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It never was my intention to post this fan-fic here, mainly because I figured it would be an exercise in futility. The only reason I'm doing so now is because, well, I'm bored. My last fan-fic here recieved a lot of views but nobody ever posted a response. It sucked, but not as much as it pissed me off. Still, I'll give it another shot. If I get some good feedback for this one, I might post some of my future works. Otherwise, I'll just post 'em at TRS.
Random Rendering #005: No Special Snowflake
Sometimes I believe that there are no special snowflakes. What separates me from the rest of the crowd? Nothing, really. I’m just human, like the rest of them. I have no special traits or skills. So what; I’m the Overseer. That just means I have power, but power also comes with a stick up your ass. I worry when I sleep. I worry when I’m awake and working. I worry about screwing up the job I ended up with but probably don’t deserve. Growing up I never imagined I’d make it this far. My parents worked in the vault kitchen. I saw my father get drunk every night. Some nights he drank too late into the night, and the kitchen would smell like puke the next morning. There were never any messes in the garbage, though. It would always go out with the morning soup or would be mingled in with the scrambled eggs. It didn’t matter. The food was all artificial anyway, packed with preservatives and flavoring. I grew up from that line of work and would’ve taken over it as well. It was my destiny, but I lucked out when my parents died. Somehow I managed to be adopted by a more prominent vault dweller. This let me escape the bondage of my blood. Still, there was nothing special about me. I spoke just like the rest, I ate just like the rest, I would die just like the rest. I don’t know why I came to power, but I did. Still, I am no special snowflake.
Sometimes I believe that drinking might have made me get here. I became a bar legend. Why would a vault need a bar? Simple. Seeing the same people every day, dealing with the same bullshit constantly, causes a lot of stress. The local drinking hole was the only place we could go to drown our problems. There was where I went as soon as I was old enough. Age didn’t matter; it wasn’t any type of passage. In the vault, that shit didn’t exist. Who cares if the youth tossed back a couple? Nobody, so long as they did no damage and obeyed the rules like everybody else. So, at the age of fourteen, I started drinking. My parents had died four years ago. Maybe I wanted to wash away life with them. Unfortunately, I had the gene for drinking. I was made to be an alcoholic, and I tried to be one. I would drink myself stupid, but would feel smart. Seemed the more I drank, the wiser I became. Everyone around me, drunk or sober, would gather around, waiting for the next remark to escape my lips. We talked about the stupidest shit, but they all listened. Once I even explained to them how the vault toilet water was recycled back to the drinking water after use. I had no idea if I was right, but people believed me anyway. It seemed that whenever I drank, my credibility rose. By the time I was eighteen, I had amassed popularity and quite a reputation. For me, drinking was the answer.
Sometimes I believe that the only way out for a man is suicide. My father answered that for me when I was growing up. He told me that he would kill himself to end it. Those were some of the first words I heard out of his mouth, and the only words of advice he ever provided. He’d tell me to get out while I could. He hated his job, his life, and everything about the vault. He wanted out, and said suicide was the only way. He waited forever for death to take him. He tried everything else out in life, but besides drinking, there was nothing for him. He couldn’t progress in work. Everybody in the vault was assigned to a job, and switching a job was something that almost never happened. It was a lot easier if you were a sexy blond with a thin waist and large breasts, of course. Still, my father lacked those attributes. So did his wife. He would go home to a black haired, over-weight woman with a mean look. Her glasses hardly had room on her round, chubby nose to rest. Her entire face was an oval. Her only concern was going to work, doing as little as possible, and then going home. She spent most of her time alone. She hated my father. I’m sure I knew at one time, but that was history. The only other thing that really stuck with me about my parents was their death. My father snapped one day at work while puking in the frying pan that was being used for french toast. He began to cry, and yelled that he had enough. He scrambled then for a large knife. As soon as he found it, my mother was screaming for him to stop. She didn’t have to wonder what he was doing. Like lightening, he approached her. In a couple of slick moves, he had the knife at her throat, and in another motion, he ended her life. Her chubby, decapitated head rolled off to the floor. Her glasses shattered. Blood spurted from her neck momentarily before she fell. He became covered in the substance. He didn’t care, though, as he ran the knife into his own heart now. The two were taken from the kitchen, and breakfast was served only thirty minutes late. Suicide was my father’s way out.
