"Hey fuckers, check it out, I'm famous," Tillman said to literally no one.
Tillman's hit rap single had gone platinum. It was all the radio ever played, and he didn't plan on letting anyone forget it.
But there wasn't anyone for him to tell about it.
Because, well, he lived in an apartment alone. So he didn't really have anyone to tell. And on top of that, he'd been eliminated from the Coffee Cup in the first round and was thus once again forced to sit through a siesta that felt like an eternity.
"I'm bored…" Tillman groaned out loud, once again to no one, in hopes that the blaseball gods would hear his bitching and give him something to do, which he would then most likely reject in favor of lying around and complaining.
Never once did it occur to Tillman that he could write more music, as though his sporadic five-minute writing sessions had very near burnt him out his eventual success may or may not have made up for his minimal efforts.
Even still, though, Tillman Henderson would rather lie on his sofa depressingly and complain to his empty living room.
Though his living room was quite nice, he never cleaned it and left his clothes in random spots that one can only leave their clothes if they had done so on purpose. The only truly clean part of the apartment was the laundry room, which he had long forgotten existed.
Tillman was still wearing his uniform from the Cold Brew Crew, though it had already been a full day after they had been eliminated from contention. He thought it felt warm and cozy, so he had left it on and planned to keep the uniform to use for pajamas in the future.
His Shoe Thieves uniform, though, he had straight-up stolen from Jaylen's corpse after he had replaced her on the team. Though it fit him surprisingly well despite Jaylen having a completely different body type than him, since the siesta started he had lost the uniform somewhere in his apartment and despite his best efforts he could not find it.
All of that considered, Tillman was still lying on his sofa, yelling at the top of his lungs, "FUCK MY LIFE HONEST, THERE'S NOTHING TO FUCKING DO IN THIS FUCKING APARTMENT!" His Cold Brew Crew uniform, combined with the fact that he had turned his apartment's heater up to nearly eighty degrees, caused him to begin sweating profusely. He started wiping his forehead with his hand, before thinking to himself that if he wipes his sweat with his hands the pored in his forehead will get clotted and cause acne, so he reached down and grabbed a random article of clothing from the ground, using the inside of the shirt to wipe his forehead before throwing it behind him, launching the shirt into a nearby wall allowing it to slide into the space behind his apartment's oven.
"Fuck, was that my Shoe Thieves uniform?" Tillman got up, looked behind him quickly, and scanned the room for the shirt. As he was unable to locate the shirt, he groaned and lay back down on his sofa. He didn't turn the air heater down or take off his shirt despite the heat of his apartment, instead he simply continued to lie on his couch, drenched in sweat, only getting up to drink water once he got to the brink of passing out from dehydration.
He did this for about two hours, all the while complaining about not being able to do anything but sit in his grimy apartment.
Thinking about his Shoe Thieves uniform caused Tillman to begin thinking about Jaylen, causing him to get the idea to randomly call her without warning. He stumbled over to his bedroom where he found his airpods with wires, and he plugged them into his phone and found Jaylen's contact. The phone rang twice before Tillman heard a voice on the other side of the line.
"Hello?" The voice Tillman heard was somewhat soft though raspy, as though she had just woken up.
"Hi, I-" Tillman got two words in before he heard a few beeps in rapid succession, indicating that Jaylen had hung up, likely as soon as she heard his voice.
Wordlessly, he sank back into his sofa and continued to freeload.
"I'm hungry now." Tillman said before pulling out his phone. "I'll get some food delivered, I guess."
Tillman bought a bag of peanuts and within the next hour it was delivered to his house, though he didn't actually take it from his front door until another hour after the delivery came. When Tillman was about to take the bag, he remembered something somewhat important.
"Oh shit, I'm allergic…" Tillman grumbled under his breath. He opted to leave the peanuts at his front door in hopes that someone else who wasn't allergic would take them.
And so, with nothing to eat, Tillman sank on his sofa, which was now soggy and smelly due to the massive amount of perspiration coming from Tillman due to the combined heat of his apartment and his clothing.
Lying face-down on his couch, Tillman buried his face into his wet pillow in order to muffle the sound of him groaning "I'm bored…" Even still, the sound of his voice would have been clear as day, had anyone else been in the room.
