This one was kind of fun. I drew inspiration from an old Seinfeld episode. I think this concept could be quite fun to build into a collection of short adventures for the protagonist.
Your Flawed Protagonist
Today we’re moving on to another element of story: your protagonist
The Prompt
Write a story with the flawed protagonist
<– Write Below This Line –>
Ferris succeeded at everything. Throughout elementary school he was never sick or late to school. The sports teams he played on were always undefeated. The local library had to order books specially for him because he read through the collection so quickly. His parents had never needed to discipline him. Heck rumor is he even potty trained at 9 months, 3 months after he started walking.
Then, in junior high, something strange happened It wasn’t until the first school dance. It didn’t seem strange at the time, at least not to everyone else. Ferris knew something was up though.
Suzy and Connie took him to the dance. Yes, that Suzy and Connie. Even crazier, the captains of the football and basketball teams thought it was great. Like I said, Ferris succeeded at everything.
About halfway through the dance a song came on. Not all that special of a song really, just the latest offering from Third Eye Blind. When it came on Ferris pulled back from dancing with the girls and started to sing along. The DJ swears Ferris did better at it than Stephan Jenkins himself. I’ll believe him since he’s been to one of their concerts. Later in the night he played a different song from the group and the same thing happened. Ferris broke away from the group and put on a performance like no other.
As I said, it didn’t seem strange at the time. That came later. I wasn’t there, but Jerry was. It was the mall a couple weeks later. Ferris was walking by the CD store that Jerry was in. There was a Third Eye Blind song on at the time. Jerry swears up and down that as soon as Ferris was within earshot of the store he suddenly broke out into song!
It took about another month for everyone to figure it out. For some reason whenever Ferris heard a Third Eye Blind song he put on a karaoke performance that would put the lead singer himself to shame. Things is, Ferris succeeded at everything. Had this been any other kid in town they would’ve had random songs from the group played at them every day. For Ferris though, everybody did all they could to shield him from their music.
High school is when it changed. See, in high school Ferris got a job. A retail job.
“Hey there! I’m so excited to have you working with us Ferris.” Mr. Finkleman, Ferris’s boss, showed genuine enthusiasm. “I bet you’ll do great.”
“Thank you sir. I am looking forward to starting my career here at Simon’s.” Ferris looked around at the racks of clothing surrounding him.
“We’re going to start you out with George. He’ll go over the basics with you in this department. In a couple of hours I’ll come get you and we’ll check in with Lucy in home goods. By the end of the week you’ll know where you fit in the Simon’s family.”
Everything was going pretty well for Ferris, but then why wouldn’t it? That is, until Mr. Finkleman brought him to home goods.
“You probably know the layout from shopping here but I’ll give you a bit of a tour on the way. As we leave clothing we pass into the toy section. You’ll notice we have toys running right up to athletics. On the other side here we have electron – wha, what?”
Ferris had torn away from Mr. Finkleman and launched into an amazing rendition of Never Let You go. Try as he might Mr. Finkleman couldn’t seem to get Ferris’s attention.
“Ferris, what was that?”
“What was what? You were just telling me that electronics is here across from toys?”
“The singing, what was with the singing?”
“What singing?”
“You just sang Never Let You Go. I mean, it was great, but it was also inappropriate. I don’t want to see that kind of behavior again.”
“Um. OK? So home goods is right over here isn’t it?”
That’s right, Ferris didn’t know about his condition. Unfortunately for him, retail America wasn’t quite as forgiving as his small town friends. Not 20 minutes later Ferris was belting out Semi-Charmed Life with a floor lamp as a microphone.
Of course, as great as it is to hear about Ferris’s trouble with retail, you should hear about the day he tried to work as a bus driver.