King of Nothing

Then (2)

It all begun to go downhill for me when my friend Christoff and I were at a small pub nearly invisible to most people's eyes. We had just graduated university and there were no job openings everywhere. Corporations didn't want to hire us because we were "young and inexperienced." It wasn't fair, but we couldn't do anything about it.

I remember very clearly we were extremely drunk and pissed at the world because after that we weren't allowed back in the bar.

"Christoff, man, we need something as a job. I am twenty nine years old and I still live with my mother, do you know how sad that is? She stills makes me lunch everyday. It's so embarrassing." I said, slurring my words. Christoff took a second to recognize it was me and then took a few more moments to come up with an intelligent response to give to me.

"I feel you dude. Only if we had something we could do!" He pouted like a little child that was declined candy from it's parents. 

"You know what man," tears rolled down my eyes, not because I was sad but because when I was drunk, I suddenly became emotional. "We need to stop following others and working for others like we're their pet. We need to become as big as them and show them who is boss!" As my spoken words dragged on, more confidence surged through. 

"That's true," Christoff paused, "the hard part is what ideas are we going to develop in order to choose that." He furrows his eyebrows and scratched his stubbled chin. I just sat there emotionless, like an empty void. 

Out of the corner of my eye I remember seeing a man who was eating at the same bar, just get up and run out of the bar as soon as the waitress wasn't looking. He didn't want to pay, so he ran away. I just sat there doing nothing about it, but I don't regret it because it sparked something that lead to the rest of my career.

"I've got it!" I exclaimed, back in that moment I was on top of the world and no one could bring me down. 

"Shoot, what is it?" Christoff asked, sounding genuinely curious. 

"Well you know how people are always attached to their mobile devices now a days, right?" I was really passionate about this idea, it wasn't even a thought in today's world until now.

"Yes! They treat it as it is a limb or something, it's insane dude." Christoff seems to actually understand my very weak idea that I was desperately clinging on to.

"Well...," I explain, my counterpart leaned in closer to hear every one of my words, "what if we made an app where whenever a person witnesses a crime they could videotape it. And once they've videotaped it it will be archived to a network where anyone related to the crime industry such as police, firefighters, paramedics, and whoever else usually gets involved, can watch it and it will be much easier for them to stop these crimes and stop the people that are behind them." 

Christoff nods and his eyes widen while his jaw which is normally tense, slackens. "Oh my God, dude, I would kiss you right now but I have a girlfriend and you're ugly." We both pause for a second and then burst out into laughter. I bet everyone was looking at us like we were fresh out of the looney bin.

"So is that a deal?" I ask, hoping he would say yes.

"Yes," he shouted, a little too eagerly, "a million times yes." I smile wider than a fat person at McDonalds. 

"Shake on it." I stick out my hand offering him a partnership to this gem of a business we have stuck upon. 

He returns the grin and shakes my hand. It was sealed, the deed was done.