Content with Mediocrity

Content. If Remus needed a word to sum up his life, content would sufficiently work. Nothing was particularly horrible or great. His life could continue the way it was going and he couldn't complain. There were people worse off than him, but there were also people doing much better.

His daily routine was quite simple. He woke up and quickly got ready for work. Even though he worked from home, he somehow never found the time for breakfast. He worked in IT Support for the local hospital, which meant that every day he dealt with a variety of people having issues with one thing or another. He found the job dull. Most of the time he would just ask them to restart their computer and it would fix the issue or end up having to explain how to do something he had assumed everyone would have already known. On a very rare occasion, there would be an actual problem that required him to actually use his skills to fix. Had he really spent 4 years of University on work that he could have done without the degree?

After work, he would order takeaway for his de-facto partner Victoria and himself. Not that he didn't like cooking, but it was more convenient. He had grown a knack for being able to time the delivery to coincide with his partner returning home from her day of work.

While he could excuse his daytime being monotonous due to working a traditional job, he didn't have one for his nightlife. Regardless, it was more or less a set routine as well. Once Tori arrived home they would exchange their daily obligation of asking how each other's day was. That particular conversation was always short-lived, neither wanting to really talk about work that they would be happy to forget. Then the rest of the night would usually be spent watching a tv show or a movie.

Weekends aren't much better. While there was no set routine to follow the work week, it still followed a pattern. One of the weekend days would be spent doing the household chores. The other spent with a part of their social circle, be it family or friends.

*** *******************************************************************

It was one of these weekend mornings that Remus woke up to a small little black book on his chest. It was barely the size of his smartphone. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he slowly picked up the little book. As he opened it a black card fell from inside. It looked like a credit card. Like the book it was black. The Mastercard label and the metallic chip were the only things identifying as what it was.

Remus sat up on his bed and opened the little black book. He flicked through the pages. It was empty except for the three words on the first page.

Own Thy Happiness.

'Tori! What is this?' He yelled. He got out of bed and grabbed the shirt at the end of his bed.

'What is what?!' Tori yelled back.

He followed her voice into the living room to find Tori stretched out on the couch gazing at the TV.

'What is this?' he asked again as he tossed the little black book and the card towards her.

'Ahh!' she screamed, flailing her arms about.

Remus chuckled as the book and the card landed on the couch next to her.

'You're a butt,' Tori huffed as she picked up the and looked at the pair. She flicked through the pages of the book. 'Own thy happiness? What is this? Are you writing a tiny book of motivational quotes?'

'Very funny, but it's not mine,' he replied as he sank next to her on the couch. 'It was on me when I woke up. I thought you gave it to me,' he picked up the remote and started to browse through the available shows.

'Twenty thousand?!' Tori shoved the back of the black card in front of his face. 'Look!' On the bottom left of the card, in grey writing was $20,000.

'Whose is it though?' he took the card out of Tori's hand and scanned the card. 'There's no name or number or anything.'

'Yeah, it’s so strange. How do you even use it?'

'No clue, but with that money, we could make so many things better.'

Tori raised her head and looked directly at Remus. 'What needs to be better?'

Remus looked back at his partner, who was intently looking at him, her eyebrows raised ever so slightly.

'Well.. to start off with I could get a new computer.'

'What would that make better?' she slumped back with a sigh.

'Aw, did you think I meant between us?' he said as he patted her on top of her head. 'Nooo...' she swatted his hand away. 'Well, you didn't answer my question. 'What would you use this for? She took the black card from him and twirled it in her hands.

'You know the desktop I wanted?'

'Hmmm?' she said as she sank back into the couch. 'The one you said was too expensive. The one that was $5000. It really would let me make progress on the game I've been meaning to make.'

A blinding light flashed from behind the couch.

'What was that?' Tori exclaimed.

They both clambered over the back of the couch. They stared in awe as what used to be Remus's work station has been replaced by a state-of-the-art desktop.

'What is even happening?' Remus shouted as he rushed over and turned on the brand new computer. 'Look, Tori, it's already on. My old computer would have taken forever.' He excitedly started exploring his new computer.

'Hey babe, how much did you say this cost?'

'Huh?' he replied as he continued to test out the computer.

'The stupid computer you're using. You said five grand yeah?' She approached him and held the black card in front of his face. 'Look.'

'Hey! I'm busy here,' he tried to look around the card.

'Just look will you,' she said as she moved the car in front of his eyes again.

'Fine.. fine.. fi...' he focused his sight on the card in front of him. 'Fifteen thousand... it changed. How?’ he continued to stare at the card.

