AcmeShorts

Jeffrey was. Sipping noisily at his cold, bitter drink, the aging accountant dropped yet another stack of papers—crammed with figures and deficits—onto his already crowded desk. Jeffrey was raised in a house with a white picket fence by a bitter father and a shallow mother. He was pressured to succeed in his bitter father’s old high school and to go on to lead a better, more financially successful life than his bitter father had. Despite Jeffrey’s childish creativity and unique, albeit erroneous, way of examining the world around him, the positive influences of the public school system and his bitter father shaped him into a decent young adult. Although his unorthodox thinking caused him to do poorly at the onset of his high school career, he eventually learned what kind of responses he was expected to give for specific questions, and his performance improved. He graduated with near-perfect grades, just like all his classmates, and as his bitter father had before him. After he had determined just what it was he was supposed to think, he had entered his bitter father’s old university and succeeded there also, just as his bitter father had done. Although it took some threatening and convincing, Jeffrey eventually agreed to become an accountant, like his bitter father. Now that he was working for his bitter father’s old accounting firm, Jeffrey was leading a better and more financially successful life than his bitter father had. Despite the smallness of his cubicle (and his salary), Jeffrey felt that he had succeeded in life because he had always said what he was told to say, thought what he was meant to think, and did what he was supposed to do. He was a real success story. That night, Jeffrey went home to his house and its white picket fence, his shallow wife, and his starry-eyed child and took his bitter father’s loaded pistol from its hiding place in the nightstand drawer. It was the first decision in his life. Jeffrey was no more.