell
he sets down the still open but unpoured vodka handle and looks at his phone to a text from dratini
“heyyyy 😛 sorry i was so weird tonite -_- i started some new meds and i guess a lot of people have kinda aggro side effects when they first start :”( i hope i didn’t make u feel bad, anyways i’d like to apologize in person tomorrow and treat u to some coffee maybe if ur free 0: ) lmk either way”
gengar rereads the text then responds “ur all good i get it but yeah, that sounds nice i work at 11 so maybe before that?”
“w00t w00t!” dratini replies “there’s this great coffee spot by me that has craaaaazie good bfast sandwiches, i’ll shoot u the address”
gengar opens the maps app on his phone and sees the shop is an approx 15 minute bike ride from him and a 10 minute bike ride from his work
“looking forward to it” he sends and turns his phone off again
gengar looks at the vodka then back at the smoothie
he closes the bottle and returns it to its hiding place
after adding filtered water, gengar blends up the smoothie with the orginal ingredients
he brings the whole blender with him into the living room and turns on his ps2
as star wars battlefront 2 begins to load, gengar plays chiodos all’s well that ends well off of his phone speakers and begins drinking the smoothie straight from the blender
the album ends while gengar is playing conquest on kashyyyk
he puts on circa survive on letting go
the album ends while gengar is playing conquest on kamino
he puts on circa survive juturna until the mission ends
gengar turns off the ps2 and goes to wash all his dishes before getting ready for bed
“i’m glad things have happened the way they happened” he thinks while brushing his teeth
“tomorrow should be fun, i’m glad dratini texted me”
gengar crawls into bed and sets 4 alarms on his phone, before slowly drifting to sleep smiling, listening to the ambient noises of the city out his bedroom window
