Dog Shit

        Richard froze at the sight of the dog taking a shit on his lawn. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this before he thought to himself. Richard slowly took a sip of his coffee as he stared out the window. Well, this is a shitty start to the day amiright? He looked around for the dog’s owner but there was no one in sight. Richard sighed and made his way over to the front door to go shoo the dog away and clean up the present he’d just received. Richard swung the door open and was surprised to find that the dog had already disappeared. He looked around and saw nothing, dog or human, walking around. Now that he thought about it, it was really quiet this morning. He hadn’t seen any cars drive by nor any sign of neighbors going about their business.

              Reaching the spot were the dog had been shitting on his lawn, Richard found nothing there. He frowned and looked around, his lawn looked as ugly as ever but there wasn’t any shit, dog or otherwise, in sight. Richard shook his head and went inside, maybe it really is time to go see that psychiatrist that Debby mentioned, he thought to himself. Richard quickly dressed himself for work, making sure to tuck his pants into his socks of course, wouldn’t want to make that embarrassing mistake again.

              Richard’s ride to work was uneventful other than the cop that almost pulled him over for not running the red light. Richard floored it as soon as he realized the light was about to turn red, but the cop still passed him, flipping him off as he drove by. Those freakin road pirates, you slow down for an instant and they’ll get ya.

              Richard finally pulled into work, slapping the security guard across the face as he strolled into the building to assert dominance. The guard nodded and lowered the baton he’d been holding. Then the guard turned to the next guy in line who was patiently awaiting his turn to slap the guard. Richard walked over to the elevators and pushed the button. He waited patiently as a commotion broke out behind him. He didn’t turn to look, it was an everyday occurrence, someone’s pimp hand must’ve been too weak.

              The door to the elevator opened with a ding and Richard strolled in. Inside his best friend, Jacob was waiting, his eyes half closed as he evidently struggled to stay awake.

“Sup Hoe!” Richard greeted as he socked him in the stomach.

“Sup Bitch!” Jacob managed to blurt out as he viciously kicked Richard behind the knees.

“How long have you been here this time?”

“Oh, you know how it is, I’ve been in this elevator for 33 hours now.”

“Yikes, when you going home?”

Jacob glanced down at his wrist, there wasn’t a watch there. “Damn it! That bastard Joe stole my watch!”

Richard grimaced “That sucks, man. I’ll tell Debby to control her assistant when I see her.”

And with that, the elevator opened again and Richard strolled over to his office. Strange Richard thought could’ve sworn I’d already had that conversation. Richard opened the door to see Debby already there, shredding some paper.

“What up buttercup?” Richard asked sitting down in his chair behind the desk.

“Oh, hi Richard, I’m just getting an early start on shredding your orders for the day.”

“Oh good, fuck those guys. By the way I needed to talk to you about something. I heard that Joe’s being an asshole to the wrong people, my friends, and I need you to tell him that my people are off limits. He can go steal from Greg’s people if he needs some new stuff.”

“Yes sir! I’ll tell him that straight away!” Debby turned to leave but Richard stopped her.

“Wait, finish shredding those orders first. I don’t want to accidentally read them and get an idea of what the ‘CEO’ wants.”

Debby nodded and continued her work. Richard booted up his computer and started working on his plans for domination. Richard was about to add something to phase 3 but stopped. It was already there. He frowned, looked at Debby, then looked back at the word document. The part he wanted to add was gone. What the-

“Debby, has anyone been in my office since the last time I was here?”

“No sir, the auto turret has full ammo and hasn’t been tampered with as of 4:33 this morning, which is when I got here.”

“Hmm, I keep getting this strange sense of… what’s that stupid thing called? Deeja poo? No, that’s not…”

“Déjà vu, sir?”

“Yeah, that’s the one! I wonder if someone’s somehow doing this to me… maybe that old man needs to be taught that lesson again…” Richard trailed off.

“Y’know, I know this really good psychiatrist, Billy Brainguy, who’s really good at determining if you’re being mentally attacked or just plain going crazy!” Debby said with way too much cheer. “He’s over on-“

“123 asshole street.” Richard interrupted.

“Yep! You know him?”

“Nope. Debby, I’m going out, make sure no one stops the elevator on this floor. If they do, you know what to do.”

              Debby saluted as Richard left his office, making his way back towards the elevator. The wait was shorter this time and the doors opened after only a couple of seconds. Jacob was still standing there and looked at Richard quizzically.

“I’ll fill you in later. But don’t worry I told Debby to handle the situation with…” Richard trailed off as he caught sight of the gleaming Rolex on Jacob’s wrist.

“What situation? You doing alright Richard?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I just gotta get some stuff done. I’ll fill you in once I get something figured out”

              The elevator dinged open again and Richard rushed out, leaving a confused and concerned Jacob behind. As Richard hurried over to the exit, he almost forgot to pants the security guard on the way out. That would’ve been disastrous.

              Richard jumped into his car and peeled out of the parking lot. Richard floored it and ignored everything else around him until he made it to 123 asshole street. Slamming on the brakes, Richard left his car running as he swung open the door to the psychiatrist’s place. The psychiatrist was already talking to someone but Richard instantly recognized them as a pleb. Richard walked over to them and told them to scram. The pleb looked at Richard’s crest and immediately booked it out the door. The psychiatrist looked over at him and smiled.

“Ah finally, a customer who can actually pay! What can I do for you my good man?”

“I need to figure out if I’ve been attacked.”

“Right this way.”

              The man showed Richard to a dark metal chair with straps. Next to it was a stand that held various knives, needles, and a ray gun. Richard sat down on the chair and looking over at the psychiatrist, nodded. The man nodded and backhanded Richard until he passed out.

              When Richard woke up, he found the man studying some papers. The old man didn’t notice that he’d woken up until Richard spoke.

“Well? Are those my results?”

“This? Oh no, this is just one of my fan fictions. Your results were inconclusive. I can tell that you’re not going crazy, at least not at this moment. But I cannot tell whether or not you’re being attacked.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

The psychiatrist shrugged “Your guess is as good as mine, I’ve never seen a test come back as inconclusive before.”

Richard sighed and paid the good man. Leaving the office, he noticed that it was dark outside, damn, how long did that stupid test take? Richard walked over to his still running car and pushed aside the dead body of the fool that had tried to carjack him. Richard debated going back to the office but decided that, before anything else, he needed to figure out what was going on. For that, he’d need his true office, located miles underneath his house.

Richard sped home, the whole time pondering what this could be. Not many had the resources to attack him in such a way as to be undetectable to a psychiatrist. Richard eventually screeched to a stop outside his house and jumped out of the car, still lost in thought. Then, as Richard stepped into the dog shit on his lawn, he understood.