Sometimes I believe that people are incapable of telling the truth. They will even lie to themselves until they believe it. That was probably why I chose to run for Overseer. Nobody ever runs against the current Overseer. It was a mock election. The place was a dictatorship. However, my predecessor was old and decrepit. He still had the local barroom slut to service him, body guards to protect him, and everybody else to mindlessly worship him, though. When I turned twenty, it was election time again. Once every five years the old man ran for his position. Nobody would rise up against him. Everyone thought he was doing a wonderful job. After all, his father was Overseer before him, followed by his father’s father, and so on. He had no sons, though, so the throne wasn’t to be passed on. That is why he continued to run rather than pass the torch. Why did I run against him? I was young and stupid. I thought I had something to prove. I thought I was different and could change the ways things were. I had lied to myself the whole time. Besides, the mindless worshipers would not follow me. They didn’t care about politics. Nobody had grown up with politics, and the prewar concept had been forgotten. As the race for Overseer bore on, I became aware that I was in over my head. Not willing to drop out and deal honesty to myself, I squared my shoulders instead. I said it would be alright because I wouldn’t win. The lies continued. When I heard that the old man had died in his sleep, I was shocked and startled. It was the day before the election. Convenient timing, some might say, but I would much rather call it a curse. I was not fit for the job. Without a choice, though, I squared my shoulders again and smiled. I would write my acceptance speech that day. In it, I included the most lies I ever told in my life. By the time it was over, I believed I would actually be fit for the job. I’m Overseer of Vault 13 only because I lied.
Sometimes I believe that we have pets in the vault. I read all of the manuals in the library about vault life. I read the information for the Overseer position after I won. Everywhere I looked, it was stated clearly that there were to be no pets allowed in the vault whatsoever. Any foreign creature introduced into the equation could off-set the equilibrium in the vault computers. They would have another mouth to feed and more waste to remove. No pets allowed. We did have pets, though. I had pets. Everyone in the vault would jump as soon as I said the word. I was Overseer, and had a whole people at my command. They didn’t even seem to care. They were brainwashed since their birth to believe the Overseer was always right. None of the Overseers ran the dictatorship like prewar people did, though. Rather, we just abused the position enough to please ourselves while not upset the general moral of our pets. You can hit an animal every now and then, and it will remember it for a few days. Everything will be back to normal after that, though. Managing humans was the same way. Plus, if they ever doubted you, just tell them it is for the good of the vault. In the vault archives, it stated that prewar leaders used that strategy all the time. It was everywhere, from Russia to the United States. Just tell people it’s good for the country, and they’ll go with it, even if your explanation was bullshit. My reputation grew because of my bar stories that were utter crap I transparently made up. People swallowed them whole regardless. In that sense, I was made for the position of Overseer. I could tell the people who would be allowed to have a child and who would not. Then, after they are born, the children are given to new parents to be raised. These are people whose personality charts list them as having good parental skills. Nobody in the vault knows their biological parents except those running the show. Only we have access to the records, which is required to ensure that there is no inbreeding. The people of the vault are my pets.
Sometimes I believe this job will eat me alive. There is more than just managing my pets. I have to keep them happy, have them feed, while taking care of everything else. My assistants do help out a lot. Still, the stress is still there. I have to worry about something breaking, worry about people rising against us, worry about people committing crimes, and worry about worrying too much. It’s a vicious circle. Maybe if somebody would run against me, I would get out. Who am I kidding? Nobody runs against the Overseer. Why did I run again? Oh, it’s not worth worrying about. This job is constant stress. If there isn’t one thing running through my mind, there are fifty others. Sleep at night haunts me. Endless problems arise in my dreams, and by the time I wake, I’m still trying to fix them. I often confuse what is real and what is not, so many worries in my job and my dreams. When I woke up one morning, I could’ve sworn that the water chip was a dream worry. It came smacking me to reality when the first applicant came to my office. I would interview them, and select a man for the job. Yeah, right. That was never going to happen. Our savior had already been selected. The computer narrowed down the personality profiles of all vault citizens and selected the one most likely to survive a post nuclear world. Still, to make it seem fair and please the people, I would conduct interviews and then announce the computer’s selection. That man or woman would be sent out of the vault to save us. That occurred two weeks ago. No word was heard back yet. Now I worried about him. I didn’t worry that he was dead because I cared about him. I never knew the guy. I only worried because he was our last chance. Worry, work, worry, work. The two words were synonyms for me. This job will be my death.
