Average Joe

At the beginning of the universe, there was an enormous explosion. Well, less of an explosion, and more of an expansion of space and time itself. Billions of years afterward, a man by the name of Joe was born. He could only exist as a result of the major expansion, however, he had no direct effect on the universe in turn. In fact, he didn't even have any sort of noticeable effect on the world which he had been born, a speck of dirt in a vast empty space. He, of course, was not a man at the time of his birth. That came later. Instead, he was but a newborn. He was full of potential and life, just as every person was when they were first born. This potential did not last long. His parents were completely obsessed with being normal. His father was a businessman who worked in a cubicle. He worked from 9:00 until 5:00, then came home every day and had dinner with his stay-at-home mother. The name rang truer for her than any other woman on the planet. She refused to leave her home except when doing so would help her to seem more normal. Instead, she cleaned and cooked and played so heavily into an overused stereotype that she became the foremost example of it from across town. Both of them absolutely hated their lives, but they faked smiles and waved to their neighbors every morning with glee even as they slowly died inside. Their names were never important. They were never important. They would do anything to be normal, anything to keep from standing out. They embedded this obsession deep into the minds of their children, even going so far as to name them the most simple names they could think of. One was Bob, another was Sally, and finally, there was Joe. They forced any personality that the three of them might have had out of their bodies and crushed it up into the trendy new seasoning for that spaghetti. Joe followed in his father's footsteps. He skipped the life and livelihood of college and went straight to working in another cubicle across the room from that of his father. Every day, he woke up went to work, worked eight hours, went home, sat on his sofa and gawked at the news and went to sleep. He hated it just as much as his parents did. One night, Joe, now the man I promised he would be, had something strange. He was shown something abnormal. He was given something unique. One night, he dreamed. He dreamed of walking into the doors of his cubicle sweatshop. He went up the elevator, each floor making a ding as it passed. 1...2...3.... When the doors opened, the room was filled with eyes. They were large and small and of all human colors. They were blue, brown, hazel, and green, and even one with a blind gray. They all looked at him, following his movements. As Joe walked further into the room, Joe heard something from the deep recesses of his mind. First, it started unreasonably quiet. "weird...unique...strange..." The sound grew louder and louder until finally it was booming in his ears "WEIRD! UNIQUE! STRANGE!" It was deafening. Suddenly, his own eyes opened with a start. For the first time, they had truly opened. He saw his life for what it really was. It was weird and strange. No one followed so closely the stereotypes of society. A normal person wouldn't be satisfied. A normal person would have dreams and aspirations and goals. A normal person would have noticeable personality, with quirks and ticks. Joe realized that he was in no way average. To be normal is to be weird, and to be weird is to be normal.