Man Given Key to Everything

A Matt Nicole Exclusive


The Protagonist

My Bedroom, Brooklyn-Wednesday morning started like any other for a local Department of Transportation worker. Mike Holloway, 65, went down to get some breakfast and discovered he was out of milk.

"It was really bizarre. I'm usually really good about keeping my milk stocked. My doctor recommended I eat a bowl of Total every morning. He says it's got a lot of stuff that the other cereals just don't have. Well, they all have the same stuff, but you have to eat tons of bowls of the other ones. I can't eat thirty bowls of cornflakes a day on my wages. I wish I could, but I can't."

The closest store is five miles from his house. Holloway went to get his car keys, but they were nowhere to be found. This set off a chain of events too bizarre for even the wildest Hollywood writers.

"I usually leave them on the ledge, but they weren't there. I was just going to call a taxi and take it to the store to get some milk, but I can't even afford thirty boxes of cornflakes. How am I going to afford a cab, you know?"

Like Dominoes They Fall

Dominoes is popular in prisons. This is a photo from a WW2 concentration camp. They were worse than prisons. And they didn't have dominoes.

As eventual fate would have it, the town locksmith was super busy. James Farlon, 22, took over the family locksmithery when his father died in 1996. He hasn't been able to afford a secretary and so he regularly overbooks his schedule, though he claims it's not on purpose.

"People don't understand how hard it is to run a business. Most people just work at one. I have to run one. How fucked up is that?" asks Farlon. His younger brother Kyle, 13, has been his assistant for the last 4 years. When elder brother James is backed up or gets an emergency locksmith job, he calls in his younger brother to help out.

Kyle may be young, but he brings the attitude of a business owner with ten times his experience. "Doing the work isn't even the worst of it. We rarely get paid. Imagine, our clients are the kind of people who lock their keys in their car or house. We really do deal with the scum of the earth. Probably forget their own assholes if they weren't attached to their rectums."

Holloway says that when young Kyle Farlon showed up to his house the youngster was in a bit of a rush. "He said, and I'm quoting here, that some asshole locked his asshole keys inside his asshole city hall. I said that I didn't want to bother him, but I really needed to get some milk for my Total. I would have just called a cab, but you probably have no idea how much it costs to get a specialty cab with a refrigerated glove compartment to keep your milk cold all the way home. A lot."

"Yeah, he said he was out of spilt milk," says young Kyle Farlon. "Boo hoo. Basically I didn't have time to hear his entire life's sob story, and my brother had been riding my ass all day about how hard it is to work in the sun. So, I just gave the guy a master key and went to get some asshole's stuff which was locked in something. Same shit, different asshole. "

What young Farlon didn't realize was that it wasn't just any master key. What he'd given Holloway was the key to everything.


This Is Where It Gets Interesting

Even national heroes get bored. Lance Armstrong is the greatest American alive. If the rumors about him and Matthew McConaughey are true, there will be a great rift in American public opinion when the men in black uniforms come to put the people "Ruining America" in camps.

"It opened my car door just fine, but then when I got into the car I realized I didn't have a key to the refrigerated glove compartment. I tried it on a whim."

The key worked. In fact, Holloway found that his key worked everywhere he tried.

"The glove compartment worked. I got home, it worked on the front door. It worked on my wife's diary. It worked on the padlock to my shed. You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff I'd forgotten was in there. It even opened the stuff that was in the shed. I was amazed."

Before he knew it, other doors were opening too. "I'd always thought the key to happiness was a balanced diet, regular excersize, and a fulfilling hobby. Boy was I wrong. I had the key to happiness in my hand. Three wishes? Try infinity wishes. I was in a better job, had a better wife, could finally draw well, and nothing got me down. I went to the movies, you'll never believe this, but it's true, I swear. I went to the movies and got a bucket of popcorn, right? Well not only are all of the pieces evenly buttered, but none of the pieces were too salty. AND, And, and there wasn't a single seed in the bucket. Now if that's not happiness, I don't know what is."

A Newspaper First

I'm bringing shit from books to fake newspaper articles on a blog that no one reads. This is the future.

Two Months Later
"I should have killed my brother," says elder brother James Farlon. "We could have had a real mess on our hands. Every locksmith in the country is given one master key, which works everywhere. It's part of a secret initiation which I really can't say any more about. Needless to say though, we're not supposed to make copies, and we're not supposed to give those copies out." Farlon wipes a drop of nervous sweat from his brow. "Luckily this guy has no real ambition. If he wanted to do anything, he could do it. Most locksmiths say they'd cure AIDS if there weren't a rule against it. It makes sense, it is a gay disease. Some people say that AIDS is the cure, why ruin nature's plan. I'm still on the fence about it. I heard it's spreading to lesbians too. Last thing I want to see is a porno with girl condoms. Gross. Anyway, point is this. This guy has the key to everything and he's using it to drive to get milk and then put that milk in his cooled glove compartment. Thank god no one has any real ambition anymore."

Holloway takes a different angle to the ambition debate. "So what? I didn't use the key for anything groundbreaking. It's my life anyway, what the fuck do you care? I used the key to get myself a truck full of Cornflakes. Who's the asshole now?"

Who's the asshole now?