Sometimes I believe that I’ll die alone. Love is one of the last freedoms left in the vault. I don’t have time to love anymore. In my younger days at the bar, it seemed I would leave with a different woman every month. No, not every night. I would fall for one, then something would happen, and I would hop to the next. Love went through me fast. I was always a quick fool to fall in love so fast that my heart was constantly breaking. Every month or so I would drink my sorrows away at the bar of the last broad who had sunk her claws into me. Another would approach, and then she’d be the next flavor of the month. That’s how it always went, except it got worse. As time went on, old flings would throw themselves at me. They said they loved me back in the day. Too late for that shit now. I moved on. You should’ve acted on it then, fool. I did act on it. They always say people don’t know what they have until it is gone. In my case, that was how it always went. Maybe I was an easy guy to love, but women never realized that until I had moved on. Then, they think they can just flip back to me. It doesn’t work that way. My chances of settling down with a woman were much better back in those days. If only one would’ve come to her senses sooner, things may have been different. Oh well. Too late for that now. With my job, I could no longer go out and look for love. It would have to happen somehow else. That was probably for the better. I had enough heart breaks in my life for all the trying I did. I wasn’t going to go out and find another, just to cry my heart out again. Plus, my job wouldn’t allow the time for that. Chances are that I will die without anybody by my side.
Sometimes I believe I’m wrong about everything. Maybe there is some hope out there for me. Maybe I can free the people of the vault, allowing them to think once again. Maybe I can change the future and create a better place for everyone. Maybe I am right for the Overseer job. So what if I won because my opponent died? I had ideas once. Wait. Those ideas were bullshit ones. They got me elected but weren’t much use besides that. My job had no time for thinking of anything but work anyway. I could work for the people instead, allow them to have more rights and make their own choices. No, the others in charge would never allow that. I need a way out. Perhaps next time I won’t run for reelection. Perhaps next time I will just give it all up and go back to drinking myself stupid. At least then I didn’t worry. At least then I was always happy. Even when I cried about my missed chances with women, I knew there was another one out there just waiting to use me. In the end, I am just a regular guy. I have no special traits, characteristics, or abilities. I’m just a guy that fate decided to play a cruel trick with. I am no special snowflake.
Random Rendering #005: No Special Snowflake
Sometimes I believe that there are no special snowflakes. What separates me from the rest of the crowd? Nothing, really. I’m just human, like the rest of them. I have no special traits or skills. So what; I’m the Overseer. That just means I have power, but power also comes with a stick up your ass. I worry when I sleep. I worry when I’m awake and working. I worry about screwing up the job I ended up with but probably don’t deserve. Growing up I never imagined I’d make it this far. My parents worked in the vault kitchen. I saw my father get drunk every night. Some nights he drank too late into the night, and the kitchen would smell like puke the next morning. There were never any messes in the garbage, though. It would always go out with the morning soup or would be mingled in with the scrambled eggs. It didn’t matter. The food was all artificial anyway, packed with preservatives and flavoring. I grew up from that line of work and would’ve taken over it as well. It was my destiny, but I lucked out when my parents died. Somehow I managed to be adopted by a more prominent vault dweller. This let me escape the bondage of my blood. Still, there was nothing special about me. I spoke just like the rest, I ate just like the rest, I would die just like the rest. I don’t know why I came to power, but I did. Still, I am no special snowflake.
Sometimes I believe that drinking might have made me get here. I became a bar legend. Why would a vault need a bar? Simple. Seeing the same people every day, dealing with the same bullshit constantly, causes a lot of stress. The local drinking hole was the only place we could go to drown our problems. There was where I went as soon as I was old enough. Age didn’t matter; it wasn’t any type of passage. In the vault, that shit didn’t exist. Who cares if the youth tossed back a couple? Nobody, so long as they did no damage and obeyed the rules like everybody else. So, at the age of fourteen, I started drinking. My parents had died four years ago. Maybe I wanted to wash away life with them. Unfortunately, I had the gene for drinking. I was made to be an alcoholic, and I tried to be one. I would drink myself stupid, but would feel smart. Seemed the more I drank, the wiser I became. Everyone around me, drunk or sober, would gather around, waiting for the next remark to escape my lips. We talked about the stupidest shit, but they all listened. Once I even explained to them how the vault toilet water was recycled back to the drinking water after use. I had no idea if I was right, but people believed me anyway. It seemed that whenever I drank, my credibility rose. By the time I was eighteen, I had amassed popularity and quite a reputation. For me, drinking was the answer.
