carl@fire

Carl lay on the small, sandy, dry beach next to the ruins of the dock. He thought.

This is like one of those trapped-in-a-game animes that were just getting popular around when Annie gave me her ultimatum.

The memory came back readily, just as it did every time his mind went down this path.

"Carl, you're either gonna grow the fuck up and be someone who can be in a relationship, or I'm done," she'd said, standing with her arms crossed over her sweater-covered chest and blocking the TV which he'd had on to catch the latest episode of…

He couldn't quite remember which show it was.

"Well, Marianne," he'd said, using her full name since he knew it annoyed her, "maybe you should just like, I dunno, try to share some of my interests? " He took a sip of his beer, the fourth bottle he'd had on that Tuesday afternoon. It was a new brand, but he was really digging it. IPAs really hit the spot sometimes. "Why can't you—"

"I am not having that conversation again, Carl," she said, throwing her hands into the air. She shook her head at him for a moment, then stomped off towards the cramped bedroom they shared in the small, studio apartment.

Carl rolled his eyes and took another swig of beer, finishing the bottle. He glanced at his nearby computer in case a new support request had come in from the remote, part-time job he worked. His inbox remained empty, just how he liked it. He'd pick an easy, laid-back temp job like this any day over some high-octane job that needed regular work hours and cut into his late night raiding sessions after his girlfriend went to bed early because she had to be at school at the ungodly hour of seven during the week.

In the morning.

He tapped the remote a few times, turning the volume back up now that the interruption had passed, just as he always did.

He really liked this girl. She wasn't at all annoying like Lisa, who'd had the most irritating laugh and loved chick flicks. She wasn't like Christina, anxious and prone to anxiety attacks, and with a near-total inability to talk about anything related to the relationship even when he'd known something was bothering her. Nor was she like Steph, who'd always seemed to be more interested in being high than anything else.

Marianne was special. They'd been together for nearly two years now, and she always seemed to get him on a deep level. She made him laugh, she made him happy, she was tons of fun to talk to, and she was practically a succubus in bed. He'd even asked her if she was once, jokingly, and she'd responded by playfully, but with a lusty grin that he couldn't imagine ever tiring of, bending herself over the end of the couch and hiking up the skirt of her sundress. She'd been in Just The Right Mood for it then, she'd confided a couple hours later, But Don't Expect This To Happen All The Time. She'd been right, and that was cool with him, too.

Yeah, Marianne was pretty awesome.

Except when it came to anime, or video games, or any of his hobbies, really.

It wasn't his fault he got a little too focused on an activity once he'd started on it. Most people had the opposite problem, in fact, as he'd often heard others complaining that they couldn't focus as much or got distracted easily—even including his girlfriend.

Not Carl.

If he was going to do something, he'd put in the time—the focus—until he was the best. "Do one thing at a time and do it well," just like his father always said.

Words to live by.

When he wanted to game, he played until he was the best. His gaming guild had been together through a number of MMOs, and they were always competing for world-first boss kills. He played constantly to grind his PVP rank, too, maintaining his place in the top five on the leaderboard every season at a minimum. Usually he claimed the topmost spot itself.

When he wanted to watch TV, or anime, or movies, he binged until he finished whatever he'd wanted to watch. So what if it cut a little bit into time he could've been doing other things? He'd get to them, and then he'd focus just as much until he'd done the best he could on those other things, too. To-do lists were serious business for Carl.

When he wanted to be a good boyfriend, Carl was the greatest, according to his current girlfriend and each of his previous ones. He always remembered birthdays and anniversaries and special days. He planned his schedule around them. He made surprise visits with flowers or lunch at work. He listened attentively, managing to stop himself from trying to fix every problem and instead making an effort to truly understand what his girlfriend was going through. He got along great with parents and relatives. He'd even driven six hours—each way—one time to pick Marianne up from the airport on her way home from visiting her parents when her flight had been canceled and she'd gotten stuck.

He was pretty good in the bedroom, too, if his extremely healthy sex life was any indication.

The problem was that nobody got that part of him, the part that just wanted to do one thing at a time. His friends did, of course—that's why they were his friends—but girls he dated never seemed to, no matter how much effort he put into the time he spent in boyfriend mode.

They always left him, complaining that he wasn't there enough.

Carl had scowled as he pried open another beer he'd retrieved from the cooler he was using as a footrest. Of course he was there. It's not as though he just switched off when he was doing something else. He just prioritized. Aggressively. Tasks that weren't at the top of his queue were deferred. He always got to them, just not immediately if they weren't urgent.

But still, his girlfriends always left him.

Until he met Marianne, that is.

Sure, she complained about most of his hobbies, but she also seemed willing to at least understand his interests and why he enjoyed them even if she still called them childish and not what a twenty eight year-old man should be doing with his life.

He took another swig of tasty, tasty beer.

Beer was another thing Marianne didn't like.

Wine, sure. Occasionally. On special occasions, or if she'd had a tough day at school. Or when it was the weekend and she'd curl up in her chair to the side of his couch and read while he watched anime or played games nearby before they went out to wherever Marianne had planned to go.

