Glenn and the Fridge

[Enguin Enguin Enguin Enguin]

So I was lying in bed one night, pondering what it is that YCM needs, when it struck me: A poorly written short story that tries to be too clever and falls completely flat. Now, I'm not the sort to let my dreams be dreams, so of course I had to take this on board. And so we arrive at this. I honestly doubt it even meets the minimum length requirement but it's a short story as opposed to a chapter so whether that rule is even applicable I'm unclear.

 

Nevertheless, don't leave a comment unless it's totally uncritical praise, any comment that calls into question any aspect will be reported and you will be banned. This is a safe space. 

For the sake of clarity I feel the need to say that the above paragraph was disingenuous in nature, and could even be described as sarcastic.

 

[spoiler=The it]

Glenn was a dull man. At age 6 he started collecting stamps and from that point he was more or less fucked. It didn't take long for Glenn's parents to realise he was literally never going to do anything that required any sort of attention, so inevitably in time they stopped giving it to him, until one day they simply left and forgot about him entirely, never to return. At the time that this happened, Glenn had only just turned 13, and he wasn't the brightest young man, so the fact that he encountered immediate difficulties in living alone surprised few, though the fact there were people observing the situation whose reactions were anything other than efforts to help him isn't a great thing in and of itself.

 

Surviving off the food left by his parents before their untimely abandonment for a week, Glenn eventually came to accept his new reality. Living the life of a 40-year-old bachelor, he kept himself fed by working at a local supermarket as a cleaner, earning barely anything but it was technically illegal for him to be working at all so he knew not to complain. This continued this for many years, with Glenn eventually working his way up first to checkout staff, then to supervision, and on into management.

 

Throughout all this time, Glenn failed to manufacture any semblance of personality or charm or really anything of any interest to anyone, and this complete absence of personability hindered and slowed his progression through the ranks, until it ground to a juddering halt at regional manager, a position he would go on to hold for many years without even the vaguest hint at promotion. It was in one of these years that Glenn came upon an abnormality in sales figures for 1 store under his supervision, where multiple fridges would be sold every week.

 

This sort of thing wasn't exactly unheard off, and the system by which the sales were recorded was not a flawless one, so Glenn disregarded it the first month. And the second. By the third, he knew either someone was messing with the numbers, or buying bulky electrical appliances en masse at a consistent rate for a sustained period. With neither seeming likely and both a matter that necessitated investigation, Glenn decided to go along himself, being the kind of man who didn't mind spending weekends following up on statistical anomalies in fridge sales, and also the kind of boss nobody respected, or would have been willing to acquiesce to a request from to do so.

 

And so it was that the bland, uninspiring Glenn came to be speaking to the manager of a particular supermarket in his particular designated region on one particularly dreary February afternoon. Being the type to rarely take interest in anything, increased sales in household items were invariably a particular topic of curiosity to Glenn, and so when he was informed that the buyer for almost every unit sold was a gentleman by the name of Robert Carlson, Glenn sought an address and headed out, for no reason other than to spend an evening doing something other than sitting alone at home contemplating the inevitable and unavoidable death that would eventually befall him.

 

The directions given by the store manager were thorough, but there were a few turns he had said to take for which roads simply did not exist, and Glenn had to backtrack and re-think and eventually wander blindly until he came upon one of the landmarks referenced to guide him and carried on, with all this carrying him comfortably past nightfall by the time he found the home. It was an old two-story country house, not miles from anywhere but far enough, such that the quiet over-rode any seeping sound of the relatively active nearby towns and gave a peaceful if slightly unnerving ambience to the place.

 

No lights were on inside, bar a faintly flickering light-bulb in what appeared to be a kitchen based on the knives set on the table, though the curtains were drawn most of the way so it would only be a guess to say what the room actually was. Undeterred by the creeping unease that had begun to eat away at the corners of his mind, Glenn approached the porch that lay before the front door, albeit with mild trepidation. Unsure what to expect, he knocked at the door and awaited a response with bated breath. None came. Knocking twice more, leaving what he deemed a reasonable gap between them, his patience began to wear somewhat.

 

Unwilling to simply give up, Glenn elected to wait a little while, and his mind began to wander as he imagined the life he may have led had he had a personality, and became fascinated by the swaying trees that dotted the surroundings, as the gentle and cool night air blew around him.

 

His directionless internal musings were interrupted by the sound of the front door's creaking hinges. Slightly startled, Glenn turned to see that the door opened on to a dank and unlit hallway, with not a person in sight and not a sound emerging from within. At this point, he thought to himself "fuck this, I'm not dealing with it", and went home. Glenn may have been a dull man, but he wasn't an idiot, and only an idiot would have entered a secluded house with a mysterious self-opening door owned by some reclusive cunt who stockpiles fridges.

[Sleepy]

I liked Glenn's personality :v

[Snatch Steal]

Ok: honestly, I got about halfway through before I couldn't keep myself from reviewing.

 

Wow. This is amazing. It's a fresh, dry, and bitter, like coffee, really. Except the dry part. Coffee is kind of wet, last I checked. Also not all coffee is fresh.

 

I love the vocabulary. "Throughout all this time, Glenn failed to manufacture any semblance of personality or charm or really anything of any interest to anyone"  Perfectly describes me greatly utilizes "Manufacture" as a verb where it is usually used for literal creation of an object. It keeps the dreary theme very obvious, and should warrant a chuckle from the reader.

 

I really wish I could write like this. It's a work of art, to be honest.

[mitchermitcher]

Kept me reading to the end. Had a very nice execution and the buildup to the punch line at the end was quite sufficient. I love how it's mostly narration and very little description or dialogue or anything else, I'm quite fond of that style of writing. It felt like I was reading a Writing Prompts entry from the appropriate subreddit or so, and it wouldn't have worked as a longer story either. It's great as is, although I doubt this is the first time it's been done(Which of course, means little).