Sometimes I believe that the only way out for a man is suicide. My father answered that for me when I was growing up. He told me that he would kill himself to end it. Those were some of the first words I heard out of his mouth, and the only words of advice he ever provided. He’d tell me to get out while I could. He hated his job, his life, and everything about the vault. He wanted out, and said suicide was the only way. He waited forever for death to take him. He tried everything else out in life, but besides drinking, there was nothing for him. He couldn’t progress in work. Everybody in the vault was assigned to a job, and switching a job was something that almost never happened. It was a lot easier if you were a sexy blond with a thin waist and large breasts, of course. Still, my father lacked those attributes. So did his wife. He would go home to a black haired, over-weight woman with a mean look. Her glasses hardly had room on her round, chubby nose to rest. Her entire face was an oval. Her only concern was going to work, doing as little as possible, and then going home. She spent most of her time alone. She hated my father. I’m sure I knew at one time, but that was history. The only other thing that really stuck with me about my parents was their death. My father snapped one day at work while puking in the frying pan that was being used for french toast. He began to cry, and yelled that he had enough. He scrambled then for a large knife. As soon as he found it, my mother was screaming for him to stop. She didn’t have to wonder what he was doing. Like lightening, he approached her. In a couple of slick moves, he had the knife at her throat, and in another motion, he ended her life. Her chubby, decapitated head rolled off to the floor. Her glasses shattered. Blood spurted from her neck momentarily before she fell. He became covered in the substance. He didn’t care, though, as he ran the knife into his own heart now. The two were taken from the kitchen, and breakfast was served only thirty minutes late. Suicide was my father’s way out.
Sometimes I believe that people are incapable of telling the truth. They will even lie to themselves until they believe it. That was probably why I chose to run for Overseer. Nobody ever runs against the current Overseer. It was a mock election. The place was a dictatorship. However, my predecessor was old and decrepit. He still had the local barroom slut to service him, body guards to protect him, and everybody else to mindlessly worship him, though. When I turned twenty, it was election time again. Once every five years the old man ran for his position. Nobody would rise up against him. Everyone thought he was doing a wonderful job. After all, his father was Overseer before him, followed by his father’s father, and so on. He had no sons, though, so the throne wasn’t to be passed on. That is why he continued to run rather than pass the torch. Why did I run against him? I was young and stupid. I thought I had something to prove. I thought I was different and could change the ways things were. I had lied to myself the whole time. Besides, the mindless worshipers would not follow me. They didn’t care about politics. Nobody had grown up with politics, and the prewar concept had been forgotten. As the race for Overseer bore on, I became aware that I was in over my head. Not willing to drop out and deal honesty to myself, I squared my shoulders instead. I said it would be alright because I wouldn’t win. The lies continued. When I heard that the old man had died in his sleep, I was shocked and startled. It was the day before the election. Convenient timing, some might say, but I would much rather call it a curse. I was not fit for the job. Without a choice, though, I squared my shoulders again and smiled. I would write my acceptance speech that day. In it, I included the most lies I ever told in my life. By the time it was over, I believed I would actually be fit for the job. I’m Overseer of Vault 13 only because I lied.
Sometimes I believe that we have pets in the vault. I read all of the manuals in the library about vault life. I read the information for the Overseer position after I won. Everywhere I looked, it was stated clearly that there were to be no pets allowed in the vault whatsoever. Any foreign creature introduced into the equation could off-set the equilibrium in the vault computers. They would have another mouth to feed and more waste to remove. No pets allowed. We did have pets, though. I had pets. Everyone in the vault would jump as soon as I said the word. I was Overseer, and had a whole people at my command. They didn’t even seem to care. They were brainwashed since their birth to believe the Overseer was always right. None of the Overseers ran the dictatorship like prewar people did, though. Rather, we just abused the position enough to please ourselves while not upset the general moral of our pets. You can hit an animal every now and then, and it will remember it for a few days. Everything will be back to normal after that, though. Managing humans was the same way. Plus, if they ever doubted you, just tell them it is for the good of the vault. In the vault archives, it stated that prewar leaders used that strategy all the time. It was everywhere, from Russia to the United States. Just tell people it’s good for the country, and they’ll go with it, even if your explanation was bullshit. My reputation grew because of my bar stories that were utter crap I transparently made up. People swallowed them whole regardless. In that sense, I was made for the position of Overseer. I could tell the people who would be allowed to have a child and who would not. Then, after they are born, the children are given to new parents to be raised. These are people whose personality charts list them as having good parental skills. Nobody in the vault knows their biological parents except those running the show. Only we have access to the records, which is required to ensure that there is no inbreeding. The people of the vault are my pets.