‘Ooooh! Try saying you want something else,’ Tori said as she grabbed the card out of his hand and spun around with it.

‘Ummm.. like what?’

Tori stopped moving and looked at him. ‘I know. How about the knife set that we had our eyes on? And the cookware set?’

‘Yeah true, it would help with cooking and stop us getting the same takeaway so often.’

Just as he finished speaking he was forced to cover his eyes as a bright light blinded both of them from the kitchen.

‘No way!’ Tori ran into the kitchen.

Remus scrambled out of his chair and followed her. He walked to see Tori waving a large knife in one hand and a saucepan in the other. ‘It worked,’ he smiled as he walked up to the kitchen bench where he saw the black card. He picked it up and looked at the grey numbers.

‘Fourteen thousand,’

‘I don’t know how or what’s happening. But it is great,’ Tori said gleefully dancing around the kitchen.

Put the knife down before you slice off something,‘ Remus laughed as he ducked away from her.

*** ******************************************************************

An hour later Remus and Tori were back on the couch. Remus held the black card in front of them.

‘Well that’s that,’ Remus said as he stared at the small grey $0 on the card. ‘Guess I’ll put this back with the little book,’ he picked up the book and opened it. ‘Hey, it’s changed.’

Desktop – To help create and be productive

Cookware – To help save and cook

Game Consoles – To help socialise more

Gym Equipment – To become healthy and fit

Long Weekend Holiday – A break to start enjoying life

‘To start enjoying life? I never said I didn’t enjoy my life,’ Remus said as he scratched his head.

‘You have said all of those things before though,’ Tori took the book out of his hand.

‘What do you mean? I’m pretty content with what we have’

‘Well… that is exactly what I mean. Content doesn’t exactly mean happy.’

‘Hmm. I guess so,’ he slumped back into the couch.

‘You actually have said all of this before. You didn’t start on the game you’ve been wanting to make since graduating because you said your computer wasn’t powerful enough. We always make excuses for not cooking because we didn’t have proper cooking stuff.’

‘Yeah, true we did cook a lot more when I was living with the parents.’

‘Mhm. That and not having something to entertain was why we never have anyone over either.’

‘Mmmm. It does feel silly when you put it like that,’ he sighed. ‘I feel even stupider because we complain about not having much of a social life.’

‘Well, now we have no excuse. With all this stuff we’ll be healthier, more social ad happier. No more of this content bullshit,’ Tori threw the little book onto the couch and launched herself at Remus. He caught her in a spin. ‘We start our new happy lives as of this moment.’ She kissed him and they both laughed as they came to a standstill.

‘This is a very good start to this long weekend. Let’s start packing for our getaway,’ he pulled her by the hand towards their bedroom.

The black card flashed and the $0 had changed to 20000 min.

*** *******************************************************************

‘I wish we were waking up back at that cabin instead of here,’ Tori said as she stroke Remus’s hair. He looked up at her and gave her a quick kiss.

‘It really was amazing. What I would do for another twenty thousand,’ Remus chuckled as he sat upon the bed.

‘Let’s make some pancakes for breakie like we did then,’ she jumped off the bed and walked out of the room without waiting for a response.

‘Sounds good,’ he followed her grabbing the shirt at the end of the bed.

He walked down the hallway to find Tori just standing at the doorway to the living room.

‘You okay?’ he asked as he came up behind her.

‘It’s gone.’

He followed her gaze. The living room was exactly the way it had been two weeks ago. He pushed past her and ran to the couch. The game console was missing.

‘Did we get robbed?’ he turned around to face Tori. She shook her head and pointed behind the couch. He turned around and found himself staring at his old workstation. ‘It’s gone,’ he whispered.

He continued to stare. Just as magically as he had gotten his dream computer it was gone. He didn’t move as Tori walked past him and disappeared into the kitchen. He pulled himself out of his trance and followed her.

‘It’s just our old stuff,’ she stood there holding their old blunt knife.

They both just stared at each other.

‘What do we do?’ Remus broke the silence.

‘I don’t kn… wait. Wheres the book?’

Remus eyes opened wide. He rushed back to the living room. ‘Here it is,’ he walked to the coffee table and picked up the little black book. He opened it.

Desktop – Used only for work

Cookware – Used to make one meal

Game Consoles – Used once

Gym Equipment – Used once

Long Weekend Holiday – A break from content

He slumped onto the couch as he finished reading it out loud. He just stared at the page. Tori came up and hugged him from behind. They both gazed at the book as the words changed. They finally understood what it meant.

Own Thy Happiness