Steve and the Prankster Spirit

Yuen woke up excitedly, night had fallen on March 31st. It was a clear night and perfect for all the mischief and pranks he could get up to. As a prankster spirit he lived all year for this 24 hour period. He had planned every trick to the smallest detail. This year the poor unsuspecting human had not been chosen because he had been bad all year. This year he had been chosen because he was too safe and boring. This had been due to a curse inflicted by a misery God who had been annoyed by the human’s intolerable levels of happiness as a child. The curse had set in on the eve of the human’s 13th birthday. Everyone had assumed it was the teenage years but he had never regained his happiness. Loki had handed out the assignments to his pranksters and Yuen had been given Steve Grimm. 

Yuen materialised himself in Steve’s apartment. It was minimalist and very tidy. That was going to have to change but only a little. Everything was in an exact place. Yuen opened the cupboard where the plates and cups were stored. Just a slight adjustment with a couple of cups should do the trick. 

Next he, went in to the pen draw and removed all the pens, placing them instead in the spare wire drawer. Making his way from room to room he moved, took the ordered apartment and changed things, moved things and hid things. Nothing obvious but enough to cause frustration. Annoying someone with no sense of humour was an odd way to go about changing them but they always saw the funny side in the end. It was the nasty people who felt the full wrath of the tricksters.

Making his way in to the bathroom he decided to change a few things round. Firstly he removed the toilet roll and the spares. Secondly he switched toothpaste for shaving foam. Aftershave became toilet duck and the razor became blunted. Finally he unscrewed the toothbrush holder just enough that it remained in place but not enough that it would fall off the wall causing the brush to fall in to the toilet.

After finishing in the house Yuen headed to the car. Cars were dangerous. This had been learned the hard way and heads had rolled after that prank. Fatalities were never permissible. Injuries were not exactly welcomed but humans could be quite fragile, so they could be excused, but fatalities were most definitely frowned upon and no one wanted to write the report. 

Steve groaned as he opened his eyes and as the daylight hit him. He glanced at his phone to see whether or not he had time to go back to sleep before the alarm. “What the hell?” He exclaimed as he realised it was 06:30 and the 6 O’Clock alarm had not rung. Luckily he always got up an hour before he needed to so that he could leave plenty of time for traffic delays and unexpected events, so at best this was irritating.

He got out of bed and walked immediately tripped over the rug which had somehow shifted in the night. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table and made his way to the bathroom, he figured that with the half hour delay he should cut his reading time down, so there would not be time to get through the latest Safety Council Magazine, so instead he would do a puzzle on his daily puzzles ap. 

He sat on the toilet and went about completing a Soduku. It was a medium one today so did not take too much time. He was pleased by this as it would help him make up the lost time. He reached for the toilet paper. “That’s odd. There was at least half a roll left yesterday” he muttered to himself. He reached for the spares and there were none there. He knew that there had been a panic on toilet rolls during the pandemic but had someone broken in overnight and stolen his toilet rolls. There was no way he was out, there had to be one. He only bought 9 at the weekend.

He realised he was just going to have to make a break for the shower. Slipping off his sleepwear he rose from the toilet and ran to the shower. Satisfied that all was ok, he proceeded to shower. As his eyes were closed he did not notice the blue dye coming out of the shower. Nor did he notice that he was washing his hair with a shampoo that had been tainted with hair bleach. 

Stepping out of the shower he grabbed the towel and made his way to the sink to shave and clean his teeth. 

He screamed a little as he saw that his skin was currently blue, and his black hair was going an off shade of bright orange. Thinking that some moisturiser might help he spread moisturiser all over his face and body. He would take a few hours to realise that this had been replaced with tanning lotion.

Steve grabbed the razor and immediately cut his face on the blunt blade. “This was new two days ago? This really isn’t funny”

Yuen hid on the top of the bathroom cabinet laughing. This was hilarious, there was all manner of chaos and he had not even made it to the kitchen yet. Steve was bound to see the funny side soon. 

