The Writing Habit

This short story is based on the following writing prompt from reddit:

You wake up one morning to find that you have become an Intergalactic Emperor

The sun hitting my face slowly forced me out of bed. With dread I looked at my watch and saw that I would be late yet again. Why did it always feel so good to hit the snooze button over and over again? These thoughts seemed to be part of my morning routine – just the same as having a shower and brushing my teeth.

What seemed strange this morning was the small bearded man who greeted me on my way out of the bathroom. If it wasn’t for his size I may have felt intimidated standing with only a towel around my waist staring at an intruder.

I didn’t get a chance to get a word in before the little man puffed out his chest and bellowed “I, Nilen Havtov the IV of the planet Vunlar of quadrant 3453 declare you, Dave Snide, the 8,746,235th emperor of the federation of galaxies of the near green cluster.”

I must admit that it took me nearly a minute of laughing to pinpoint that this must have been the work of Nick. I had got him pretty bad at Pete’s party but he really outdid himself with this prank, I wonder how he managed to get the key to my apartment?

I brushed by the dwarf on my way to the kitchen counter and started to pour myself a box of cereal. “Tell Nick that you scared the shit out of my then nearly made me die laughing. Also, did you improvise that or did he tell you to say that? Either way it was funny as hell. Would you like some cereal?”

The short man’s forehead creased as his face turned into one of disgust. “This is why I always say not to gift the position to a non connected planet… but they never listen.”

“Hey my friend no need to be upset, you really did get me good. I’ve got cornflakes or cheerios if you’re hungry. It’s actually pretty early to be pulling off this kind of prank.”

After closing his eyes for a minute in frustration while I crunched away on cheerios the man finally seemed to gain the energy to respond. “Mr. Snide, as a member of a non connected planet it is often difficult to adjust to your new position. Generally I would ease you into your new reality but I rather don’t have the patience today so we’ll get right to it.”

With that he grabbed out of his pocket a small black cube and placed it on the ground. When the portal, I don’t know what else to call it, opened in my living room I suddenly was standing in front of dozens of people. Well it’s hard to call them people, they were of all different shapes, sizes and colors.

My cereal dropped to the ground as I dashed for the privacy of my room, doing my best to make sure that my towel stayed intact… since I’m not sure my mind had.