A Strange Connection

WC 884  "First Five Contest" Prompt-You are a pizza delivery boy\girl. After delivering a pizza, a man invites you in while he gets his checkbook. Within an hour, you two are at a resaurant with a strange connection. How did this happen? (There is no hidden agenda on this one)


    Ryan impatiently rings the doorbell for the second time. “Come on people answer the door already,” he mutters. The last thing he needs is to be wasting time on this doorstep. He’d decided to take summer classes and had to cram eight weeks worth of studying into six weeks while also juggling delivering pizzas. He needed to be at home studying if only he could get this last delivery done.

Ryan shifts the zipped up pizza to the other hand while he knocks loudly on the door. Faintly he hears a man invite him in. “Pizza delivery,” he yells pushing the door closed behind him.

“Just set it there on the table in the foyer,” the man answers. “Let me just grab my checkbook and I’ll be right there.”

Ryan stops in the empty foyer. He removes the pizza from the carrier and places it on the side table. He doesn’t hear anyone else in the house, just the faceless man rummaging about somewhere in another room.

“Nice place you got here,” he calls out not wasting a chance to earn a nice tip.

“Ah, here you go,” the man says entering the room and handing the check with a fat tip to Ryan. “Sorry it took so long, I was engrossed in a project and didn’t register the doorbell ringing.”

The man looks friendly enough with his smiling round face and slightly pudgy body. Ryan figures he is in his late fifties, about his dad’s age. “Well thanks,” he replies and reaches for the door.

“If you don’t mind Ryan, I would like to have a word with you before you leave,” the man says.

Ryan freezes with his hand on the doorknob. He’s pretty sure he has never met this man so how did he know his name? He turns to see the man standing there with his hands in his pockets still smiling his friendly smile which now seems a little bit creepy. “Um, do I know you?” he asks.

“No Ryan, you don’t”, the man answers, “but I know you. You see, last night I had a dream that I needed to pass on a message to you. But first let me introduce myself. I’m Joe Layne,” He says smiling, as he holds out his hand for Ryan to shake.

Ryan edges to the door. Okay, he’d heard stories from the other delivery guys about the occasional nut who orders pizza but this was his first one. The best way to deal with this would probably to just humor the guy for a second then cut and run. He reaches out and shakes the guys hand “Well it was nice to meet you but I really gotta run.” 

“Ah jeez, I guess I blew it again,” the man sighs. “I keep forgetting that other people aren’t as used to this as I am so it can come as a bit of a shock. You see, these kinds of dreams come to me on a regular basis. The only part I play is to pass on the message and you’ll never see me again.”

“How do I know you’re not just some nut?” Ryan asks.

The man puts his hand on Ryan’s shoulder as he guides him out the door. “How about this, why don’t you just come and have a bite to eat with me in a restaurant and I’ll explain everything to you? That way we will be in a nice neutral spot and you don’t have to worry about me being some crazy who is going to chop you up and eat you for dinner.”



Thirty minutes later Ryan finds himself sitting across from the man eating a hamburger at a local McDonald’s. “So you’re telling me you’ve been having these dreams for years and you just find the person and pass on the message and that’s it?”

“Yep, that’s pretty much it. I tried to ignore them at first but if I do they just keep coming until I pass the message along. Half the time I don’t even know what the message means but the person who gets the message always does.” The man jams a couple of ketchup covered fries into his mouth and chews quickly. “But enough about me, let’s get to the reason we’re here. In my dream I am supposed to tell you not to change your major.”

“That’s it?” Ryan shouts in disbelief. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, have you been thinking about changing your major?” The man asks as he slurps the last of his chocolate milkshake through the straw.

“Well yeah, I just wasn’t sure that Computer Science was right for me.”

“It is right because apparently you are supposed to make some great discovery and don’t ask me what it is because I don’t know so I can’t answer. It is for you to discover."

“What if I don’t do it? Computer science I mean?” Ryan asks.

“Well then we will never know what you might have discovered will we?” The man smiles and gets up. “It was nice to have met you Ryan. I hope it works out for you.”

Ryan sits dumbfounded as he watches the man walk away. He wonders what great things his future will bring.