Marianne always wanted to go somewhere. It annoyed Carl, but he tolerated it. Some of the places they went were fun, too, even if he didn't especially feel a need to travel or go out anywhere.

Carl was a bit of an introvert, but he didn't let it interfere with his love life. He wanted to be there with his girlfriend and try to appreciate her interests even if she didn't think much of his.

"Here's how it's gonna be," Marianne announced, coming back into the room dragging a suitcase—his small one he used when they traveled since he never had much stuff to bring with him. "I'm staying with Cheryl for the next two weeks." She looked around the room, taking it in. "When I come back, you're going to have your shit together."

She'd crossed her arms and stared own at him. "All this kid's stuff, all these wastes of time are gonna be gone. You're gonna start going to AA like I've asked you to do so many times before. You're gonna have said your goodbyes to your guild, and your computer's not gonna have any games installed besides solitaire. The anime's gone, too. Donate your DVDs, sell 'em, whatever. All the ones you downloaded, too. I at least know how to use a file search, so don't bother trying to hide them in your Important Documents or Bills folders—"

"Directories," he corrected absently.

Marianne raised the first two fingers on each hand to her temples, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, then a second. "Directories," she continued, opening her eyes, "with your porn. You can keep that; at least it's something you have to legally be an adult for."

"Awfully generous. I'll leave your stash alone, too." Carl sipped his beer and turned to look up at her at last, giving her his mostly-undivided attention now that he'd heard her demands. "That it, or should I quit my job, too?"

His girlfriend moved her hands to cup her mouth and nose, her eyes taking on a pained look. "Yes, Carl," she said after a moment, letting her hands drop to her sides where they hung limply. "I've been asking you to do something else for an entire year now. Begging you to. You need to start thinking about your future. You need a career, Carl, not a job. How do you expect to support a family when you're barely making minimum wage?"

He frowned. "Why do I have to support an entire family? If we had kids and needed more money, why couldn't you just teach at a college? High school's—"

"High school is where kids are the most impressionable," Marianne said, tilting her head to the side and looking at him with dismay, her full lips quivering slightly. "We've been over this, Carl! I wanted to teach to make a difference, not to make money. I want to make kids great, not get them when they're already broken and set in their ways."

Her shoulders slumped, and she leaned forward to run her hand along his perpetual one-to-five day stubble. "I love you, Carl," she said softly. "I want you to be great, too. I can't stand watching you throw your life away like this."

Carl frowned more deeply. How was this not great? He got to set his own hours—great; he made a high hourly wage—great, even if he still had to pay for his own health insurance; he owned a car that he'd fully paid off already—great; he had no school debt thanks to scholarships and working with IT for the duration of his undergrad degree—great; and he even had a Masters degree in Computer Science—pretty fucking great since he'd have that paid off in another few years, too, after he'd managed to finagle more scholarship money due to his work history and impeccable grades.

He even had a couple friends he still hung out with who his girlfriend liked. How was any part of this not great?

In fact, there was no part of his life that wasn't great except this constant nagging.

His maybe-not-so-great girlfriend sighed, then swept her curly blonde hair back from her pretty face. "I…" She looked over at the door, then focused her striking blue eyes back on him. "I gave you a choice, and I really hope you choose me, Carl," she said in a plaintive tone. "I promise I'll help—I'll never let you feel like it was the wrong choice."

Marianne sighed again, then grabbed the handle of her suitcase. "Two weeks, Carl. That Tuesday, exactly this time. I'll be here, even if you aren't. I'll wait here until you give me an answer."

"See you then," he'd replied flippantly.

His girlfriend's lips pressed together so hard they turned white. "Yeah," she'd said, her voice nearly inaudible. "You will."

She'd taken her suitcase, her purse, and her keys, and walked out the door without saying another word.

Carl sipped his beer, then drank the rest of it. He turned the bottle in his hand, looking distractedly at the label.

Beer was great. Tasted great, made him feel great, made him not feel the not-great things.

He set the empty bottle on the small table next to the end of the couch with the others. He swung his legs off the cooler and opened it. His hand reached for another beer.

Carl stopped, his fingers inches away from the neck of another tasty, great beer.

He pulled his hand back, then grabbed the remote and turned the volume down on the TV again. It still annoyed him, so he turned the TV off.

He didn't want to watch anime anymore.

He wanted to think.

Carl stretched out on the couch.

When he wanted to think, Carl never left his apartment until he'd figured out whatever he needed to think about.

For the next thirteen days, Carl didn't leave his apartment, and he left his couch only to eat and use the bathroom.

Carl sighed. She was right. I mean, obviously she was right. She's always right. Most of the time. But I am happier now than I was then, so she was right about that, at least.

I just wish I could maybe have a little of that back. Play a game once in a while. Watch movies or TV on my own. Anime…

Maybe she was right about anime. The stuff I used to watch was pretty bad. There were some gems, for sure, but it's like sifting through a landfill to find the single nugget of gold. Plus I can't really get hyped for those types of plots anymore. Hard to put myself into a poorly-written, dumb teenager's perspective as he cluelessly acquires a harem of equally poorly-written girls when I've got a real family.