Sometimes I believe this job will eat me alive. There is more than just managing my pets. I have to keep them happy, have them feed, while taking care of everything else. My assistants do help out a lot. Still, the stress is still there. I have to worry about something breaking, worry about people rising against us, worry about people committing crimes, and worry about worrying too much. It’s a vicious circle. Maybe if somebody would run against me, I would get out. Who am I kidding? Nobody runs against the Overseer. Why did I run again? Oh, it’s not worth worrying about. This job is constant stress. If there isn’t one thing running through my mind, there are fifty others. Sleep at night haunts me. Endless problems arise in my dreams, and by the time I wake, I’m still trying to fix them. I often confuse what is real and what is not, so many worries in my job and my dreams. When I woke up one morning, I could’ve sworn that the water chip was a dream worry. It came smacking me to reality when the first applicant came to my office. I would interview them, and select a man for the job. Yeah, right. That was never going to happen. Our savior had already been selected. The computer narrowed down the personality profiles of all vault citizens and selected the one most likely to survive a post nuclear world. Still, to make it seem fair and please the people, I would conduct interviews and then announce the computer’s selection. That man or woman would be sent out of the vault to save us. That occurred two weeks ago. No word was heard back yet. Now I worried about him. I didn’t worry that he was dead because I cared about him. I never knew the guy. I only worried because he was our last chance. Worry, work, worry, work. The two words were synonyms for me. This job will be my death.
Sometimes I believe that I’ll die alone. Love is one of the last freedoms left in the vault. I don’t have time to love anymore. In my younger days at the bar, it seemed I would leave with a different woman every month. No, not every night. I would fall for one, then something would happen, and I would hop to the next. Love went through me fast. I was always a quick fool to fall in love so fast that my heart was constantly breaking. Every month or so I would drink my sorrows away at the bar of the last broad who had sunk her claws into me. Another would approach, and then she’d be the next flavor of the month. That’s how it always went, except it got worse. As time went on, old flings would throw themselves at me. They said they loved me back in the day. Too late for that shit now. I moved on. You should’ve acted on it then, fool. I did act on it. They always say people don’t know what they have until it is gone. In my case, that was how it always went. Maybe I was an easy guy to love, but women never realized that until I had moved on. Then, they think they can just flip back to me. It doesn’t work that way. My chances of settling down with a woman were much better back in those days. If only one would’ve come to her senses sooner, things may have been different. Oh well. Too late for that now. With my job, I could no longer go out and look for love. It would have to happen somehow else. That was probably for the better. I had enough heart breaks in my life for all the trying I did. I wasn’t going to go out and find another, just to cry my heart out again. Plus, my job wouldn’t allow the time for that. Chances are that I will die without anybody by my side.
Sometimes I believe I’m wrong about everything. Maybe there is some hope out there for me. Maybe I can free the people of the vault, allowing them to think once again. Maybe I can change the future and create a better place for everyone. Maybe I am right for the Overseer job. So what if I won because my opponent died? I had ideas once. Wait. Those ideas were bullshit ones. They got me elected but weren’t much use besides that. My job had no time for thinking of anything but work anyway. I could work for the people instead, allow them to have more rights and make their own choices. No, the others in charge would never allow that. I need a way out. Perhaps next time I won’t run for reelection. Perhaps next time I will just give it all up and go back to drinking myself stupid. At least then I didn’t worry. At least then I was always happy. Even when I cried about my missed chances with women, I knew there was another one out there just waiting to use me. In the end, I am just a regular guy. I have no special traits, characteristics, or abilities. I’m just a guy that fate decided to play a cruel trick with. I am no special snowflake.
