Given Up

The following story is set in an alternative universe.

It was 2019 and most nations around the world had agreed to start engineering their own spaceships to explore the cosmos in hopes of colonization. It was a stupid idea to 32-year-old Bernard Bard who sat in his living room couch reading the paper with the whole space exploration being the headline. He tossed it aside and shook his head in disbelief. "Does nobody watch movies?" Bernard thought to himself about that? Things always went bad when mankind tried to leave their home planet for another. Either because of hostile aliens or dangerous environments. It's like mankind was begging to die. Bernard felt maybe everything would be fine after all movies were fictional and this was real life. Bernard didn't really believe in aliens but was open to being proven wrong. Many people throughout history have claimed to have seen bizarre lights in the sky that were clearly not stars. He always thought what it would be like to hook up with a woman from another planet if he were to live in a day and age of experiencing a visitation from elsewhere. Probably would never happen though.

He hoped these alien women would be very pretty and look somewhat like a human and be very openminded as opposed to human women who were exact opposites. He didn't understand women at all. No matter how nice he was to them he was always labeled just a friend. Perhaps it was his looks. He was on the heavy side but why should he have to be 100 % perfect. Who honestly was in the world. Nobody that's who. He wasn't going to change for anyone. Why should he? If girls couldn't accept his looks then that was their problem. Yet he still felt the way he did toward them. He didn't know if he hated them or not. Maybe pity them would be fair to say. He had good hygiene and he was smart standing a little over 6 feet and had his own allowance. He worked up until recently. He had quit his job as a manager in a video game store because he lost the will to be someone. Because he failed to get a special someone he just gave up on life and decided he would spend the rest of his life in his home and never go out again.

It was a dark gloomy day outside. He felt it was a perfect fit for how he was feeling. Looked like it was going to rain too. He didn't care as long as he didn't have to be outside. He was sad depressed and angry but wasn't going to shed tears about it. His plan was to eat and drink away his sorrow until he died. He had thought of a worse way of dealing with his pain. Getting a gun and shooting crowds of people especially those in happy relationships. Anything he could to get back at people he felt looked down at him with pity because of his nerdy look. He did wear glasses and was into a lot of video games and books. Or rather people looked up at him with pity because again he was tall. He figured a massacre wouldn't teach anybody anything. It never did. No matter how many people died in a shooting by someone angry about something people just didn't change. Eventually, they went back to their old ways. So Bernard felt a shooting was a waste of time. Plus he was big and not very athletic. He wouldn't last long in a fight with police so he went with plan B. If he had shot girls or women his so-called pity would seem more like hate. That was another reason why he didn't go with Plan A.

It was a Saturday night around 6 pm Bernard turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. Nothing special. Just news and old comedy sitcoms. Nothing he liked. He hadn't seen any movies as of late because of work but now that he was no longer doing that he had all the time in the world. He got up to grab some of his all-time favorite movies and placed them down on the coffee table. Then went to the kitchen to grab lots and lots of snacks and drinks. He took off his shoes and got comfy. He had cold soda, popcorn, chips, cookies, and candy. But that wasn't all- he decided to order a pizza or rather pizzas along with side dishes. It was all for him and nobody else. He lived alone unless you counted his fishes. He had a few in a small tank of different types such as color or size. He knew they didn't love him the way a dog would but he loved them. They were his only friends now. He cut ties with all his friends after he quit his job. He told them by either phone or in-person that he didn't want to hang out no more.

He knew it was wrong to do but did it anyway. If he wasn't going to leave the house why bother with friends. He had no living relatives either so none of his friends could go to anyone close to him to talk sense into him. He did tell his friends to take care before saying goodbye one last time. He told them it was nothing personal but he felt what he was doing must be done. After the pizzas and side dishes came and he paid the delivery guy he sat down on his couch with everything and popped in his first movie and turned up the volume. His TV had a good sound system. The only light was from a lamp on a small round table to his right so he can see where everything was as he ate and drank. He was loaded with goodies. Not only did he have his snacks and drinks but five pizza boxes all large pepperoni and cheese, chicken wings and breadsticks with chocolate brownies as dessert. He had a kitchen full of food and a house full of other important stuff like toilet paper or paper towels thanks to a shopping spree he had gone on recently. He had literally become a hoarder. As if preparing for an oncoming pandemic that required a stay at home policy. He had enough stuff to last a couple of years.

Hopefully, he'd be dead before that. He hoped he'd be dead in the next six months. He had a sixth-month plan to keep eating unhealthy food until his body couldn't handle it anymore and decided to quit on him.