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Ok heres mine:
Life for Jimmy Colten was uneventful; even predictable, but today he would soon discover his ordinary world would be anything but.
Jimmy Colten’s ordinary world was that of a ninja. He would plod along through work everyday, assasinate someone here, spy on someone there, all the while thinking to himself: sigh! Why is life so boring? Jimmy had been doing his job for ten years now, and he was sick of it. Sick of the routine of constant unchanging martial arts training, of endless boring weapon drills, everyday perfecting dull techniques for murder that leave no evidence or clues. He really felt that he was going to lose his mind with boredom!
I never wanted to be a ninja thought Jimmy as he ran from an angry band of samurai one night. Again with the samurais, probably the tenth time this month. How could life possibly get any more predictable? It wasn’t the first time he had been forced to jump off of a castle wall into a river, to run through a forest while sword wielding enemies tracked him from a short distance away. He wished it was the first time, back when he had started this job, back when it was still possible to be challenged, to be excited about doing something new.
What else could I do? I thought it was a good choice, the best choice available to me. He remembered back to when he had chosen the exciting career of a ninja. Back then he had worked 9-5 as a shop assistant, bored with the work and realising that the limited money and respect a shop assistant gained would never get him anywhere in life. He needed something more, something challenging that paid well. Something that could one day buy him a home, holidays and a wife. That was why he sought out the life of a ninja! Get paid well to go on exciting missions, killing and fighting, it sounded a lot better than what he was doing!
And now he was bored. Ten years, and it had happened as he knew it would. Actually it had happened about two years into his new career. No-one likes their job, no-one. A common rule of thumb, that no matter what you do for a living, you will get sick of it eventually, thought Jimmy. Everyone in the world must eventually resent having to be somewhere and do something, just to get paid. A samurai suddenly jumped out from behind a tree to cut off his escape, and as he blew a handful of lye flakes into his opponents eyes, he realised that he had left it far too late to change his career path now.
I’m 34 years old! Who would consider me as an employee now? The sad fact for Jimmy, he mused as he scaled a massive tree to hide in the branches, was that whatever type of job he went for he would have to compete with younger, more determined applicants, and he could tell who the employers would favour over his aging, loser ass. He had put too many years into becoming a ninja, foolishly he now realised, and it was way too late to consider something else. He was stuck as a boring, run of the mill ninja, another Joe Nobody, coming fourth place in the rat race.
The samurai, as predicted by a bored Jimmy, had screamed in pain from the lye that was permanently blinding him. Other samurai caught up and grouped around him, eventually splitting up to search for while as he watched them from high above. He almost wanted to drop down and let them catch him, just to have something different happen for once. He almost wanted to march up to his boss tomorrow and say; “Guess what? **** this bullshit and **** you too! I’m outta here!”. He would walk away from this boring job and never look back. And then… and then what? What… what would he do? Jimmy knew as he had known all his life since school, that he didn’t have any dreams. There was nothing that he wanted to do instead. No alternative to this, and being a ninja paid too well to throw away and do nothing..
Well… there was one thing…
Cupcakes! Thought Jimmy. He allowed himself a minute to consider his true love, that crazy pipe dream that he wished was a viable option for his life.
The samurai underneath him was the man he had blinded with the lye flakes. Jimmy saw his chance: the other samurai had moved away looking for him, leaving the blind one unattended. With a deep, weary sigh, Jimmy rolled his eyes at the coming events, wishing they were already over with so he could go home to bed and escape. He dropped down from a height of three stories to land behind the sightless samurai. The samurai was a particularly skilled warrior, being able to sense Jimmy despite his soundless landing. The samurai spun about slashing at Jimmy with his katana. Or at least, slashing at the space where Jimmy had been.
Jimmy performed yet another aerial cartwheel, no hands on the ground. The déjà vu he experienced from this mundane manoeuvre was sickening. Mid cartwheel he lashed out with his small blade to cut the jugulars on both sides of the samurais neck. Death would come soon for this man. Lucky sod thought Jimmy.
This is when the unexpected happened. The blind Samurai started talking!
“Oh man, ah **** this is it: I’m going to die a samurai. God dammit, I never wanted to be a damn samurai. Why the hell did I do it? Aah, aaaah…” the rapid blood loss was taking its toll.
“That’s funny, I never wanted to be a ninja either.” Said Jimmy.
“You… You’re the one who killed me? I can’t see.”
“Yeah it was me. Sorry man, just doing my job, you know…”
“Oh dude, don’t talk to me about ‘doing my job’, trust me I know what you mean. You say… oh man I need to sit down, feeling light headed. Ok that’s a bit better…”
The samurai’s speech was slurring as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Jimmy, lighting his own in the process.
“Ah… ah ah. Ok im alright for a sec. So you say that you never wanted to be a ninja? Well I never wanted to be a samurai, not in a million years. I just did it because it was the best option. It paid well, I could save money, it was a career move, I could retire one day and live comfortably, you know all the ‘smart’ reasons. I thought it was the right choice for my life, long term. Well let me tell you, here I am dying and the one thing I wish I had done with my life was be an archeologist! Oh God if I had only gone for it… it might not have worked out financially or even at all but at least I’d die happy, not resenting all the time I‘ve wasted… ACKSGHHHH.. HACKKSSHRGHHH…” He was cut off by the large amount of blood that was erupting from his throat and out of his mouth. The samurai died leaving a solemn Jimmy contemplating his words, puffing sadly on a cigarrete.
Hours later, when the remaining samurai had given up the hunt and left, Jimmy finally made his way home, looking forward to a hot shower, a good beer and a book to unwind after a hard days work. The samurais words still haunted him.
I don’t want to die having endured this stupid job for things that don’t matter, or won’t matter when I’m dead. When I look back on my life from the afterlife, are the things that matter going to be how much money I had when I retired? The size of my house? The career I hated? No! I’m going to want to look at a life lived doing what I love! For fucks sake, I have wasted enough time!
Jimmy’s ordinary world, blue collar ninja, would be anything but! He would tell his boss to shove it! He would go for it! He would do what he had always loved! He had no idea how it would happen, but he was going to try. He was going to design and sell his own brand of cupcakes!
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