There was a time when I was a simple man, with simple ideas, with a simple life. That was before the yellow poster on the bulletin board declared that they could make me extraordinary. I didn’t know who “they” were when I first read that plain black print on the yellow paper. The note simply said: “Does life seem dull? Do you hate your job? Want to be extraordinary? Come to the Peachtree Warehouse this Friday at exactly 3 a.m. We can help.” The first time I read the note it was on a Monday. On Tuesday I started actually running the questions through my head. By Wednesday I had taken the note down and tucked it into my book. At lunch on Thursday I had decided that “Yes, I do find life dull, and yes, I hate this dead end job in the maze of cubicles….and goddamnit I wanted to be extraordinary.” Friday I went into work and watched the clock slowly wind its way to 5p.m. On the way home I stopped into the sushi restaurant on the corner of Canary and Fredrick and had my usual California rolls and Kirin. I made my final stop at home and checked the messages on my machine. The same old rabble of voices from my various uninteresting family and nondescript friends droned on from the speaker of the vigilant machine. I glanced at my clock above my stove; it was 8:30p.m. I had loads of time to kill. I decided to take a nap; it seemed like a logical thing to do for someone who on this very night was going to become extraordinary! I set my alarm and drifted into an anxious sleep.
When my alarm clock blasted my dream world to pieces with its never ending beep….beeep…beeep I sat up with so much force that my head spun a little bit and I clawed at the off switch on the squawking box. I quickly got dressed in my best outfit, for it only made sense to dress in something fitting for a person about to transcend his murky and tiresome station in life. My black slacks were pressed and fit me fantastically, my robin’s egg blue shirt with the small pocket on the left breast was also pressed and fit my athletic frame snugly. My black leather shoes were shined so bright that the bedroom light danced and glittered upon their surface. I glanced in the mirror in my bathroom to check one last time that my olive skinned face was shaved and that my jet black hair was combed into my favorite hairstyle that I imitated from Frank Sinatra. I smiled at doppelganger in the mirror and made my way down the stairs to my midnight blue Lexus.
By the time I made it to the Peachtree Warehouse I was getting butterflies in my stomach and I was humming Hard Days Night, by the Beatles to myself. I arrived at the Warehouse at precisely 2:57a.m. I parked my car in the visitor parking and made my way to the door marked entrance. All this time I hadn’t thought about the ins and outs of this whole thing, and as I approached the door I wondered if I should knock or wait for someone else to show up. I was a mere twenty-five steps from the door when I heard the deadbolt slide back and a quaint little man stepped out into the gloomy light of the street lamp. He was dressed in the most peculiar outfit I had ever seen. On his head was a top hat made of an iridescent material that seemed to pulse the different colors of the rainbow and on his eyes there were goggles that reflected my own face back at me. The band that wrapped around his hat was neon red. The hair that leaked out from under the top hat was neon green and yellow and covered his bat like ears slightly. His mouth twisted into a mischievous smile that revealed perfectly white teeth that glistened in the lamplight. His suit was also made of the same material that covered his hat. The small blazer was buttoned up to the neck and at the end of the sleeves were his tiny hands with nails painted in silver. In one hand he held a scroll of paper and in the other he held a small orb that swirled what seemed like smoke inside of it. His pants were held up with a neon yellow belt and again the pants played the colors of the rainbow. Lastly, his shoes were nicely made and there seemed to be nothing to note about them. His smile never left his face, and as he approached me the sound of his shoes made a quick tapping noise with each step.