[Ongoing] A collection of unsettling or unusual short stories. Some have monsters, some have humor, some draw tears, some make you think, and some have artwork. Each is a revealing glance of someone's life.
Every writer has their own methods of comi...
Original story below, but you can find a revamped version in my collection "The Joke's on Me: and six other twisted stories of absurdity and regret", available on Amazon!
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I had a little side business, just something that turned my hobby into cold hard cash. I had a real part-time job, but the stream trickling from this one wasn’t too shabby and it was a lucrative way to flex my creative muscle.
It was simple: You’d send me a name, number, date, phrase, or anything you found worthy and I’d create a unique design based off of it. Only you knew what it stood for (and me, of course).
It incorporated all the letters and/or numbers and I could make them immediately identifiable, vaguely indicative, or heavily coded, as per your request. By coded, I mean something ridiculous and fun, depending on my imagination and any particular theme you had in mind. There was no logic to the method and no two designs were coded the same way.
I’d done requests for anniversaries, birthdays, graduations, baby showers, and more, and my clients loved it when I told them how their custom-made design was coded. It was like they had a pretty little secret no one else knew.
I usually received requests via email, but today I was sitting in the university library, waiting for a client who insisted we meet in person. It wasn’t an odd request, some people just weren’t computer literate. He also requested I book Private Study Room #2, one of the older rooms with a classic chalkboard and no fancy technology.
I’d been sitting inside for five minutes, playing on my phone, when the door squeaked open and a weary, middle-aged man peeked in.
“Neil?”
I put my phone down. “Yes. You must be Abner?”
The man nodded and took a furtive glance outside before he entered the room, closed the door, and set a chair in front of it. He began inspecting his surroundings, and I tried to ignore his paranoid mannerisms as I pulled out my sketchpad.
“Alright. So, what would you like to immortalize?” I joked.
“Before we begin, please turn off your mobile and any electronics you may have.”
I sighed. Great, one of these wackos. I showed him my phone and turned it off in front of him. “I don’t have other electronics on me. So, what do you want me to design?”
He sat down across from me, pulling out a folded envelope from inside his jacket. “It’s written in here. I don’t know what it is.”
“Okay …” I said as I reached for it.
He didn’t hand it over. “Make sure it’s difficult to decipher.”
My fingers twitched with impatience. “Sure thing."
He still didn’t relinquish it. “You can read your designs, correct?”
I retracted my hand. “Yes. Look, if that’s a problem and you don’t want to do this, it’s cool.”
