32 Large Circles

Two Large Circles

   The man handed Ben a box. He was not a mail man. It did not make sense to Ben that he was being handed this box by a man who was not a mail man. This was strange. Mail men handed out boxes. Not people who were not mail men. How did people who were not mail men even exist? Ben's brain was not working right. He was sure this was the demonic doing of the not-mail-man. Maybe the contents of the box. Probably the not-mail-man though.

     Ben opened the box. It was... nothing. Literally nothing. It had a HOLE IN THE BOTTOM. IT WAS LESS THAN NOTHING. IT WAS NEGATIVE CARDBOARD. Ben reached his hand into the hole. This was definitely probably an empty box. He was also twenty-seven percent sure it might be a portal to another dimension. But usually it was mail men who handed out portals.

     I mean, sometimes the really important inter-dimensional portals were handed out by masked men in long black robes with blue eyes, which were just barely visible underneath the masks. But the man who gave Ben this box was neither a mail man nor a masked man in a long black robe with blue eyes just barely visible beneath his mask. He was just a 20-something year old man in a grey shirt and a pair of Converse.

     So Ben looked up, just to double check that the man's shirt was grey and not dolphin-colored light black. Then he looked back down, because the man had mysteriously disappeared. Maybe he was a mail man. Sometimes they did that. Ben just sorta stared through the hole in the bottom of the box. There were a whole bunch of baby trolls on the ground, but Ben was pretty much fine with that. He was into baby trolls. They were cute.

    One of the baby trolls tried to climb up Ben's leg. Baby trolls are REALLY big, a lot bigger than the average human leg, so Ben wasn't sure why that one was trying to climb his leg. It just sorta left some marks where its acid sweat had dripped on him. Every time with the baby trolls.

     Ben put down the box. For a box full of negative cardboard, it was surprisingly heavy. As it hit the ground, the hole disappeared.

    "Huh," said Ben. "That's weird." Then he went inside. His house was actually made of adult trolls, which was why there were so many baby trolls outside. See, the troll daycare had been shut down so now the baby trolls just hung out outside until their parents were off work. Their vacation days were troll Christmas (This is July 42nd, if you were interested), troll New Year's (This is December 31st, because trolls follow the same calendar as Americans), and troll Saturday. (This is Tuesday.)

     Ben sometimes felt bad for the baby trolls. They only got to see their parents on troll Saturdays, and sometimes the troll police came and arrested them for loitering. They didn't even get to play those cool games Ben used to play on his phone before it became outlawed. They weren't alive back then. Trolls are only born on Tuesdays, which is also National Outlawing Random Stuff Day. Anyway, trolls are dumb. Let's get back to circles. Those are cool.

     As Ben stepped inside, a young woman stepped outside. A lot of young women probably stepped outside, but only one of them is actually important to the story. So we'll focus on her. Maybe in another chapter we'll talk about all the other young women who stepped outside at that moment.

     Laura was standing outside, waiting for a man. The man was set to deliver her a box full of negative cardboard. She had ordered this as a gag present for her coal statues. Their birthday was coming up next Tuesday, at which point they probably wouldn't even be legal. She planned on eating them after they opened their present. 

     A mail man arrived at the door. She ignored the mail man. He disappeared. Then, a man in a dolphin-colored light black shirt and a pair of Converse showed up. He handed her a box. She suddenly found it hard to comprehend that people could be anything other than a mail man.

     "Are you a mail man?" she asked. Then he disappeared. "Oh."