Living the Dream

Here's a macabre short story.
Enjoy!

Living the Dream

By

Margaret A. Golla

 

Life was good. I was living the dream.

Athletic, good-looking, and smart. Who could not love me, right?

I blew through high school without having to open a book. When you are the star of the team, people do things for you. I simply took advantage of their motivation.

Was there anything wrong with that?

Girls flocked around me like a rock star. I had my chick pick after every Friday night game. Though my mother would be ashamed of me, I took advantage of their desires.

Universities courted me. The perks of being the star of the team came in small packages: steak dinners, weekend trips to any place, and the little red Corvette sitting in my driveway.

Of course, they had to do some creative financing to cover up the bribes.

What did I care? That was their problem. I just simply enjoyed the fruits of their labor.

I picked a University far away from home. I didn’t need my parents or friends getting in the way of living my dream.

I worked hard, ate well, and was very good at my job on the team, but I wanted more. I wanted to be the star.

But the team wasn’t doing as well as everyone expected. And when the star of the team disappeared, Coach said he went home because he was so disappointed in his failings.

This opportunity gave me a chance to be the star in the Homecoming Game. This game was pivotal. Win and our team got endorsements and money from the alums. Lose and we would have to run with the bulls. I didn’t know what that meant, but it couldn’t be too bad, right?

We lost.

Running with the bulls was a little different than I expected. It should have been called running with the flying bots. The entire A squad was on the run.

That was when I found out what happened to the previous star player.

He’d fed us . . . literally.

A bot cornered me in a dead end. Sweat sprung from every pore of my body when I realized this thing had my death written in its software. I’d failed my school and had to pay. The University took advantage of my dream, but when I didn’t deliver, well, let’s just say they cut their losses.

And I was their star loser.

The bot lowered its sights for a good, clean head shot. It wouldn’t want to destroy the meat on my good-looking, athletic body, right?

I just wondered whose dream I would be feeding now.

 

THE END