A Day Late and a Story Short.

Or rather, three weeks late, a short story.

Alex, you won the contest and as promised, I wrote you a short story. I hope you like that I mention your name a lot.

Here you go:

I once had the opportunity to meet a very well-known and beloved spokesperson on a beach in Fiji. It was a chance meeting, like something made for the movies. But what started out innocently soon gave way to a torrid love affair that lasted six days/five nights. With the combination of the local food, high thread count hotel linens, exotic beach drinks, and the air of mystery that surrounds all spokespeople, something happened in those six days that I have never told another living soul.

But I shouldn't be writing about myself right now.

I should mention someone named Alex.

Alex was born in the early 1970's but has a baby face that still requires him to show ID when buying light beer. He eats two large meals a day and even if he doesn't want it, he likes restaurants to offer bread. He routinely browses the selection at Redbox machines but never rents anything. Before getting out of bed in the morning, he lays perfectly still with his arms at his sides and convinces himself that he could be a successful luge competitor. "It's just lying there. I could do that."

At one point in his life, Alex thought of becoming an attorney. But the idea of having a closet full of striped button-down shirts worried him. Always at the dry cleaners. Always unwrapping his wardrobe from plastic. Taking anything out of plastic coverings annoyed him. That's why he never rented from the Redbox.

Alex works as a fact-checker for an online political magazine. He starts most of his sentences with, "I was reading an article..." He stretches a little before making a point. He likes hats.

Things happen to Alex in the same way things happen to all of us. He tells a good joke every so often and remembering how people laughed makes him smile. He finds a new band before his friends and tells them to check it out. They end up forever associating that band with him. He meets a girl who makes everything more interesting and sometimes watches her put on her makeup when they're getting ready to go out. He's happy in a way that doesn't require him to think about his happiness.

Sometimes Alex starts a sentence with the intent to voice an unsaid thought.

Straightening his back a little by rolling his shoulders, he instead mentions something he has recently read.