Patrick had all the intentions in the world.
And it had only taken him 41 years to collect them.
Some came from friends, many came from family. And others were showered at the top of each hour from bad-management-practicing people with power. He couldn’t count them all, he had so many. It was even hard to keep track of which ones were his own.
Patrick made it a habit of taking the intentions and categorically placing them discreetly in boxes. From there, he’d wrap them in reels of casual excuses, and using ribbons and tape and details and dates, forever tie their owners to their alternate realities and atypical neuroses with crafty gold bows.
All of which went with him wherever her went, for in the event that he found himself bored in the least, he could pageant their magic from the Attic of Memory and impregnate the future with lawful offending.
But lugging all day others people’s intentions, year after year, wasn’t all fun and games. Because Patrick by nature was minded for business, and in all of Patrick’s personal experience, all that goddamn motherfucking intentions had ever been good for was bogging progress down. Even the cutest little forms of stagnated pretense, no matter how innocent their origins did seem, when left out to age under the time-tested sun, frightfully blossomed into chancres of ass.
Fortunately, as discovered by the Heathens of Visceral Results, an integral part of evolution is stress.
And so it was stress that spoke directly to Patrick, and not some old, angry, celestial trucker with a talkie hot-wired right into his brain. And stress it was that purposed and proffered new direction by gracefully bestowing all the makings of plan. And not just any plan, but a capitalist one. Super fuckin’ sweet it was, awesome and simple–like when the Aztecs invented pinwheels for their roller skates to hypnotize in battle.
You see, with humans all conditioned for prepackaged sentiment–thanks to memes and emojis and swipe-a-like whores–stale intentions would liven the gypsy-piker marketplace, where, nicely polished in assurance and promise, those filthy rodents aching for a making would have the cheese to mate their call.
And that, of course, was just the beginning.
For in streamlining his harvest of secondhand bullshit, he could supply all walks of incompetence impractical excuses to pardon their own laziness with bold, pious balls.
In summary, not only would Patrick be banking some nickels, but he was bound to enjoy some shits and giggles along the way.
Which was important to Patrick, because Patrick’s interest wasn’t fully monetary. For no amount of money can buy pedestrian happiness or expunge from one’s record their arsons completely. Mostly he just wanted one day with a secluded garage and some weed to help him snooze until the car ran out of gas.
As far as wishes go, this wasn’t one for a genie: just the aforementioned nickels with shits and giggles would call it a day.
But, of course, brought with self-termination and all its appeal, several issues at length the fucking ethicists posed. Fortunately, Patrick found that these, too, could be solved with the power of intention. So long as he left behind some formal proclamation describing a lifelong conviction to abide by moral code, at least one make-believe master of just-for-Patrick’s universe would offer absolution from the hell that surfed his wake.
But, just in case, and considered good measure, always the frugal practitioner in business and logic, he’d find a way to include the same lint-crusted excuse that people have pulled from their pockets since they learned the word–
Shit.
Sorry kids.
I really wanted to key out a few characters and finish this story, but wouldn’t you know it?–I didn’t have time.
Fortunately for you, my intentions were good.
Probably even gooder that fucker Roald Dahl’s.