Steve grabbed a fresh razor and managed to finishing shaving, without further bloodshed. He reached for the after shave and splashed some on his face. “What the hell is happening this morning? I smell like a bloody toilet cleaner and look like a smurf” He reached for the toothbrush and watched in despair as the toothbrush holder fell off the wall and the toothbrush fell in to the unflushed toilet. Luckily he kept a spare toothbrush in the cabinet. 

He managed to get out of the bathroom without further incident and headed to the kitchen to make a coffee. As he opened the cupboard he heard a noise and barely managed to get out of the way as several mugs and plates leapt off the shelf and crashed to the floor. “I don’t understand. Who would do this? I don’t have an angry ex or a neighbour from hell. I know that this isn’t a simple accident. It’s malicious. May be I have a stalker. I should make a note of everything that has happened”

Steve went to grab his IPad and realised that the plug had been turned off and he had zero battery so instead he went to the pen drawer and could not find a pen. Frustration turned to concern. Someone had been in his house overnight. Should he call the police? Would they even believe him. He decided that for now he just wanted to get out of the house. 

Naturally his keys were nowhere to be found.

Yuen was watching Steve become increasingly agitated and realised that perhaps he had gone too far with some of the pranks. Grabbing the keys he placed them back exactly where they should be. He also unknotted the laces of Steve’s shoes and turned his jacket the right way out. 

He was about to remove the superglue from the door lock when Steve walked round the corner and screamed. “What the hell are you?”

“I am Yuan and I am a trickster.”

“You did all this? You made me late? Nearly killed me? Why? What have I ever done to you?”

“Nearly Killed is a slight exaggeration. You have been selected to be pranked because you are too boring and safe.”

“Why?”

“Your friends, colleagues and family have all been heard commenting that you need to lighten up. So my boss the god of Chaos and Pranks Loki, has sent me to do the job. However, I realise that it is not working so I was trying to undo as much as possible.”

“I smell like a toilet.”

“A clean toilet.”

Steve sighed, he could not believe that everyone he knew felt he didn’t have a sense of humour. Well he would show them. The prank to end all pranks. Now what to do. “Yuan, if you work with me we can prank everyone I know.”

Yuan paused. It was bad enough that he had been seen but to work with the human, that was unheard of. On the other hand it could be fun and the biggest prank ever.

A few minutes later Steve and Yuan went to the car, which it took about twenty minutes to remove the cling wrap from, and a further 5 minutes to reattach all the parts Yuen had removed, such as the starter motor. Steve had given up on the idea of being on time for work but as he was always an hour earlier than everyone else there should still be time.

“There’s something I need to tell you” Yuan said as the car waited at some traffic lights.

“What?” 

“I may have already been to the office.”

Steve sighed. He did not want to know. He did however have a plan. He was going to start with the Boss. Ever since Maggie had got the job she had been intolerable. He had been saying for some time that she needed to be brought down a peg or two. An air horn under the chair should do it. Then there was Adam, he was always pulling pranks and sending emails from other people’s computers when they left them unlocked. A resignation email to the whole team would be in order.

As Steve relayed his list of pranks and all the things Yuan was going to need, Yuan was a little saddened by his real lack of imagination. Besides, he had already done most of these things, they would just need to move them to desks and spaces that did not belong to Steve.

They walked in to the office and Steve groaned as he saw his desk and chair covered in Post-It notes. However, he thought if he left everything in place, no-one would suspect him of being responsible. He would be another victim. Andy and Barbara would be blamed.

Yuan set to work on the complicated stuff, Steve placed spiders in the conference room. He went in to the gents and added a rubber snake to the inside of one of the toilets. He added salt to the sugar in the coffee room.  

A little while later Steve sat down at his desk pretending to be annoyed with the post-its as one by one his colleagues walked in. To be fair he smelled terrible, his skin was blue and slowly tanning and his hair was orange. Yuan hid behind the computer. 

Steve watched as Maggie walked in to her office. Within seconds the quiet office was rocked by the sound of an air horn. Co-workers jumped. Steve smiled. “Not funny Andy” she yelled.