It was now evening, and Tillman had essentially wasted his day lying in a pool of his own sweat. He reached for his remote control to turn on the TV suspended on the wall, but the coffee table it was placed on was too far away from the sofa Tillman was lying on, so as he misjudged the distance between him and the remote he depressingly fell off his couch. Tillman, dehydrated as he was, didn't have the energy to get back up from the ground, so he stayed, laid on the floor of his apartment.
He lay face-down on the area rug that was there when he got the apartment, and nuzzled his face in the dusty mat in order to satisfy itches on his face. Every now and then he would sneeze from inhaling the dust in the rug. He had clearly not vacuumed in a while, as he had previously owned a Roomba, which broke soon after he bought it because he continually attempted to sit on it and ride it around. He remained face-down for around an hour while thinking about what being an anime girl felt like, and eventually got up due to a sudden orange juice craving. He opened up his refrigerator and rustled around for a minute or so before realizing that he was out of orange juice. He did have strawberry milk, though, so he took the carton and walked back to his spot on the floor before drinking the strawberry milk straight from the carton without shaking it first.
Without looking, he flung the empty strawberry milk carton behind him, scattering tiny droplets of milk throughout the room. He heard a sound and turned around to see if he had landed the carton in his trash bin, and when he saw that he hadn't he stood back up, walked to the carton, and dropped it back into the refrigerator, forgetting it was empty. Then he once again sat down on the floor in front of his couch.
"WHAT THE FUCK DO I DOOOOOOOO?" Tillman yelled once again before burying his head in his still damp sofa cushion. He remained, head nestled in the soft yet soggy surface until he later scratched the back of his head with his hand and lifted his now slightly sweaty face. Suddenly, he remembered what he had meant to do. He quickly looked around the room for his TV remote before remembering that it was on the coffee table right in front of him. "Bingo…" He mumbled under his breath as he reached for the remote and grabbed it, as it was quite literally right in front of him. He turned on the TV and flipped channels, trying to find something he wanted to watch. After a few minutes of searching, he became fed up with the fact that there wasn't anything on that he wanted to watch. Though he didn't turn it off, he switched the channel to one that was playing a Spanish soap-opera, though he didn't know a word of the language. For some odd reason, though, Tillman fixated himself and quite literally watched the soap opera, as once again the dialogue registered as gibberish to him. He watched as the daughters of a woman about to remarry took advantage of their soon-to-be father in-law's food allergy with his undivided attention. Though he wanted to continue watching the soap-opera Tillman's pizza craving began to resurface, and he found himself forced to order from a local pizza place that delivered. Fighting his growing hunger he continued to watch the soap opera, though the constant mentions of the character's fish allergy did nothing but make Tillman's struggle more difficult.
Finally, like an angel that had descended from heaven, he heard a ring from his doorbell that indicated that the pizza had arrived. Tillman's stomach pains were so horrible at that point that he was forced to crawl to his front door. On all fours, it took every remaining shred of Tillman's energy to move even an inch closer to his goal. Suddenly his limbs gave out and he collapsed to the dusty floor.
"Damn it all…" Tillman grumbled under his breath. "I wasn't even able to make it… Past the area rug…"
"DAMN IT! FUCK!" Tillman's screams were almost completely absorbed by the rug under him, meaning that no matter how loud he said it, the pizza delivery man would not be able to hear his cries. "I WON'T LET IT END LIKE THIS! I CAN'T!" Tillman buckled his knees and gritted his teeth. This was not how Tillman Henderson was going out. Having gained a second wind, he began exerting his arms and legs. "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" He yelled as his body cracked and adjusted itself and began to position itself upwards. And finally, as if it were a miracle…
Tillman Henderson had once again stood upright.
Still, every step he took placed a huge burden on his body as he walked forward. At that moment the sole thought that coursed through his brain was to move forward. To take one step at a time until he reached his goal.
And finally, he had arrived.
He slowly opened the door and a crack of blinding light appeared. As he continued to open it the light widened until Tillman was engulfed in it. And finally, once the light had subsided, he opened his eyes.
"Hi, pizza delivery for, uh…"
Tillman looked upon the delivery man with solemn yet steadfast eyes of pure determination.
"Joe Mama," Tillman said, triumphantly. "Pizza delivery for Joe Mama."