Three hours ago, Laurence had an idea. Start a law firm, and get rich. Like all those fancy suit-wearing lawyers on tv. The big question though, was how to get paid. Laurence was lounging on his checkered couch scrolling through the internet for an answer. So far, eighteen Johnny Depp memes and headlines, four shit posts, and a research paper on the credibility of snake charming. Google had no proper answer, other than fuck off and join a firm and some vague marketing ideas. As if he had the money to afford an ad campaign.
Faced with such resistance, Laurence promptly gave up and returned to browsing Reddit memes. The temperature of his flat started dropping as the sun began setting. Freezing but too lazy to do anything about it, Laurence opened a Minecraft mod launcher with all the Shaders, hoping that his laptop overheating would prevent frostbite. Instead, all he got was a "Minecraft.exe not responding." message before his laptop closed on its own.
Thankfully, the laptop continued to overheat, warming Laurence's thighs and providing some form of comfort in troubled times. Laurence spammed the power button hopelessly as his boredom rapidly grew. As Laurence struggled to turn his laptop on so he could go back to ignoring his life collapsing, a delivery guy was speeding towards his apartment complex.
After a few minutes of failure, Laurence cuddled with his warm laptop and fell asleep, muttering "It'll sort itself out.". An hour passed of peaceful napping before the sound of footsteps entered his apartment. Outside Laurence's black door, a delivery guy stood holding a large package. At first, he knocked but Laurence slept through it. Ringing the doorbell once didn't wake him up either. "Hey, you in here?" shouted the delivery guy, his rectangular mustache that resembled a certain Austrian painter's shaking.
Laurence's eyes snapped open as the scream entered his ears. Unlike what he expected, he wasn't experiencing sleep paralysis and the demon that should have been glaring at him was missing. "What the hell.", grumbled Laurence as he tried gaining control of his limbs. The bell rang twice again, followed by more knocking. "I'm coming, chill.", Laurence shouted as he slipped out of his checkered couch and onto the floor.
After a bit of waddling, Laurence made his way to the door and looked through the eyehole. Seeing a man that looked like Hitler holding a brown cardboard box made him chuckle. After confirming it wasn't his landlord, Laurence unlocked the door and pulled it open. The bright white hallway light temporarily blinded him and caused him to stumble backward.
"You high?" asked the delivery guy angrily. "What?" replied Laurence a bit confused as his eyes adjusted to the lighting. "Just don't fuck this up." said the delivery guy before handing the package to Laurence. Still a bit confused, Laurence took the package from the guy with the Hitler mustache and shut the door with his leg.
His arms buckled under the weight of the package. He wobbled to his coffee table and set the package down while panting. Laurence remembered the knocking earlier in the day and assumed that it was the delivery guy as well. But what exactly had arrived? The only things that hadn't arrived were some mystical shrooms from the Netherlands, a limited edition Shrek tv, and a foot-tall statue of Danny DeVito.
"DeVito, is that you?" asked Laurence to the ten-kilogram package. Before he could confirm if it was DeVito, his laptop was upside down on the checkered couch finally restarted. Drawn to the blue light like a fly, Laurence gravitated back to it. The package lay on the coffee table unopened and forgotten.
A few blocks away at a Kebab stand, the delivery guy peacefully ate shawarma. The soft Lavash bread and the garlic sauce were one of the few things supporting his mental health. He'd spent thirteen hours moving package after package. Now he was free though, for eight hours. In a day or two, his routine would normalize, which was all he had to look forward to. He took another bite of the shawarma and smiled as the flavors burst in his mouth.
His brown jacket kept the wind out of his chest but not out of his face. He blinked rapidly to prevent his eyes from drying out and clutched the paper-wrapped shawarma tightly. The bench he sat on had a twin on which a few construction guys sat, also enjoying the mysterious delicacy made by Abdul Al Tah, a Syrian immigrant who was a wizard when it came to food. As he was enjoying his food, his cell phone rang.
The delivery guy swallowed, pulled the cell phone out of his pocket, and answered the call. "Hello?" said the delivery guy cautiously. "John, damn it you were supposed to deliver it today!" replied the caller with venom in his voice. "Seth? What are you talking about I gave the package to the scrawny pale guy at the address you gave me," replied John, the delivery guy. "What scrawny guy? Rodrigo is muscle-bound.", said Seth abruptly.
