💯 Story Challenge

Here’s to the crazy ones

№46 — the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes

A boy looks at a man, and the man yells at the traffic. The traffic ignores the man. And the boy watches on.

There he goes yelling at the traffic again.

Every morning, a quarter past eight.

“You’re late, you’re late!”

The press is building up. The tension is climbing. The lights are flashing and the rain is coming down sideways.

I step up to the bridge wall and look out over the seething masses. I stand witness to the downfall.

The End is Nigh.

Each car tipping the scale in its own small way, creeping up unto the back of its leader. I watch the long snakes of glistening metal inch over slick black lanes of frigid tar, burning dinosaur krill and belching diamond gas.

You see me, you pass by, you forget me.

I yell on.

I remember a world that was different. I remember being a boy, with a family and a future.

But we forget. We forget the details. But remember the ache. We've all lost so much.

I remember a world that was different. Do you see how it's changed?

Inspired by a darker meaning to the words of Steve Job’s narration of the iconic Apple Think Different commercial.

This story is not about the man in the photo. But a man I saw in the street one day yelling at the traffic. A man easily forgotten living outside the norm, but a man angry with something. I thought of him as a crazy one, angry at us for not seeing what was right before our eyes. Wasting our lives, ruining our world, we ignored the sage because he was filthy and mad. Not because he spoke lies.

I wrote this story months ago, but overcomplicated it and never finished it. So now, I cut the complications, kept the core and hit publish. Keep it simple get it done.

💯 Story Challenge (46/100)

Zane Dickens’ stories go bump in the night, ka-boom in space, and roar with adventure in fabled lands. And if he can help it, there’s a streak of humour too. Get his stories in your inbox 📬

He started the 💯 Story Challenge, and he hopes you’ll forgive him.

Here’s how to write for Microcosm. Let’s see what you’ve got.