"Do it because I said so, Gary."
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After Gary, an estranged and grizzled grandfather to fifteen grandchildren (possibly more), is pressured onto various social media sites by his daughter, Cindy, in order to keep him from "becoming too... disassociated". A few pictures of scenic Floridian beaches and posts complaining about the absurdity of modern day "Feminazis" later, he'd become very adjusted to the new social climate. In fact, he'd become quite passionate, taking photography and writing mini essays and rants as a hobby and a part of daily life. Just as he'd become accustomed to his new hobby, he'd become very familiar with internet hate. Gary was constantly being bombarded with resentful direct messages touching on, no, pounding on the old man's posts for his very harsh and old fashioned perception of the world. It was only by his nature, while he wasn't blatantly racist (abandoning that brand of thinking when his only daughter married a young Black man, and his second oldest son married a Chinese woman while overseas with the Army. Then, after discovering that they were just as competent and human as any other white man, he grew to love them as he would love anyone of his own race.), he did practice a certain degree of "practical sexism", classism, a proneness to hypocrisy ( a byproduct of his old age),and a certain degree of derision for the youth, making him into a magnet for hate. But he didn't mind, he found a sort of comfort in his waning years to share his experiences and thoughts with his followers. The way he saw it, for every hater he had, there was five people who genuinely found his content insightful. But when a mysterious internet personality direct messages Gary, bringing up a long since forgotten secret of Gary's, the mystery sender puts Gary to the test to see how truly desperate he is to keep his secret under wraps.
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Chapter One
Gary leaned over the surface of his wooden table with his hands crossed in front of his mouth as he stared in quiet disbelief at his laptop screen. A user by the name of "Chester Colt" sent him a direct message.
"Hey geezer." Read the message from Chester Colt, whose name seemed faker and faker, more and more of an alias rather than an actual person to Gary by every biting moment he spent staring at the message. Though he had gotten used to the rubbish people would say over the internet just to get some steam out of him, he couldn't help but respond every time, despite being told numerous times to just let it go and ignore it. He just couldn't help but to react, perhaps he had a hidden fetish for conflict and confrontation, a pair of words where the latter usually leads to the former.
"Hello." Typed Gary back, probably the calmest and dullest of the dozens of responses he produced in his mind (which was quite creative, as sharp as the very first time he had a cussing match with a disgruntled and drunk man who has flirting, barbarically, with his hot date.) in the short window of time since he'd received Chester's message: five minutes. Gary yawned and leaned back in his chair and waited until he saw the animation in the bottom left corner of the chat screen that indicated that Chester was typing a response.
"Ha-ha. Awful calm of you." Replied Chester, the emoji that was laughing so hard it was crying, stood at the end of the message. Gary took this as a token of mockery and taunting. Gary was taken aback by the message, how could he know that he was consciously trying to react calmly? He wouldn't. Gary never divulged his personal messages with anyone, besides the brief mention to his old buddies (whom he was very close to), his children, and maybe even to his bible study group, who he saw every other week. Chester uneased, began typing his response drowsily while his nightly dosage of sleep medication began to kick in.
"You don't know me." Typed Gary, he could tell he was quickly losing his cool. He could probably remain calm if he really wanted too, but the fact of the matter was, that he didn't care much at all. This was his way of doing it, and it hasn't failed him yet. He saw the icon in the lower left corner of the screen indicating that Chester was responding. A pit formed in his stomach and an ominous feeling of uneasiness and grief covered him like a sheet on a little child on Halloween night. To him, it felt, eerily, like foreshadowing for something dreaded and odd. But surely not something he couldn't handle, he thought as he closed his laptop shut and went into his bedroom, tucking himself under the comforting blankets. He slowly shut his eyes, dreaming of what was to come tomorrow.
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