Black Spot

I am a simple man. And so was the life I had before everything was fucked up.

I woke up every three. Take a shit. Then I go to work from eight to five.

I arrived back at my house at six. And of course, I eat a meal or two in between.

Sundays were my days off and I only worked half-days on Saturdays. People call me Dandan.

And allow me to introduce myself. My name's Dandie Gunnerman. Twenty four years old. And if you were to ask me, I think I'm pretty handsome myself. With my nut brown hair and my nut brown eyes. I also work out so you get the idea.

I am only five feet seven inches tall, but hey! That's already tall. The average height in my country for adult boys is five feet five inches. Anyway, that's not the point.

By now, you must be thinking along the lines like: Oh! So you're a normal person; Average; Or don't we all live like that?

If you do, then I completely understand you. After all, I haven't told you yet how my life turned for the worse. How I almost died while masturbating and how a pig covered up for my "crime".

Truth is, I don't know where to start either. Should I start from the day I was born? When I accidentally set my math teacher on fire? Or when my father first taught me how to throw a punch?

But as I write this down, I kind of realized my background story doesn't really matter to the story I'm about to tell you.

Right, I am a writer. A web novelist, to be specific. So if you're reading this, it only means I am safe now and there is nothing to worry anymore. I just wanna share my experience to all of you to spread awareness. And to prepare you guys if you ever found yourself in the same situation as I was.

I know this story could be easily ignored and could be brushed up as something a fourteen year old would think of while having a shower. But I speak nothing but the truth. Also, I am not a fourteen year old.

It all started one Saturday morning. Like usual, I went to the repair shop where I worked full time, one block away from my place. Wearing a thin white tee and blue jeans and my trusty black boots.

There was no customer so I helped Brandon clean the place. He was the shop's owner and he didn't really speak much. I handle all the customers and he does the repairs. A little shy but he's a great person.

I wiped the counter, mopped the floor, and ate a bag of chips.

And when there was nothing to do anymore, I sat on the stool by the counter to play a game on my smartphone. It was a peaceful day. Or so I thought.

I was waiting for my game to load. And whenever I wait for anything, I always look around. It was nothing significant, really. But I really wished I didn't have that habit at all. But if I didn't have that habit, I wouldn't have to experience all the things I experienced. And there would be no story.

Beside the pen and my charger, I noticed this weird black spot on the counter top. I tried to ignore it at first but it didn't really leave my mind and I kept seeing it from the corner of my eyes. It was getting annoying so I finally stood up, put my phone down, and headed to where the cleaning materials were to grab a cleaning cloth to wipe it off.

But when I returned, the black spot was gone, and so was my phone.

I couldn't care less about the black spot but if your phone suddenly disappeared from where you put it, you would obviously look for it. And that's exactly what I did.

I looked under the counter. In the cabinets. On the hanging shelves beside the fridge across from the entrance where the repair tools were put. But I couldn't find it wherever I looked. I was starting to get irate. And a little confused too.

"You lookin' for somethin'?" Asked Brandon as he put down the soldering iron.

"Yeah! My phone," I told him. "I'm looking for my phone."

"Isn't that your phone on the counter top?" He asked.

And for whatever supernatural occurrence, my phone was actually there, laying innocently on the counter top. "Welcome new player! I will be your guide for this game. You can be anything you want. A marksman, a tank, a fighter—" said the tiny female Avatar on the screen dressed like a steampunk heroine.

I picked it up, confused. I was sure the phone wasn't there. I wouldn't have looked around if it were there, would I?

"Thanks. I must've missed it." I thanked Brandon.

Hours flew by just like that and before I knew it, it was already twelve and so after we locked the shop, I returned to my house to catch some sleep. I decided to eat once I woke up.

I often do that. Skipping meals to sleep. Mostly because I was too lazy to cook and eating out was too expensive for me. A bad habit, I know, but I thought I'd save time, effort, and money if I combined my lunch and dinner or my breakfast and my lunch.

Anyway, it was three p.m. when I woke up and I was famished! So I headed to the kitchen, not bothering to pick up the blanket that fell off the floor.

I washed the pan that was sitting on the sink for three days because I was too lazy to wash it and fried three eggs. Scooped some leftover rice from breakfast in the rice cooker and headed to the living room.

I turned on the TV, browsed for a channel to watch but found none that interests me. So I turned it off and threw the remote on the sofa.

Normally, when you throw a hard object, the sound it will make should be a thud. Right? But this time, however, as I threw the remote, it didn't create a 'thud' as I expected. It created a 'squish'. It sounded exactly like when you squished a handful of petroleum jelly.

I jerked my head, both surprised and frightened, quite frankly. And there I saw squirming unassumingly under the remote. A somewhat lopsided, unpretentious black spot. In the midst of eating my remote. Or at least that's what it looked to me.