Andy protested his innocence but there was a staff meeting so it was soon forgotten. As the team took their seats around the conference table, Steve watched the tarantula make it’s way along the wall. To be fair he was not best pleased with this prank. Spiders were not exactly his favourite animal. 

“Before I begin, Steve, why exactly do you look like a ginger smurf? And what is that aftershave you are using?”

“Sorry boss, I had a gremlin in the shower this morning”

“I am not a gremlin” muttered a little voice from under the table.

Maggie shrugged. She attempted to pull up the slides for the presentation, instead pictures of Donkeys doing crazy things started appearing. She managed to get rid of them only for the screen to start playing April Fools day memes. “This is not funny, whoever is responsible had better fix this or else there will be hell to pay.”

People glanced around the office but no one owned up. “Steve, you are health and safety, look in to this and find who is responsible.”

“That is an IT issue” he replied.

Before she could say another word the tarantula appeared on the table and the entire staff vacated the room. Maggie was furious. Steve remained impassive. Inwardly he was enjoying himself for the first time in years. 

A little while later, Barry had nearly pooed his pants when he spotted a snake in the toilet. Half the team had spat coffee over the kitchenette floor, and the new office fish tank in the filing cabinet was the talk of the workspace. Steve sat as his desk opposite Andy who was busy trying to figure out who had out pranked him. 

Adam sat at his desk trying to figure out why every time he typed the word ‘the’ it got autocorrected to antidisestablishmentarianism. When he typed ‘and’ he got the word moist and he was being extra careful every time he typed but. Deciding he needed to take a break he popped out for some fresh air.

Yuan took his opportunity and hopped on to the desk and started typing.

Dear Colleagues,

I wanted to take this opportunity to state that I have decided to quit my job and move to a tent by the underpass. I want to be a busker. I may not be able to sing but that’s not important. Please accept this as my notice. I will probably be back at some point today.

Kind regards,

Adam Livingstone.

Send...

A little while later.

Dear Colleagues,

Please ignore that last email. I am not resigning. I did not send that email Moist when I find out who antidisestablishmentarianism hell is responsible, I will be taking this further. That was not from me. Also I am having some autocorrect issues. I am looking in to it butthole I can’t make it stop. I shall not send any further emails today.

Kind regards,

Adam.

By the middle of the afternoon there was not one person who had missed out on a prank. Yuen was having a whale of a time, he would hide by someone’s desk and start throwing talking to people. 

In the end it was decided that everyone could go home early. Partly because the office now smelled terrible due to a loose skunk. Given, that skunks were not native to the country no-one quite knew where it had come from but then where had a tarantula come from.

Steve and Yuan left the office and headed to the car. They watched as the rest of the team left the office. To be fair the early finish had brightened the mood and everyone did seem to be seeing the funny side. 

Deciding to pay an unannounced visit to his parents Yuan suggested that he changed some family photos on the stairs. Replacing his brother Robert in all photos with Kim Jong Un. However, he was taken by surprise by his mother and slipped and fell down the stairs.

A couple of hours later he was sat in a hospital bed with a broken ankle and a concussion. Yuan who had been in his pocket when he fell, lay next to him grumbling about a sore head. April Fools day was almost over, and Yuen would be recalled home shortly. The injury had not been planned but it had been worth it.

Steve lay in bed contemplating his day. Despite his blue and fake tanned hue, the ginger hair and the amount of pain he was in, he had enjoyed today. He had also realised that his life was boring. Yuen returned and reported back about his day. Although he had made contact with a human Loki could see that this had worked well. Which gave him an idea. 

A few weeks later Steve left the office for the last time. He rented out his house and followed Yuen and Loki back to the Prankster’s Palace. No more health and safety for Steve, from now on it was pranks and fun all the way. Human, god and prankster spirit working in conjunction to prank the planet. Whilst back at his parents home his mother never noticed that Kim Jong Un had replaced her first born son.