Summoning Joe

Have you ever wondered what people you see passing by do with their lives? What is the average person supposed to do? Well Joe thinks about it now and then, mostly because he feels freaking average in every way and well who could blame him, he is.

Joe was never the best at school or sports. He wouldn't be chosen last or first either when picking teams. He grew up with loving parents who never pressured him to excel in anything. He would get the "just do your best son" whenever he partook in sport or subjects at school. He was happy with it. He knew he had it ok.

One time when Joe started taking things for granted and a little to lay back attitude he failed a math test in high school. When he let his parents know he didn't think they would care much. But boy was he wrong. His father said that he didn't need to be the best, but absolutely never the last. That was the first time Joe understood that his parents didn't want him to waste the luxury of the life he was living.

Joe understood then that even the middle class is a luxury when observed from the bottom.

Joe had two close friends and he would do everything with them, they would even lived together if their parents let them. But as life would have it they started to drift apart in high school. One in the gang started to hang with "tougher" crowd. Joe and his remaining friend promised to keep hanging together but then Patricia came. Joe couldn't do anything but see his only remaining friend succumbed to the womanly charm of that gorilla and disappeared. Not that the gorilla ate him or anything, it's just that they didn't have any more time for Joe.

Joe works now at the retail store Wallfort as floor manager and went to his parents' small cabin for the weekend. He wasn't supposed to come alone. One of his co workers had made the suggestion to go fishing and four more joined in. Joe got along with them and suggested his parents' cabin near the lake. The five "leeches", what Joes calls them now, started bailing out the closer the fishing weekend came. By Friday night the remaining two had called Joe, canceling with some lame excuse.

- Finally Saturday, Joe said under his breath. The alarm showed 5am, he stretched his arms and got up off the bed. He made breakfast, a simple sandwich with cheese and salami and he made two extras to eat in his small boat. He was really tired but he knew that if this time his luck at catching fish was going to be different he needed to be early at the lake. He had made the trip anyway and was trying to convince himself that this day was going to be better with him fishing alone.

Joe put his fishing equipment on the trunk of his car and made de 10 minute drive to the lake.

The sun wasn't out yet, the water was calm and pristine, Joe was alone with only fish for company hoped. Joe knew he wasn't going to be alone for long, because there were a lot of houses near the lake and with the sunny forecast the weatherman made last night it was going to be packed.

Joe made sure everything was on the boat and rowed out. The sun was showing its first rays on the horizon and that made him feel calm and hopeful for today.

He decided to not try his usual place, he was feeling adventurous and of course because last time he almost fell out of the boat trying to free his crook from the bottom of the lake.

It was quiet and the only sound was the oars against the water. If it wasn't for the lake being in the middle of a bunch of houses, you would think it was a magical place.

Joe threw the line making a splash in the water. - I should have known those guys were never going to come, they always do this when we make plans, he said. - I hoped it wouldn't bother me this much, but fuck it's hard to make friends as a grown up. Joe kept fishing and talking to himself trying to understand why nobody at school taught him how to make friends after becoming an adult, while the town started waking up to life.

Suddenly a weird luminescence circle with strange patterns appeared around the boat.

Joe looked at the weird circle of light and tried to make sense of it. - Don't tell me there's like a party submarine under me, he said with a nervous laugh at the absurdity of it all. - Wait doesn't these look like the circles the wizards and mages use in anime or movies, he said hoping somebody would correct him or at least laugh at him for his comment, but nobody did. Realising that he was alone in the middle of the lake with this sudden phenomenon fear started to grip his body. Scared Joe decided to jump from the boat and started swimming towards the shore. He knew he shouldn't look back, whatever it was he didn't want to take part in it. Halfway to the shore he looked back

He saw the cirkel had left the boat and moved towards him like a homing beacon. Joe had only enough time to excellent shout HEEE…. before everything went black. Leaving behind only ripples on the water and of course his dead body.

Later that day someone would have found his body and the police would have notified the family that Joe was dead. His name it's actually Albert, to everyone else but his family he was still an average Joe.