The Picture Game

Southern U.S. maybe Florida, 7 p.m., a wedding. People waiting for the wedding couple to arrive at the reception, they're gonna sing a song for them as a surprise.

Hope my spoiler tags work!

It was getting dark out. It was the night before the big day and the group had used this last evening to practice their flash mob one last time and iron out any kinks which they may still have. One member of the flash mob group, Jerry (red shirt, foreground towards the right), was glad that these months of preparation and practice would finally be over soon. He had been going through some stuff ever since his divorce and his brother's untimely demise as a result of a terrible heroin addiction and he just had to admit that his heart wasn't really into the whole "flash mob" thing anymore.

Oh well, he sighed to himself as he departed the park, at least it'll all be over soon.

Just at this moment, a reckless bicyclist (the blur) swerved through the crowd of departing flashmobists. Agnis hadn't been paying much attention because she was worrying about whether or not she fed her cats and was taken off guard by the speeding cyclist. Her surprise soon turned to pain as she tumbled to the ground (you can see her in the bottom center of the frame).

Jerry was the only one that seemed to notice Agnis' fall. He considered checking to see if she was alright, but decided not to.

Why should I? He thought. It's not like she's important or anything.

See, Agnis had very recently had her hip replaced and she just wasn't krumping like she used to. It was despicable really, to see the third act of this flash mob fall apart because her physical limitations (and partial senility) prevented her from krumping adequately.

"Are you okay?" the woman to Jerry's left (striped shirt, vest) asked. Jerry didn't know her. He thought she might be part of the group that comes in near the end with the lions.

"Oh dear, yes. I'm okay." Agnis did indeed appear to be unharmed (although it was anyone's guess how long it would take for the emotional scars of this traumatic event to heal).

"That guy better watch out. Did you see that?" the lion lady turned to Jerry.

"What? Oh... yeah. I don't think he was even wearing a helmet." Jerry stuttered, shocked that a stranger should have the audacity to speak to him.

"You're Jerry, right?" she asked.

"Y- yeah. How'd you know?"

"My husband came to watch our practice the other night. He said you two went to school together."

"Oh, and your husband is... uh."

"Tom Adelman."

A nervous sort of chuckle escaped Jerry's mouth at the sound of the name. And when I say "chuckle" I mean more like the sound one would expect to hear coming from a rabid donkey as it's mounted in a most improper way by a host of feral catfish (as if there's any other kind of catfish, am I right?). Tom Adelman had been Jerry's biggest fear and simultaneous idol all throughout High School. Tom had always been the 'cool guy' and Jerry had always been... well... not. Jerry had spent days dreaming of being more like Tom. Being handsome and charming and having girlfriends as beautiful as his. Jerry hated Tom for his popularity.

And now the knowledge that he'd married a lion tamer lady just destroyed him. It wasn't that he was overly affected by it, but it was just the last straw on the already extremely overladen camel's back.

Jerry blurted out some lame excuse and rushed home, feeling sick with his lot in life. In those last few moments in his run-down home, he hastily scrawled out a suicide note and pinned it to his door, then fashioned a noose out of a chain of socks and fastened it to the bannister of his stairs.

So long cruel world, he repeated in his head.

Then he let himself fall.

He also shot himself in the head while he was falling but kind of before the noose actually snapped around his neck.

He didn't want to take any chances that he'd survive.

He was really unhappy, obviously.

And so the life of poor Jerry ended. Little did he know that all of his luck would have changed if he'd have just held on until the following day. Oh well, though. That's the way it goes.


THE END

I was surprised myself by the way I come from " *half-joke* These people cannot turn around because road sign say one cannot turn around" to almost immediately "Oh, track ! They all look in the same direction because they are waiting for cars and since there is a row of seat in the background, this must be a roadtrack and the sign is there because there is not much turning around allowed on tracks, and there is often palm trees on the side when people are racing on TV" Want to open the detective agency with me ?