Weed Boss, Broccoli, and Random Squatting

Oscar woke up early this Sunday morning. He noticed the radio wasn’t blasting upbeat country music like it did every other Sunday when Mum makes pancakes. Is Mum still sleeping? That's a first! What if I make the pancakes today! He had never actually made pancakes before, but how hard could it be? I just need a recipe. At that same moment he noticed that there was a piece of paper next to him on the kitchen counter. Huh, lucky me. He grabbed the recipe and went out to get the ingredients.

Mrs. Tiller was already working in the garden. She had been a little strange for as long as Oscar remembered, but she was always nice to him, so he didn’t mind. He noticed Mrs. Tiller was squatting and standing up, over and over again. Hm, maybe she has added a little bit of exercise to her gardening.

"Good morning, Mrs. Tiller!"

She got up and turned to Oscar - moving stiffly. "Good morning, dear!"

"Are you exercising?" Oscar couldn’t hold back his curiosity.

"Oh, no, I’m planting and replanting. I want to get to the next level in gardening."

"Next level?"

"Well, yes,” she explained as she grabbed a head of broccoli from her pocket and started munching. "I want to beat the Weed Boss this year."

"Good luck with that! I guess..." Is she getting even weirder with age...?

Mr. Duncan across the street put his daughter in the car seat. He closed the door and... jogged the two steps from the back door to the driver’s door. Is that really faster? And now he’s jogging in place like he wants to go through the car. Is he okay?

His eyes fixed on Mr. Duncan — Oscar bumped into a man on the sidewalk. The man was wearing a neon vest and holding a notebook.

"I’m sorry," said Oscar quickly.

"Hey, you there!" said the man, waving overly enthusiastically. A couple walking past him had to duck awkwardly to avoid him. Oscar looked around and behind him and before he could open his mouth, the man continued, "Yes, you! I’ve been waiting for you! I’ve got an important quest for you, my friend!"

"Um, quest?"

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Collect 10 missing socks around town and return them to me!"

"A quest to find lost socks?"

"Yes, the townspeople don’t know, but there’s a sock thief on the loose, and only you can stop him! Find the socks and level up!"

"Sure, sure. Okay, I’ll look for your socks," agreed Oscar, hoping this would help him get rid of this lunatic.

"Here’s your map! Good luck!" said the neon-vest man a little too loudly as he pulled a huge folded-up map from between his notebook pages. How did it fit there? It’s ten times bigger than the notebook...

Oscar grabbed the map and hurried away, glancing back - the man stood frozen like a statue.

He crossed the street and walked toward the store behind three women. They looked stiff and robotic, walking in perfect synchrony as if they’d rehearsed it before. Right before getting to the other side of the street, the three of them stumbled, all at once, together, perfectly in sync.

The whole town looked strange today. Oscar felt like he had been sucked into a made-up world. He upped the pace to get it over with and go home. Running past a shop window, he caught a glimpse of himself – he looked just like Mr. Duncan had earlier. Stiff, hunched and his feet just gliding above the ground, like a weird video game glitch. He looked around him more carefully. A man in a suit was jogging the same way, then randomly jumping and squatting down. He pulled a head of broccoli from his pocket and devoured it. Another man behind him took a bike from his backpack and just pedaled away.

I'm sorry, am I the only one seeing this!?

Oscar, trying to get away from this madness, darted toward the store, but then everything froze — black and white.

He blinked, and he was back at the street corner where he had seen the three women stumble, as if nothing had happened. No hunching, no tiredness - he was full of energy and the colours were back.

"What just happened?" Oscar asked loudly, more to himself than anyone else.

"You have to eat the broccoli," said a kid’s voice behind him.

"What?" was all that Oscar got out of his mouth.

"You have to eat the broccoli. It gives you energy. Your stamina bar hit the red right there in the middle of the street, and you got hit by a bus."

"I... what? Got hit by a bus? That’s not possible. I should have died then."

"But you did. And then you respawned at the last save point—which, for you, was this corner. You pressed that streetlight button earlier and it lit up, remember? That’s a save point."

The dizziness started to take over.

"I don’t have any broccoli," said Oscar, looking at the kid who was trying to explain the madness.

"Of course you do! And by earning Energy Points from completing Food Missions, you can get more!" Oscar shoved his hand into the small jeans pocket that had been too small to fit his phone and pulled out an entire head of broccoli. HOW!?

"But don’t eat it now! You’ll just waste it. Your energy is full after respawning," the kid said, pointing above Oscar's head. "You should see a green stripe there, you have to eat when it’s orange or red, meaning not full."

"Aha..." said Oscar, now with a cheeky grin. "If those are the rules here, I’m more than familiar with them!"