Hundred, Thousand, Million Times Before

Hank let his car roll to a semi legal parking-spot on the side of the road, and turned to look at his daughter strapped in behind him.


"This isn't Chuckee Cheese..." Jenny informed him.


Chuckee Cheese was across town.


Hank let his head fall back against the headrest. He didn't have a job, barely had an apartment as he was a month behind on rent. Last week he'd had a second job interview at Wells and was supposed to hear back yesterday and hadn't, and now he was out of gas.


Life was shit.


His ex-wife seemed to be doing well. According to Jenny, she had a new car and a new boyfriend named Ricardo who was like totally awesome, and really, really tall and knew all sorts of rad magic tricks. He had even promised Jenny a puppy, and not just a regular old puppy, but, like-- Oh my God-- the cutest puppy ever.


"Well, we're going to take a train-ride!" Hank said. This up-to-date news was somewhat surprising to them both.


BART was across the street. They held hands and ran across the busy street. They barely got aboard before the doors hissed closed.


As they sat, Jenny stared at a man across the aisle with tattoos covering his face and arms.


"Don't stare," Hank said as his phone rang. "He's from another planet" he added, opening his phone. "Hank Miller," he said with a finger pressed against his free ear."Well.., I'm disappointed to hear that," Hank said after a moment. He closed his eyes.


"Excuse me," Jenny said to the tattooed-man, "What planet are you from?"{/size4}

Hank only then realized Jenny was talking to the tattooed man who he learned later was a way-awesome purple dude who'd been to Mars like a hundred-thousand-million times..


-300 words-