Authors note: This is my version of a character study. Let me know what you think!
Orin Nueron wasn’t sure where he actually was. As far as he could tell, he was in a chair. Soiled by long usage, splintered legs and stickers were only a few of the many tortures somebody had forced the chair to endure. He wasn’t going to point fingers at anybody, but he knew there was at least one person who could have created the mess.
Just so happened that the one person was himself.
He shrugged his shoulders and looked at the disaster. Yes, this did look like his house. Overturned tables and chairs, upside down and broken apart. Dirt covered the entire floor like a sooty carpet. Orin tried not to breathe the dust. There were wine and whisky bottles decorating the house in piles. He liked to call them the beginning of his meager collection. The truth stood differently. He was too lazy to deal with them.
Yes, everything was just the way it was supposed to be. Perfect.
At present, he was confused. Memories circulated in his mind of things that had happened the night before, but what was so important? What small detail was he forgetting that would wreck his day if he remembered it later?
Oh—yes. His wine bottle cradled in the nook of his hand was still half-way full. Can’t forget that.
He abandoned his sweet rocking and grasped the neck of the bottle with one solid hand. Rather than drinking the liquor, he inhaled it. The wine dribbled down his white-beard and across his throat, staining his button-up shirt, which was already mottled with different colored stains. One more was barely noticeable in the blend of shades.
After the bottle was empty—which didn’t take very long—he decided to get dressed for the day. He knew that his pajamas were a little dirty from the arduous task of sleeping, so he figured a change of apparel would sharpen things up and prepare him for another busy day.
He slowly pushed himself up, trying to keep steady. The ground started to sway back and forth. Even his wine bottle moved. Orin put out a hand to steady his liquor. There was no way he wanted that precious artifact dropping to the floor—empty or full.
The wine bottle continued to shake in his hand.
Orin decided the floor wasn’t swaying. The entire world shook from an earthquake or something similar. It was the only explanation he could think of. Pacified by that thought, he reluctantly released the bottle from his iron grasp. He needed two hands to walk down through the dining room to his bedroom. The house moved around too much. The dizziness was about to overcome him.
Everything stopped spinning when he came to his door, fumbling for the doorknob. After many unsuccessful attempts, he looked closer and realized that there wasn’t one—merely a hole.
He pushed on the door and it swung open to let himself in.
Through the relentless piles of clothes and wine bottles, he pushed himself, determined to reach the dresser and find a pair of clean clothes.
Orin began to open the top dresser drawer and stopped halfway. Something wasn’t right. He could tell. The entire atmosphere seemed too surreal to be true. Too calm and dreamlike, without any racket to disturb him or anyone else.
Something was definitely wrong.
“Stupid bird!” He yelled as loud as he could so his voice would carry through the room to the one beyond.
“That’s it! You’re dead!” A reply echoed through the empty rooms, drifting back to him. A familiar squawk and an ear-piercing scream followed.
No, everything was fine. And he still wanted to kill that damn parrot.
His hands started to wrap around the worn knobs on the beaten dresser when he noticed something peculiar. He experimentally wiped a finger on the dresser lid, avoiding the peeling paint.
“Somebody has been slacking in his duties around the house,” he said. “Stupid bird doesn’t do anything to help out. Needs to earn its keep.”
He mumbled for a while longer, but his attention was distracted by a pile of clothing towering above his bed—shirts and pants falling off the filthy sheets only to begin another heap on the crusty floor.
“Someone has been in here messing with my stuff.” He leaned over and lifted a shirt up with one careful finger, trying to keep the soiled shirt as far away as possible. “It smells, too! Whoever left this pile should do their laundry more often. This is outrageous behavior.”
Orin dropped the shirt and wiped his hands off meticulously, making sure they were perfectly clean. No residue from the dirty shirt was to remain on his fingers. Contaminating them wasn’t an option.
He lifted his shirt and scratched his belly with a contented sigh. “I think I will pick out something special. Something that goes with my hair, maybe.” Orin giggled, but wasn’t sure why. Had he just said something funny?
His drawer held no surprises for him. There were only two items in it—a wrinkled t-shirt and a ripped pair of jeans. Lifting them up, Orin could tell that they hadn’t been cleaned, but merely folded and placed back in the drawer for some reason.
So much for picking out something special.
He changed quickly, eagerly anticipating the day. Yes, there was much to do. Well, at least much to drink.
As Orin passed by the mirror, he stopped for a second to catch his reflection. “Not too shabby,” he said. He scratched his scraggly beard and brushed back his mop of black hair—gangster style.
After belching a few times into his shirt, he grinned at his reflection. “I have to admit, I look really awesome. Look out, girls! Here I come.”
Orin wore a shirt that said, I Define Coolness, but the text was so stained by years of abuse they were barely readable. His pants weren’t nearly as bad to his eyes, but they were inside out. But he didn’t want to fix them because they looked better that way—or at least he thought that.
He picked up his clothes he had just changed out of, holding them at arm’s length. The clothes were thrown onto the pile that someone had started beside his bed.
“After all, my other clothes are down there. Might as well make that the dirty clothes pile,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Someone—he wasn’t sure who yet—needed a talking to in order to straighten things up. It was necessary for the peace and order of the household.
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