A Night in the Life
He locks up the comic book store behind him, shutting off the lights before doing so. Nothing exciting. He turns around from his day job, sighing deeply, and tells himself that everything is going to be okay; he tells himself that life will turn out alright. Of course, he tells himself the same shit every night, his hopes for having a giant mansion and nothing short of an affluent wife being thrown down the tubes many years beforehand. There was that fat chick he nailed a couple of times after ComicCon, and that long haired person who seemed to be a chick a few weeks later, but for a few months, striking out had become the omnipresent nightshift. For Stuart, his day job was a way to escape his lonely nightlife, but deep in his mind, he knew that it really wasn't much different. He had the rare opportunity of meeting up with Wil Wheaton or sharing a few laughs with Leonard and the gang, but most of the time he just sat there, waiting until Comic Book Night on Wednesday or a celebrity to show up on his front porch.
As he walks down the street to his parking space a feeling like none other than that of weltschmerz comes to his mind: his car, his trashed, piece-of-shit car, has been given the boot. Apparently the cops didn't recognize his Comic Book Store permit as 'legal,' or something. He kicks the closest thing to him, which, unfortunately for the already depressed man, is a stray cat. Had it been a kitten, he might have escaped its fury, but not this one, no; it clawed at his testicles like a female lashes out at her abusive husband. After a five minute showdown (during which two tourists from Versailles took the chance to film an American being mauled by a feline), Stuart moved on, barely able to pick his feet up above the sidewalk.
Finally, despite all of his pain, he reaches the apartment, and to his utter delight, nothing is wrong with it. Once inside, however, he remembers his true predicament, and when his brain scans and delivers a picture of his four room place, nothing happy comes to mind. Comic books that have any sort of relevance to depression are strewn across the place, the other thousands of bound pages being lined up neatly in another room. He reaches for his fridge, takes out a beer (a watery one at that), and lies down on his mattress, still covered in that fat chick's vomit stain. He picks up the remote, turns on the TV, and listens to Dance Moms talk about how fucked up those damn dance teachers are; he feels good about himself while watching this, but of course, that wears off after a while.
After a four hour Bravo Marathon, Stuart is barely able to make his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Afterwards, however, he finally feels good about his life. He's not worthless like he thought; the guys (and Penny) at the store need him, the nerds of Pasadena need him, and, well, not many others. But the point Stuart found in this was that he was a part of this world.
With that in mind, Stuart made sure his door was locked, climbed onto his mattress, and shut his light. It was then that the noise from the night club that he lived above hit him, it was then that all of his previous thoughts were washed away.
"Son of a bitch!" he yelled.