Carlina

17

The sun rose and everything fell. Of course, nothing actually fell off a shelf or anything like that, it’s a figure of speech for Pete’s sake, intended to signify Alex’s known world crumbling apart, his hopes and dreams fading into nothingness like vapors in the wind. He had lofty ambitions, at least, that’s what his mother had said, so he shouldn’t be too crushed if they didn’t work out. Not everyone could end up altering the course of history in the way they’d originally hoped. Apparently Alex was no different. He stood outside the room, wondering if he should even bother to enter. As the sky turned from the dim gray of the in-between hours to the pinks and yellows of the hopeful morning, Alex knew his potential for spurring sweeping continental reform, perhaps even total global betterment was lost to the ages. It wasn’t that the board would reject his proposal for an intergenerational cooperative mega-government, or even that his plan for ending domestic poverty would probably garner a miserably low level of support in congress. It was just, well, how to put this―he had no shot of being a comedian. But he might as well audition. The worst that could happen is they would tell him he wasn't funny and turn him down. Actually, the worst that could happen is he would end up with his own stand up show and his stupidity would be broadcast to the American public. No doubt they would create sarcastic tweets about how not-funny he was, which would be funnier than his own awful jokes. Hey, that would be one way to make history. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.