Calvin Johnson was an ordinary man that had nothing unique about himself. He was, as you could say, the most boring person alive. He led an uninteresting life and he worked at an uninteresting job. He lived in a plain house, on a plain street, with plain neighbors, in a plain city, in a plain state, and drove a plain car. He was what the government wants its citizens to be like; he paid his taxes on time, he voted like he should, and he obeyed all the laws. He was married to a plain wife, whom he met at a plain university in a plain class. There was nothing unexpected in Calvin Johnson's life, at least not yet.
He got up at six like he always does and made breakfast. He opened the fridge to pull out the eggs, there were eight left. He eats two eggs every day. He put a pan on the stove and waited until he felt it was warm enough. He put some butter in the pan, he liked his eggs fried. He cracked the eggs over the pan and watched them sizzle and turn a different color on the edges. He scraped them up with a spatula and put them on a small, green Fiestaware plate. The coffee was ready, so he poured it into a white mug with his university's logo on it. He grabbed the newspaper and sat down. He turned to the comics and shoveled some eggs into his mouth. I guess you could say his love of comics was his only interesting quality. He sipped the last of his Folgers coffee and put the dishes in the sink. He looked down at his wristwatch, it was 6:45, same time it always is when he finishes eating.
He put on a pale blue button down shirt and rolled up the sleeves a little, just for some excitement. His beige pants hung in the closet, pressed and ironed. He picked up some ties on the dresser, Red or blue? he thought to himself. The choices to him were overwhelming. Red. He decided on red. Maybe that was his mistake that day, maybe he should've chosen blue. He always chose blue, the red was for special holidays and occasions. What was he thinking? Maybe he was having an inner meltdown, he should talk to someone.
He went to work and did some uneventful tasks that he got paid mediocre at. His cubicle was plain, with one singular photo in a walnut colored photo frame. It was his wife, with her lackluster features and bland hair. He got a sandwich everyday for lunch. It came on a trolley that some temp would push around the office and get paid way too much for doing. Everyone got turkey or BLT sandwiches from the trolley, but not Calvin. He got egg salad, sometimes tuna. He paid too much for such a dull sandwich that just tasted like old wheat bread and a little bit of mayo, tuna, or egg, depending on that day's choice. But Calvin liked it, interesting things frightened him.
He went home, driving five miles per hour under the speed limit, and returned at six. He had been gone for eleven hours. His wife called out to him when he walked in informing him that she had made dinner. Lasagna, of course she made lasagna. She made lasagna every Thursday night. But he liked lasagna, and changes scared him. Last night he had meatloaf, and the night before he had spaghetti. On Mondays she ordered takeout from the local teriyaki restaurant, because she liked it. Tomorrow night she would make him soup, and on the weekends she wouldn't make anything at all, because he worked late, so he should buy himself dinner.
She served him lasagna. It wasn't anything fancy, she never made anything fancy. It was just whatever, she'd made it a million times before. They ate in silence, listening to the sounds of the birds chirping before they decided to call it a night. It was March 17th, and everything was as normal as it was supposed to be. He finished his plate, excused himself from the table, and said, "It was really good tonight honey. Thank you." She would just, "Mm-hm." and continue eating. He scraped his dishes and went to bed to read a book. He was reading something dry and uninteresting, but that's how he liked things.
He remembered that there was an OPB special on, so after his wife fell asleep, he snuck into the living room to watch the special. He sat on the sofa, it was a foreign feeling to him. No one ever sat on the sofa, except the dust in the air, the stale conversations, and the idle hum from the silence. He flipped through the channels mindlessly until reaching the special program he was looking for. It was something about the birds in Africa, and the wildlife there also. He sat stiffly on the edge of the sofa for an hour until he went to bed. It was eleven, one hour later than he usually goes to sleep at. He set his alarm for the same time as always and lay on the same side as always. His arm was positioned the same. Everything was the same. It took him seven minutes to fall asleep, the same seven minutes he takes every night.
He woke up. There was nothing strange about how he woke up. His eyes just fluttered open and he heard the sounds of the coffee brewing and his wife breathing. He slowly pulled the covers off him as he shut off his alarm. His feet hit the cold wooden flooring and his eyelids finally peeled open as his pupils adjusted to the day. Something in the air felt odd though, as he stood briefly in the room. He couldn't quite place the difference, but it didn't really bother him.
He opened the fridge to pull out the eggs. There were eight eggs. Hmm, he thought, weren't there eight eggs yesterday? Oh well. He continued to make his eggs in the usual fashion; pan, wait, heat, butter, crack, scrape, Fiestaware, eat. He poured himself some coffee, bland, tasteless Folgers. Why was he even drinking this brand? Didn't he like more heavy-duty coffee? He blinked hard for a couple seconds, Wait no, I like Folgers. He thought to himself, I like Folgers. Something was off, he didn't know. It was bothering him more than it had the first time he realized it. But whatever, it was probably just the signs of a cold.
He sat down with his eggs and coffee. The newspaper was on the table. How was the newspaper already on the table? He hadn't gone to retrieve it. Did he ever go retrieve the paper? He couldn't remember a day when he actually went outside to get the paper. Then how does it get here? It's on my table, how? He thought. The birds outside sounded loud, and they sounded weird to him. They almost sounded mechanical, as if it were just a recording. He sat without moving for several minutes, just to listen to the birds. There was one chirp that kept reappearing, and it reappeared in the same time span as the one before it. It didn't matter, it didn't matter.
He grabbed the paper and read the date, March 17th. Wait, that was yesterday, March 17th was yesterday. Oh well, who cares. Maybe he was just off, maybe he forgot that yesterday was the 16th.
Maybe.
