It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but for Gary Stu, it was intensely mediocre. Gary had lived on Earth for thirty-seven years, the majority of which had been spent in his mother’s lampless basement, slaughtering the art of video gaming.
At the time our story begins, however, he had taken a break to dry his sweaty palms, and to check his lonely email inbox. Today, though, he was overjoyed to find a pleasant surprise waiting for him. Somebody loves me, he thought, as he clicked the email.
“Send this to twenty people by the end of the day or you will be hit by a car,” it read.
“I accept your quest,” Gary whispered, and then proceeded to print out twenty copies of the email. He stumbled up out of his mother’s pink paisley beanbag chair.
Meanwhile, thirty miles away, in a corporate office, John Smith slowly and with repetition pressed the send button. “Send… send… send.”
With Herculean effort, Gary trudged out of the basement and into the blinding morning sun. Its brightness caught him off guard, and before long he stumbled and tripped over the unfortunately placed overpass. Luckily, he landed in a soft pile of trash bags.
When he came to, Gary was face-to-face with a bearded man wearing tattered clothes and a paper bag on his head. “There ain’t gonna be ‘nuther grocery cart!” the man shouted.
“I know you!” exclaimed Gary Stu. “You’re Hobo-Juan Kenobo! I’m in a need of a wise, spiritual guide. Care to join me on my quest of delivering these letters?”
“Gov’ment muskrats!” agreed Hobo-Juan. And so they set off together.
Gary Stu was feeling confident in the work that had been done so far. He was about to congratulate himself on his accomplishments when all of a sudden, a shiny police car pulled up beside him. The fat police officer inside rolled down his window and shouted, “Gary Stu, it has come to my attention that you are currently participating in delivering illegal chain letters. The old lady on the bench told me so.”
Hobo-Juan slyly waved his grubby hand in front of the cops face and said, “These are not the letters you are looking for.”
The policeman blinked, dazed for a moment, then repeated, “These are not the letters I am looking for. Move along, move along.”
Sighing with relief, Gary turned to Hobo-Juan Kenobo and said, “Thanks! I think I can handle it from there though.”
No sooner had Hobo-Juan departed and Gary took his first step onto the cross walk, when a distracted driver took a sharp right turn, and ran over Gary’s left foot.
“Holy Superman’s tights!” he screamed in agony, holding his injured foot. The last letter fell from his hand and he watched in desperation as it slipped down into the sewer. “No, I must get that back!” he shouted.
He jumped down a conveniently open manhole in pursuit of the precious letter. Up above, the dusky sky told him that he was running out of time. Blindly, Gary struggled to locate the letter. He was about to give up and accept his fate when Hobo-Juan Kenobo’s bearded face loomed out of the darkness. In his right hand was clutched the desired letter.
“You are running out of time, Gary Stu,” Hobo-Juan said.
“I still have enough time to find another person to hand this to,” Stu said with confidence. “I’m not afraid.”
“You will be… You will be….” Hobo-Juan began to warn.
Gary simply shook his head, waving a hand dismissively, and looked up towards the manhole above him. Tiny pillars of light flooded in, causing his coke bottle glasses to glisten. Filled with hope and determination, Gary took a firm hold of a ladder in front of him, and made his way to the surface.
He threw open the manhole, the light blinding him as it had when he first left his home. He squinted, trying to make out the surrounding objects. A few buildings and a lamppost faded into view. He noticed a nearby apartment building; like the ones he had seen in his video games. He knew that there had to be someone inside. Someone who would be willing to read his letter. As a feeling of victory overwhelmed him, Gary began to make his speech.
“It was he who dared to deliver the forbidden letters, he who defied the law and traversed the dark depths of a forgotten world. He who left home and achieved the impossible against all odds shall be remembered as Gary Stu!”
He hoisted himself up out of the manhole, and began to make his way towards the apartment. He took his first step, his hopes and confidence unmatched by any emotion Gary had felt up to that point. Today, he would make something of himself.
Suddenly, the sound of a car horn pierced the blissful silence. As Gary looked in the direction of the noise, he found himself peering through the oncoming vehicle’s windshield.
John Smith’s white knuckles clutched the steering wheel as he stared helplessly at the man who had just appeared on the street. There was a screeching of tires, and a dull thump registered in his numbed ears. John stopped the vehicle, clambered out, and ran around to the dying man.
As the light at the end of the tunnel loomed closer, Gary happily handed the last letter to the man stooped over him.
John grabbed the letter, not knowing what else to do, and skimmed over it. He gasped in horror. It was the same message that he had sent out earlier that morning.
The end
I, along with friends, wrote this for our final project in a summer camp writing course at BYU. Every member of the class helped to write this story, which is incredibly ridiculous to us, but maybe not to you, because it does include A LOT of inside jokes!
