Mordecai and Rigby were in their room, playing video games as usual.
"This is so lame," said Mordecai, looking at the choppy graphics.
It was some army-type game, Space Killers 3000, or something like that. Not as cool as it sounded. But Rigby - unsurprisingly - was totally into it.
"You're only saying it's lame 'cos you can't beat it!" he said.
Mordecai raised his eyebrows. "Whatever dude. I'm gonna head out for some fresh air."
"Aw, man! How am I gonna play without you?" griped Rigby.
"There's a solo setting, you can play against the computer," replied Mordecai, and out he went.
The park was pretty quiet. Benson was in his office, dealing with the taxes, so he wasn't out yelling orders at everyone like he usually did.
Muscleman and High-Five Ghost were in their backyard pool, chilling with cans of soda.
Skips was in the garage, doing whatever he did with his free time - maybe he was fixing things, maybe he was doing some Yeti thing no one knew two cents about.
Mordecai smiled as the cool mid-afternoon breeze hit his face. He loved being holed up indoors more than just about anyone, but on days like this, even he knew outside was the place to be. He thought of how awesome it would be if everyday was like this - no one bugging him, no jobs to do, a beautiful scenery to look at.
It was funny, and stupid, and kind of corny, but days like this made him think of the life he used to have, a long time ago. He was 18, and he'd been accepted into an art college - one of the best in the country. It hadn't meant that much to him. It was cool and all, but he just wanted to draw - he didn't care if he was at some big-wig college or just a dump down the street.
But it had been pretty nice there, when he looked back on it. He was painting and sketching every day, hanging out with other artists, talking about whatever and having a good time. It was like the Impressionists back in - whenever that was.
Sometimes he started to wonder - what would his life be like now if he hadn't dropped out? It was hard to know. He always saw it in rose-colored glasses - he'd have graduated with honors, gotten a place in a big art exhibit, and he would've been a genuine artist. Doing it for a living. He'd have a name in the art world, and maybe he'd even be famous by now.
But he knew that since real life was a bitch, things probably wouldn't have turned out nearly so well. And ironically that made him feel better when he tried getting depressed over what could've been. Because it definitely could've been way worse than what he was doing now.
One thing was for sure: if he hadn't ended up with this job at the park, he never would've met Margaret, who worked at the restaurant around the corner. Mordecai sighed. He liked Margaret. A lot. He was generally a straightforward dude; whatever he wanted to say, he'd say, and that was that - he didn't have time for pussyfooting around like some dove. But when it came down to Margaret, he lost all of that, and got laughably stuck, as if he were in quicksand.
It was no wonder that while he and Margaret were good enough friends, she had no idea how he felt about her. Hell, even he didn't know how he felt about her. He just gazed at her when she was around, trying to gather the guts to ask her out... and failing.
Oh well. There were other things in life to think about, thank God.
He looked out at the sun. It was slowly, very slowly setting down, casting long shadows over everything. The wind was rustling the trees and when Mordecai spread out his wings, his feathers floated out with the breeze. Man, he felt like flying...
"Hey Mordecai!" Rigby was running down the stairs looking psyched, a big box in his hands.
"Yo, what's that, dude?" Morecai asked.
"What do ya think?" Rigby had a smug grin.
"Not Death Zombies 3!" said Mordecai. They'd ordered it online last week, and based on the reviews and screenshots, it was totally worth the 14 bucks.
"Yeah-uh!" Rigby said.
"Then let's go kill some zombies." said Mordecai, getting that death player look.
"I'm warning you right now, I wanna be player one." said Rigby.
"Let's play punchies for it." said Mordecai, grinning like a devil.
"Crap!"