Josh the trash collector was having a very bad day. And the thing about bad days is, you know they only get worse.
It started when he picked up a garbage can to toss its contents into the truck, when he lost his footing for a moment, sending some of its contents splattering all over him.
"Oh, GOD...." he said, his clothes covered in garbage juice. It was so rancid. It was so gross. He wanted to quit his job, but he was just trapped. Trapped paying child support payments to his ex-girlfriend that lied about being on the birth control pill and now was rewarded for her deception and was living it up with a free paycheck funded by his hard work, trapped in this disgusting job with no other prospects, trapped with no friends, trapped by the disgusting deteriorating man he saw in the mirror every day, as every day he contemplated suicide. He sighed as he also took a look at the garbage that had also been sent flying, littering the street. He had to pick that up too. Or at least he was supposed to. There was rotten food, and a few foam plates went flying everywhere, and some wads of paper towels with who knows what inside of them. Fuck it, he thought, about the paper towels and the scraps of food. They're biodegradable anyway, especially the scraps of food, probably the birds would take that away before the end of the day. But there was something else he heard and watched clatter to the ground. He wasn't sure what it was, but he had caught a glimpse of it and seen where it bounced and settled to. He remembered that location on the pavement as he took care of the foam plates and a smaller plastic grocery bag full of trash. He approached the object, and a strange sense of fascination briefly filled his mind as he slowly picked it up. He thought of that moment in that movie, The Mask, when Jim Carrey's character first found the mask, and was drawn to it, and felt some force enticing him to put it on as he was in the water, before the cops interrupted him. But despite that strange foreboding moment of enticement, with it in his hand, it appeared to just be a regular rock after all.
"What the fuck. Why would anyone throw out a rock? Just to make my job harder, to make the things I have to lift up just be a little bit heavier for no reason? A rock is the ultimate example of something that belongs in nature, it isn't even littering to leave it somewhere, rocks are literally what the Earth is made out of. I wish whoever threw this out, knew my pain."
Just at that moment, Jon's mom was overcome by a sense of exhaustion and an achy back, and found herself wet with disgusting foul smelling liquid. She was extremely bewildered how this happened, but lumbered to the bathroom to take a shower.
"Just once, I wish I'd get a big break," Josh continued. But he didn't have long to ruminate on his plight because that was when a car screeched around the corner at high speed and ran over his foot. It drove off. He caught the number 369 from the license plate but he knew that wasn't going to be enough.
"GODDAMN IT!!!!" He screamed in agony, lifting his foot off the ground. He was sure something was broken. Yep. This was one of those days where everything just got worse all right. He called in and told them he had gotten injured on the job and after his partner who was driving the truck said he somehow hadn't seen the hit and run but couldn't confirm that he was sure it didn't happen because the garbage truck was parked at the moment and he had his attention on other matters besides what was happening on the street, his boss accused him of lying and faking an injury to try to get workers compensation. After one argument later, he was getting a ride back to the station, ready to take the rest of the day off for an exciting visit to the emergency room. The worst part was he was expected to drive there. With his injured foot. "Goddamn it, I wish my stupid boss gave a shit about me," he muttered to himself, the rock he found in his shirt pocket.
When Josh got back at the station, he got out and limped for his own car, and then suddenly, his boss left his office and walked toward him. What was it now. That was when the last thing Josh ever expected to happen, happened. His boss pulled down his pants, and started shitting. Right on the ground. Right on the concrete in front of Josh.
"What.... the... fuck," Josh said to his boss.
"If you don't like it, you can quit any time, ahhhh, that's the stuff," his boss said, as he left a huge pile of shit on the ground, and then pulled up his pants and without any toilet paper to wipe himself with, just casually walked back into his office and closed the door.
Josh got to his car and went off in the direction of the hospital. He very carefully drove, since he was using his left foot and it all felt wrong. "Well I sure as hell am not letting an ambulance take me. One ambulance ride and that's like a thousand bucks right there. But I wish there was some sort of free clinic I could go to instead. Some freaking miracle worker who would fix my foot free of charge and fix everything wrong with my life."
As he slowly drove down a small residential road, he saw a very strange thing. A sign. Someone had a sign up on their front lawn. "The Inscrutable Freaking Miracle Worker's Free Clinic" it said.
Thinking it was a joke, Josh stopped there and limped out of his car.
"Ahhh, a customer," a strange looking old Asian man said as he approached Josh. He looked a lot like like Bobby Lee's character as the Blind Kung Fu Master from Mad TV. He had wisps of flowing white hair, and a long wispy mustache to match.
"So, the miracle worker, is that you?" Josh said to the man.
"It is I!" the man shouted. Exactly like the blind kung fu master would have shouted it.
"Well anyway, I don't suppose you can, do anything to help my foot? It got run over by a car, and I'm afraid it's pretty messed up.
"Let me see! Ya!" the old man yelled as he struck Josh's foot with his hand in a strange clawlike gesture.
"Jesus Christ!" Josh yelled. But amazingly the pain was gone. "What. WHAT?" He tapped his foot on the ground. It felt like it was back to normal now.
"You're welcome," the old man said in a silly squeaky voice.
"How.... how did.... what, what just happened?!" Josh asked in astonishment.
"One day, I woke up different. I was affected by the transformation virus, in a very, very uncommon way. And ever since, I have had this power, as well as others."
"That's amazing," Josh said to the man. "And you're just giving it away for free?"
"Why not. One of my abilities is to see into the future. With it, I have predicted the markets. Stocks, commodities, currencies, I have bought, and sold, and sold, and bought, and now I have wealth beyond your wildest dreams. I have no use for more money."
"I don't suppose you would be willing to hire me to work for you?"
"Why not. I will pay you one million dollars per week. Does that sound acceptable."
"Um. Yeah. I think I can manage to get by on that."
And suddenly it wasn't such a bad day after all. "Well," Josh said. "I don't know if I've suddenly incurred the favor of some god who showed pity on me or what. But whoever is responsible for things ending up this way for me, I wish the best for you too, for you to get everything you want too, whatever that may be."
Karyn, Jon, and Jon's mom all felt a strange tingle at that moment. Though none of them had any idea what it was at the time.
