It was another one of those Tuesdays. Garbage Can had slept in late- a futile attempt at recuperation after last night's marathon bad-guy-thwarting. It had been like this for two weeks now. It was getting harder and harder to remember what life was like before his best friend developed the British accent. Garbage Can hadn't seen an unattractive girl in 13 days, and he was pretty confident that he was the hairiest man alive.
It had all happened so fast; the world never had a chance to reassemble after the initial shock. It was as if the entire human population had been sucker-punched by a random assailant. Mankind, collectively, was out on a picnic. A scrawny white kid wearing a baseball cap walked up, gave a nod of the head, and hit us, right in the face. A clear spring day, in view of the pope, he smacked us. No one knew quite why we got sucker punched, but before anyone had a chance to figure out we punched back. Biting, punching, laser-beaming, it's an all out brawl.
And we don't even know who punched us.
That was as far as it went in Garbage Can's medium sized brain. There wasn't time to think any more. This new life demanded action. A new era had seized upon the world two weeks ago, and this epoch was clearly not fit for the thinking types.
14 days ago, on a Tuesday morning entirely different from the current example of Tuesday, Steve Chalk woke up to his cell phone alarm. Perpetually early and most definitely out to get him, Steve had no qualms about throwing the poor device out the window. After all, it did wake him up- vengeance tastes great in the morning.
Steve took the usual 14 uneven steps to the bathroom. The release of his bodily fluids did little to wake the lumbering giant. Standing at five foot eleven, he made Chinese people gasp when he walked by.
Normal people? Nah, not as much gasping. Sort of disappointing really.
As he washed his hands, he looked up into the mirror. Squinting against the pain due to the obscene amount of light in the room, he took a deep breath. It was then, in that brief flash of agony, that he had a monumental thought. "What if I had webbed feet, and, like, I could run really fast?"
As monumental as this thought was, it bears no importance in this narrative.
Two seconds later, Steve discovered his new beard. Big, it was big. So big, in fact, that it simply meshed together with his eyebr- err... unibrow. After much tedious and painful thought (it was still morning you know) Steve came to the conclusion that he was thoroughly and entirely covered in thick and luscious hair. Bright and orange, he was concerned about his shampoo supply.
Two hours later, Steve began to realize he wasn't the only one to wake up different. His chemistry teacher failed to not ignite the whiteboard with his gaze five times. The smelly kid that nobody likes showed up to school with wings, big ones.
Perhaps the most shocking moment of the morning came shortly after Steve arrived at the high school. Showing up early to class, he took his seat. Brief moments later, his heart tried out for the US gymnastics team. Forgetting his newfound coat, he stared at the doorway. There, framed by oak not worthy of her presence, stood Alicia Brown, the ugliest girl since Stonehenge. Memory's repulsive veil slid from his eyes, and there she stood, the most beautiful being Steve had ever seen. Her hair blew in the nonexistent breeze, her body silhouetted by the absent spot light. When she moved, it was with the grace of a Mars Rover. Carefully calculated, deliberate, and filled with enough power to make even the strongest man cheer in wonder and amazement.
He was drooling, but it was alright- he had a beard.
It took Steve a moment to regain composure. She took her seat. Steve retook his (he had fallen to the floor, you see). She made a dainty little cough. Steve burped.
Mid-belch, another spectacular figure threw open the door and bathed the world with beauty once more. Ready for it this time, he managed to remain in his desk. Two more followed. It was like a mad scientist had combined all the deliciousness of a whopper with a cheetah and Ghandi's attractive girlfriend.
The glorious parade continued, Steve began to feel less dizzy. The smart kid came in, wearing green sunglasses. Fashion statement? Hardly, the man's eyes were causing plants to erupt out of anything he concentrated on hard enough. Leonard floated in to class, Hernando came in dripping something that looked like motor oil.
The whole class sat in awkward silence for the next 92 minutes, no joke. Steve was going stir crazy. It was as if everybody had their tongues tied around the changes that had come over them. He wanted so much to nudge Brett and say something suave like "Hey, check out this beard." Brett, however, refused to make eye contact, and instead was focusing on wearing a bowler cap.
At lunch, a fight broke out. Fisticuffs break out all the time, but most don't usually result in asteroid impacts. To be fair, they were small rocks, hardly life threatening. To be accurate, thousands of chunks of two or more minerals thrown together falling from heaven hurt like the dickens. The supplier of the 'roids, Charlie, got attacked by a vicious super break dance gang. Not knowing what to do, he took a chance on the death from above approach. Way to go Charlie.
It's been two weeks since the world changed. Cape sales exceeded yearly expectations on Wednesday alone. Since the new life started, Steve had participated in no less than four bad-guy-thwarting adventures. He'd seen friends come and go, nuclear crises rise and fall. His left leg was turned into a movie review.
As Garbage Can reflected on the last two weeks of his life, he couldn't help but miss the cell phone he had thrown out the window. He couldn't resist the urge to sit in his office chair like old times and spin around just once or twice. "What," he questioned, "happened to the days when my greatest worry was English homework?"
The high school was destroyed the day after the world changed. No more homework. Lots more bad guys. Garbage Can knew that this was just the beginning. The world had been thrust out of the old system. The social ladder shattered, the economy gone. He was part of this new world. Everything was different, everything was changed. Life was new, life was hairy.
Garbage Can looked at the calendar. Two bad-guy-thwartings scheduled for the evening. Great.