Random Man, a Novella

By Owen Thomas

Zoe has new job. Managing a superhero with random powers is hard enough. Decoding the secret structure of existence is going to be a real challenge.

Zoe Alexakis is starting a new job. Working in the movie business has always been a dream. She should feel lucky. She does feel lucky. She does. Really.

Working as an assistant to the script coordinator for a Hollywood production company may not be what she imagined (it is, in fact, a long way from what she had imagined) but she is at least in the front door, rubbing shoulders with actors and directors. Zoe’s first project is to guard against script discrepancies on a blockbuster movie production about a new superhero: Random Man. It is a difficult assignment, for Random Man is not your typical superhero: an insurance agent who, having accidentally grabbed the business end of a molecular randomizer, now finds himself with a collection of superpowers he can neither predict nor control. One minute he can fly, the next minute he cannot. Super strength, speed, vision, the works, all randomly available until, suddenly, they are not available. How then does one go about enforcing consistency in a script about a man who epitomizes inconsistency and unpredictability on a heroic scale?

And yet, the Random Man script is the least of Zoe’s problems. Far more pressing is her need to decode the secret structure of existence. Her options include luck, destiny, self-determination, divinity and, yes, randomness, all battling it out for dominance on Zoe’s bus commute to and from the studio. Who’s to say, really, although there are plenty of datapoints in Zoe’s life with some persuasive influence, including her dead twin sister; a seemingly immortal cat named Lucky; Dr. Ayaan Patel, the Indian self-help guru bubbling advice through her earbuds; Charley, the stylish force-of-nature that is her mentor-employer; the Schrödinger’s box of Zoe’s Los Angeles apartment; the potbellied, potato-faced convenience store clerk selling lottery tickets; Paul, the actor cast in the role of Random Man who seems to have lost control of his eyebrows; and Dexter, the thief holding Zoe’s stolen luggage for the ransom of information about her day.

So, yes, Zoe feels lucky. But is she? That, actually, is the problem.

While it is available for purchase separately, "Random Man" is also included in a larger work of short fiction by Owen Thomas entitled "This is the Dream."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Owen Thomas
• Release date: Oct 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737737650

Book preview

Random Man

A novella

Owen Thomas

The characters and events portrayed in this novella are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Text copyright © 2021, 2022 OTF Literary, Anchorage, Alaska

Author Website: http://OwenThomasLiterary.com

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

The novella Random Man is included in the larger work of short fiction This is the Dream, by Owen Thomas, Copyright 2021, OTF Literary.

ISBN:  978-1-7377376-5-0

OTF Literary, Anchorage, Alaska.

RANDOM MAN

Ten bubbles, full of lead.

Twice a week makes one-thousand-forty bubbles a year.

She fills each of them slowly, perfectly, at the same gas station, a block from the bus stop. Every Monday. Every Friday. Something about the continuity is reassuring.

The kiosk in the back of the Gas-n-Go is often out of the stubby red pencils. She always brings her own. She does not like leaving things to chance.

The grizzled, potbellied, potato-faced man is behind the counter where he belongs. He gives her his usual sideways smile. She has never known his name. Most of the people we know are nameless.

He receives the ticket from the machine, using two hands, like it’s extruding a wide, thin strip of pasta. He puts it on the counter and slides it across with a dirty finger. Like always. He shakes his head in amusement.

Same numbers, he says. He’s phlegmy from smoking. Every time with the same numbers. Good luck, kid. Maybe this is the one, yeah?

Zoe smiles a little and shrugs. She folds the paper slip in the same old way and puts it in her right, front pants pocket where it belongs. The sun is low and red. No more bouncing off the pavement. It just comes right on in through the windows and paints everything with its dying syrup. Potbelly potato-face is garrulous today.

I mean, look, he says, odds are one day these numbers are going to match. Yeah? Has to happen eventually. Has to.

It’s the same motley assortment at the bus stop. Nothing in common except the scoliotic posture of cellphone addiction; standing, heads bowed, as the light drains out of the Los Angeles basin and the darker, heavier dusk rises up over the tops of their shoes and then past their ankles. The bus will arrive when the rooftop shadow line is between the knee and the hip. Never fails.

She gets a window seat today, which almost never happens. She takes it as an auspicious sign. Seems fitting that she’d get a window on the day she picks winning lottery numbers. Seems fitting that when a day breaks your way, the whole thing breaks your way, right down to the seat on the bus.

She fishes the headphones out of her backpack. Ayaan Patel, PhD, will carry her the rest of the way home, trying his best to convince her that all experience is the product of choice, however unconscious. Happenstance is a disguise. Happiness is Erwin Schrödinger’s cat, waiting in a dark box. Same with despair. Same with fortune and destitution and loneliness and love and life and death. 

Hell of a pet, this cat. Always in a dark box.

Dr. Patel is Bangladeshi. His words are light, rubbery sounds. They bounce off the oncoming traffic like small rubber balls. Even when he talks about death.

Especially when he talks about death.

She did some research. Dr. Patel’s first name, Ayaan, means good luck.

Her apartment has been holding its breath for thirteen hours. She drops her shoulder, sliding her pack down her arm into the chair, and then makes the rounds, opening all three windows. The traffic below pushes in new air.

These first few moments home, wading through the same medium of stillness, always provoke momentary longings for a cat. Just for some continuity of purpose. Someone to wait patiently for her to arrive and to fill a need. Food. Milk. Affection. Someone whose anticipation has a name: Zoe.

Someone to stir the air while she is gone.

But the air is unstirred. She wants to ask Dr. Patel what