Chapter 2: Ordinary

Earth really is an odd place. For those that aren't very good at it, life can be hard. Everything about it can suck. Most people who struggle with life tend to be teenagers who aren’t really any good or bad at anything in particular. They’re not very popular at school, or really very good at sports or even top of the class in any of their studies. They’re just your everyday average teenager. There’s nothing wrong with them, but nothing great about them either. In order to be recognised by anyone in this world, you have to do something that makes you stand out... you have to be special.

Austin Avalon is not special. He’s a totally normal 20-year-old that looks and acts the same as any other totally normal 20-year-old. He has blue eyes, tightly cropped short brown hair that he always wished was long. He always wanted hair long enough to cover his face, but he wanted it to flow back and look perfect as if it were from an anime or movie. The only reason he didn’t let his hair grow out that long, was because he knew it would be a massive hassle and also knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his job if it grew too long. Not that he particularly liked his job, he just didn’t want to have to find a new one. As a barman and a waiter, it wouldn’t be convenient for him to have long hair because he knew full well that one day a customer would find a strand of his hair in their drink or food and that would be the end of that. Austin wasn’t a hard worker. If the bare minimum would do, then the bare minimum would do. He never tried to go above and beyond for anything. That was too much of a hassle for him, except when it came to working out. Everyone who knew anything about Austin would have found his fitness level to be particularly weird. Most people thought that while he was at home, he probably just watched TV and masturbated. However, he would often put time aside to work out and make sure that he could stay as fit as possible. There was no reason for this, he just wanted to. But he did also watch TV and masturbate a lot.

About a 10-minute drive out of a reasonably normal sized market town in the middle east of England there is a small village that has not one, but two pubs. It was a typical village. Nothing special about it, except for the fact that it has two pubs. That is pretty cool. This totally normal but pretty cool village is where Austin lives. Thanks to his parents’ hard work they are able to live in quite a large house. Due to the size of the house, they could barely even hear one and other when they shout to get attention let alone see each other. The only time they ever really did see each other was when Austin had to get up early for work and every night when his parents forced him to eat dinner with them for some ‘family bonding time’. Austin’s parents were like no others. They were completely insane, but this was probably due to the amount of alcohol they drank. They were pretty much alcoholics. Not alcohol dependent, but they did drink a lot. They never got super drunk in the evenings to the point where Austin would find them passed out in the living room on the sofa, but it was to the point where they would be asking him the same questions in the mornings as they did over dinner with no recollection of having already asked him. As you would expect, Austin was somewhat the same as them. He did enjoy having a bottle of wine or a few cans of beer with and after his dinner, but he wasn’t in the same league as his parents.

Austin didn’t exactly hate his job. He was the sort of person who just wanted to be doing anything other than what he was doing at that exact moment. If he were at work asking people what they wanted to order, he would much rather be at home doing absolutely nothing. However, if he were at home doing nothing of any sort of importance, he would much rather be at work, because at least then he would get to talk to people. The only issue Austin had with talking to people was that he always thought anything he added onto a conversation would be useless. Any time somebody asked him a question he would answer it using as few words as possible because he didn’t want to waste peoples’ time listening to his voice. It’s not that he didn’t have anything to say, or that he didn’t want to talk to them, he just assumed that what he was thinking didn’t want to be heard. He never even asked for help when he needed it, he would just suffer in silence, and if anyone asked him to do something, he would do it as quickly as possible. It was also difficult to read what Austin was thinking by his facial expressions, he held a permanent poker-face and would always look down or away if eye contact was made. He’s the sort of person who would even wear a hoodie in the middle of summer just so he could have his hood up to try hide his face. This made it very difficult for people to get to know him. However, all of this was thrown out of the window when Austin talked to customers. He would always smile and act all cheerful around them, especially around the regulars, but as soon as he turned around his face would drop into its usual state.

Because of Austin’s awkwardness and shyness, he only had one real friend, sure he had colleagues which he would hold small conversations with, but he only had one person he ever felt he could talk to: Ben. Ben was at university, so they didn’t really get to see each other that much, nor did they even talk to each other over the phone. This wasn’t really an issue for either of them though because they knew that they could rely on each other to talk about whatever, whenever. The two of them could count on each other to laugh off the other’s issues in such a way it would make the other want to laugh about it too. A bizarre relationship really.

Girls are scary. But in the eyes of a desperate, single young adolescent male, girls are terrifying. For Austin however, it was just as daunting to talk to a girl as any other person and, for a reason unknown to me because I am a man and to me girls are extremely confusing, some girls seem to find being shy an attractive feature. Due to this baffling fact, Austin had actually had a girlfriend before! He wasn’t particularly in love with her, he basically just saw her as another friend to talk to from time to time. This ‘relationship’ lasted about six months but then she moved away, and everything just seemed to fizzle out because Austin was lazy and never tried to keep in contact.