"Shit.", muttered John silently. "God dammit John, you know full well how important these first few months are, why didn't you confirm the address!" roared Seth. "Never mind, don't answer that, just get the package back and we'll talk about this later.", said Seth before hanging up. John might have messed up big time. Big time enough to get a bullet in his skull.
John shut the burner and put it back in his pocket before getting up and walking to the stand. The Kebab stand was pretty normal. The usual "Best Doner" stickers, an assortment of grills, microwaves, fryers, and sauces. In the stand, a man grilled some beef while taking French fries out of the fryer. "Hey Abdul, give me two chicken shawarmas to go, and uh, a box of fries.", said John to the bearded apron-wearing man turning some beef on a spit over.
"Ok boss, you want extra sauce?" replied Abdul as he turned to face John, a permanent smile on his face present as always. "Yes please.", answered John while reaching into his left pocket for some cash. Abdul returned to his grill and gestured to John that it would take five minutes. John took out a twenty dollar note and stared at the moon as he waited for Abdul to finish with his sorcery.
"Done boss.", said Abdul as he set the shawarmas and fries on the stand's counter. "You want a bag, boss?" asked Abdul as he de-spit the beef kebab he had been making. John nodded while handing Abdul the twenty. Abdul pulled a bag out of thin air and stuffed the food into it and gave it to John before lifting his hand and telling him to wait.
While Abdul turned his back to John and was doing something, John was planning on breaking into Laurence's apartment. The building itself, Denutes Tower was five stories tall. John had been given a simple address, sixth block, road 939, fourth floor. The main entrance had security cameras, but the hallways didn't. There were three flats per floor, and the elevator opened into a T-shaped hall. Laurence's flat was on the left. The door wasn't very thick by the knocking sound. Breaking the door would be easy, but would cause too much noise. Picking the lock was an option, but getting in wasn't the problem. Dealing with the scrawny NEET inside was.
Abdul turned to face John again and gave him an aluminum foil wrapping. "There are three kebabs inside the box, on the house, as my mother said, good meat fixes all problems.", said Abdul with a serious expression. John felt extremely touched as he took the hot foil and put it in the plastic bag. "Abdul, thank you.", said John before walking to his 1997 grey Honda Civic.
He stood outside the left door and finished the shawarma before getting inside. He softly placed the bag on the right seat and started the car engine up. He opened the glovebox and pulled out a leather satchel. He opened it and a Glock G43 greeted him. He loaded the magazine and put the Glock in his left pocket. Looks like work got extended.
Laurence meanwhile had finished a three-hour Minecraft session. He had successfully established a slave colony to provide him with sustenance and got two diamonds. Feeling his body cramp up, Laurence set the overheating laptop aside and stretched his arms, leading to several pops as his limbs were finally used. His stomach grumbled again, which he promptly ignored. His wallet couldn't afford anything anymore.
He'd even removed his couch cushion to find those seven to eight dimes he would randomly lose, only to find that they hadn't respawned. In an attempt to cope, he opened up YouTube again. He scanned the eight home page videos for anything interesting and his eyes zeroed in on a video called, "The Mississippi money launderer". Seeing that it had 2834 views in only eighteen minutes since it was released, Laurence clicked play.
Elton White had laundered several million dollars using actual laundromats and had gotten away with it for twelve years. He'd been sentenced to jail for about three decades and had refused to rat out his employers. He'd had a secret family as well. A pretty interesting person to be sure. The mini-documentary ended, leaving Laurence without something to distract him. He took a break from the laptop screen and looked around his apartment. He would shiver occasionally as the temperature dropped below 15 degrees Celsius.
Laurence's vision returned to the laptop and he decided to check his email. Expecting the usual junk, Laurence was surprised to see an email from the delivery company. Thinking it was an email confirming the successful delivery of his Danny statue, Laurence opened it to skim through for details on why it was several months late.
Contrary to his expectations, the email informed him that one of their personnel had tried delivering him the Danny DeVito statue but he hadn't been at home. Laurence felt a cold tinge rise in his spine. He looked up from the laptop and spotted the cardboard box on his coffee table.
Thoroughly confused, Laurence put the laptop down and walked to the box. No delivery address sticker on the tape. Laurence stared at the box for a few moments. Something was wrong, he could feel it. Laurence decided to open the package. If it was a pipe bomb sent to him by the guy that doxed him a month ago, so be it.
Laurence struggled with the tape but was able to find the edge and pulled. It ripped off satisfyingly. Laurence opened the flaps and froze as he saw what was inside. What greeted him were several bricks of a certain illegal crystal substance. He was fucked now.