It's Not About Me

It was this day again. The alarm clock rang, two hours before his shift started. To put it mildly, it was early. Myles got up and got ready for the big day he had ahead. After a quick breakfast – if you can call two cookies and a few sips of coffee breakfast – he tossed his bag to his car and instead of hop into it himself, he went across the street to Mrs. Lang’s house. Because, again, it was this day again.

He inspected the porch very carefully, trying to find any clue that would lead him to a practical prank made by a teenager. Having a closer look, he noticed a string attached to something above the door. With a reach of his hand, Myles caught the string that the door was supposed to pull, and a big fake – but very believable spider – fell down on his face. He put the spider in his pocket and after a last look at the porch, he knocked on his neighbor door.

“Mrs. Lang, Good Morning! I will have you know, that I eliminated the thread for today, you should be prank free”

The 70 – year – old woman smiled at the young man and thanked him for doing this again. She offered him a cup of coffee, but Myles really wanted to be at his work earlier.

“Every year.”, Myles thought as he drove to work. “Every year these kids just set up the most obvious pranks.”

It was 6:20 am when he arrived at the little coffee shop. Forty minutes before he had to open up for customers. That gave him around fifteen minutes for investigating the whole place for any indications of silly pranks and twenty – five minutes to get the coffee house ready to serve. He carefully opened all the drawers around the cashier’s spot and he scored a fake spider in the last one. Then, he went to the kitchen. He didn’t manage to find anything in there and he wanted to think that no one would mess up with the customers’ sitting area. It was after ten minutes of turning the sign on the door to “Open”, when one of the regulars stepped inside.

“Good morning, Ava!”

“Good morning, Myles! Happy April’s Fool!”. The young girl made a funny face to her favorite waiter and as he sighed heavily, she laughed. “Come on, get over it! You’re twenty – six, you should enjoy this day.”

He knew he should, but he just couldn’t bare meaningless pranks.

“How about I give you no coffee today, and you’ll go to class without the sweet feeling of caffeine on your system?”, he said teasingly.

“Ha. Ha. Not remotely funny Myles.”

He went to make Ava’s coffee, while the she took a seat in a stool. Ava was what you’d called, a normal girl. She finished high school with good grades (not perfect, but pretty good) and now, she was at her final year of studying Literature at a University close to home. She was four years younger than Myles, but the two of them really hit it off two years ago, when she found this little coffee shop that was conveniently five minutes from her classes. Nothing ever happened between them, but they felt comfortable around each other. They have talked many hours when Ava was taking break from studying or when Myles didn’t have any customers and he decided to annoy her while she was trying to write an essay. That’s how she found out that the funniest guy she knew, didn’t like the most fun day of all: April’s Fool.

Myles’ shift went by smoothly; not too many customers, some alone time to enjoy one of his books and his co-worker arrived at 2:00 pm to replace him. Andy was a good kid. His dad own the coffee shop and he was working some shifts for some extra allowance.

“I can take it from here Myles. Now, you go… do whatever is you do this day.”

“See you tomorrow Andy!”

“Oh, didn’t my father tell you? You don’t work tomorrow.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know man,”, Andy muffled, “he said something about a discussion and some new barista he met.”

Myles face must have been like a sad puppy’s, because Andy couldn’t carry the joke much longer.

“Ha! April’s Fool! Got you, didn’t I?”

Myles face twisted from sad to angry in a matter of seconds. Obviously irritated with Andy’s laugh, he made a way for the door with a quick pace. His mood was ruined for the next couple of hours, that was certain.

After an hour of good sleep and a shower, the young boy was ready for his true meaning of the day. Helping the others. He got a text from Ava that she was free for the day and bored, so he sent her an address and told her to meet him there.

“Why are we in a Hospital?”, Ava asked very confused.

“Because, today is volunteer day and we are doing exactly that.”

Inside the building, a bunch of people were gathered in front of the reception desk, waiting to be assigned of their chores. After completing some forms, Ava got hers too. Luckily, she had a lot in common with Myles. On of them was entertain the kids, so when the time came, the two of them were ready to put some hand – puppets and put on a show. Not long after the first seconds of their reenactment of the “Wizard of Oz”, the kids were laughing. That was good. They were supposed to make them laugh. But now, they were laughing again, without them do anything too funny. Maybe they were laughing too much. The “wicked witch of the East” excused herself and Myles took a peek of their wooden little scene. Apparently, some kids had given the show a new title, because “The Dumbest Show” was now written in a piece of paper underneath Dorothy and her three companions.

Myles just took off and let Ava finish the story. It didn’t go very well, but she managed. She found him in the parking lot after several minutes, fuming silently.

“What is it Myles?”

“What is what?”

“With you and the pranks. With your whole I – am – too – good – for– that – holiday act.”

He opened his mouth in a try to respond, but he just swallowed the upcoming words and he got in his car instead.

“Come on.”, he nodded her to get in the car. “We still have somewhere to be before the day ends.”

It was, now, 6:00 o’clock in the afternoon and Myles parked his car in front of an old building.

“I give up. I don’t know where are we, and I don’t know why.”, Ava sighed.

“You’ll see.”

They entered the building, that was actually more like a restaurant in the inside and a warm smile spread across Ava’s lips.

“A homeless shelter”, she whispered.

“Yeah. Specifically, common meals for the homeless. Come on, we got dishwash duty on Thursdays.”

They spend their entire afternoon washing dishes and sometime serving some people. Some of them actually new Myles and they had lovely chats, getting to know Ava too.

“Hey kid!”

“What is it Pete?”, Myles wondered as the middle-aged man came his way with his bowl in his hands.

“There’s a darn fly inside my soup!”

“What?! How?”, the young boy panicked as the entire soup from that pot could be infected.

“Ha! You should have seen your face Myles! Priceless. No one fell for that prank anymore.”

With Pete laughing, Myles forced a polite smile and excused himself as he went to take a break. Ava joined him not a minute later, and she sat beside him in the stairs of the back door.

“I’m going to be honest with you Myles. You are a great guy. I really admire you; for making your own money to start a small business; for living alone away from your home; for everything that I saw today! But I don’t know what to make out of you. You are so closed to yourself about your actual life and all that vendetta you have going on for this specific holiday. I mean, why?”

Ava just said all that in a breath’s second. As she seemed to get no answer, she got up to leave.

“My birthday.”, Myles barely said out loud, making his only friend turned to face him again.

“What about your birthday?”

“Today’s my birthday.”