            On this particular Tuesday, Austin was on the day shift, 9-5, and after about three hours of standing in the same spot polishing the same glass that he picked up when he first clocked in, five girls walked in and sat at a table in the restaurant.

“O.M.G! We’re, like, not really bothered about food but are you, like, doing cocktails this early?”

“Yeah, I can do some cocktails for you, what do you have in mind?” ‘Fuck this I just wanna stand around and get paid to do nothing. Why do people always want to come to this place?’

“Oh my God, that’s great… what do you guys want?... yeah? Cool… can we have four Pornstar Martinis then please.”

“Yeah, sure no worries.” ‘Fuck off… please.’ “Oh, is there a fifth drink with that?”

“Oh, no, not on our tab anyway. But… Lizzy, what do you want?”

“…A lemonade please.”

“Ahh, I take it you’re the designate driver?” ‘Why did I just try and make small talk with the only girl who hasn’t even looked up from her phone.’

“Uh huh…”

‘Serves me right I guess.’ “Yeah, no worries, I’ll get those drinks right over to you guys in just a minute.” ‘Who has cocktails on a Tuesday lunch time anyway?’

As usual Austin hated every second of talking to customers, even though, when the place was empty, all he wanted to do was talk to people. Every single second he hung around others he could feel them judging him. Everything he did just felt wrong. A cold, anxious sweat began to form on Austin’s brow.

“Oh. My. God. As if HE tried to make small talk YOU Lizzy.”

“Uh huh…”

‘Wow. Way to rub in my glorious failure of an attempt of small talk you bitch.’

Girls are scary enough as it is. But THESE girls are on a whole other level. They took the phrase ‘piece of shit’ and thought, ‘Instead of rolling myself in glitter, I’m just gonna make myself even shitter.’ So, they added another layer of shit to the pile. They are the sort of girls that you would want to date if you were stuck in a coma because you would definitely want to wake up just to question your own sanity, and then dump them. They are your typical fake tanned, sharpie eye browed bitches who thought they were the bees fucking knees. Everything about them has just horrible. Except for the ‘Lizzy’ girl. She obviously didn’t want to be anywhere near them either.

“Here you are, four Pornstar Martinis and one lemonade… Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“Uhhh yeah, just the bill please… this place is, like, kinda tacky you know.”

‘What. A. Bitch.’ “Oh, yeah sure no worries.” He stood there a little longer looking at their reactions hoping that he didn’t say what he was thinking by accident.

After a while, the four bitches and Lizzy left, and Austin had a completely boring, uneventful finish to his shift. Just another nine to five for him. As usual, he got into his car and began driving home until something out of the ordinary happened. A car coming towards him suddenly swerved and smashed head on into him. It was in the middle of town still so it was quite a slow speed collision… But still, it was Austin’s first ever car crash, he didn’t know what to do. He sat there dazed for a moment trying to gather his thoughts before getting out. At the same time as him the other driver also exited. It was Lizzy. The two of them waited for the recovery vehicles and Lizzy explained that one of the drunk girls grabbed the steering wheel which is why they swerved and that they were probably still in the car because they were in shock. This was the first time Austin had actually looked at what Lizzy looked like and for the most part she was just an ordinary girl. She was a bit on the small side and quite skinny, with dark auburn hair wrapped up in a scruffy bun. The only thing that was slightly odd about her was the glasses she wore. They were like old-school NHS glasses, like tr7 headlights. They were not the sort of thing you would expect a probably around 20-year-old to be wearing. The arms looped around her ears in a totally awkward way and the specs themselves were huge. All the facial features the Lizzy could have shown off were completely obliterated by how bland the glasses were. Thankfully, it didn’t take long before some vans came to take away their cars and the two of their pickups arrived. Austin got picked up by both his parents and the entire way home they asked him generic question like:

“Oh my god, are you okay?” “His blood pressure’s dropping!” “What happened?”  “How are you feeling now?” “Prepare for immediate surgery!” “Is there anything we can do for you?” “Get the defibrillator!” “What would you like for dinner tonight?” “CLEAR!” Everything you expect to hear from your parents on the way back home from a small car crash.

After getting back Austin went straight up to his room and watched TV like usual until his was eventually called down for dinner.

“Anything fun happen at work today?”

“No.” About as usual as most of the conversations with his parents went.

‘Why are they not saying anything about the crash? Have they forgotten already? I know they’re old, but holy shit.’

After dinner he loaded the dishwasher, said his thank you, and went straight back upstairs to continue doing nothing. Twelve-o-clock came, and he went to bed just as he normally did. Falling asleep wasn’t difficult for Austin. He was always tired.