text: It happened in an instant, in less time than it takes to blink. One moment I was just going down the road, minding my own business, trying to act "normal" (whatever that means) so people around me wouldn't feel discomfited. The next, I was deader than dead. Minding my own business... nothing unusual; been doing it all my life. I believe experts call it "masking." On days like that I thanked all past, present, and future gods us humans aren't telepaths. If people took a peek inside my head at any given moment, they'd do any, some, even all of the following: \*. Zone out and/or fall asleep from utter boredom. \*. Have an aneurysm through the whole of their nervous system. \*. Run away crying to their mamas. I've always been unusual, at least according to most people. When I was a kid, Mom would claim my brain was "wired differently" from everyone else's, which is why I was so "peculiar," as she'd put it. As for me, I never quite understood why people thought me "weird" or "different." At any rate, *they* were the ones who deviated from the so-called norm. I'm a simple kind of guy: if I have something to say, I say it with the least number of words possible, then move on once I'm certain my message's been picked up and acted upon accordingly. Likewise, I only need to listen to a statement once in order to comprehend and act as required. On the other hand, most "normies" I've come across need to have things repeated to them at least twice, and even then they're bound to screw up some way or other. Gave me no end of grief growing up, having to speak to freaking grown-ups as if they were toddlers. Some of them got real mad and tanned my hide with their stinking bells. If they'd spend half the time they waste drinking, having one-night stands, and buying junk becoming aware of their surroundings and using those oversized heads of theirs to think for a change, I wouldn't have to debase myself like this. Apologies. Seems I've gone a bit off-topic. Happens all the time. I've been alone most of my life. Mom and Dad were busy working most of the time, so they'd ditch me over at Grandma's when I was an infant. Not that I blame them; I'd ditch me too, if I had the chance. Twenty-odd years or so I carried on like this, doing my utmost to avoid all the usual "triggers," steering clear of people who'd bend my ear if they spotted me rounding a corner. "Smile and wave," Mom used t'say, smile and wave. Don't let them see it, how much they drain you, tax you, vex you, test the limits of that pittance of patience you were allotted with at birth, almost like an afterthought. Don't let them see how much you hate it when they think they can hold you up for hours at an end just because you grew up around them, how much they aggravate you when they believe they can do or say anything to you and get away with it. Smile and wave; smile and wave; wave and smile; wave-smile-and; smile-wave-and/or etc., etc. Point is, I'd had a real lousy day. I'd been having significant trouble sleeping for the past coupla months; my boss had been on my case lots more than usual. Also had to put up with this jock I knew from school, an insufferable little toady who went from dark-haired Adonis to middle-aged washed-up rugby coach in a coupla years. For some reason or other, guy believed ten-plus years of torment and humiliation could be magically wiped away with a tepid "I'm sorry"; after that uninspired sham of a spectacle, he wouldn't stop chatting me up for money or some other nonsense. To think I came perilously close to losing my temper. I wanted to yell at him, tell him to take his uninspired sob stories and sell them to anyone rich, bored, ignorant enough to buy them, but dealing with the aftermath of that would've proven an even bigger waste of time and energy. People, man... you keep explaining yourself to them over and over again with polite language; everything you say goes in one ear, out the other. If you throw a fit, however, they no longer forget: they mark you for life. They call you "difficult," "grouchy," "ornery," "temperamental," "antisocial," all two or three terms that comprise what passes for vocabulary in those mite-filled heads of theirs. Moral of the story: when all else fails, give 'em a tongue-lashing. You may get beaten up or yelled at, but they won't dismiss you so readily from then on. Damn, I did it again! Digressions, man... Uncle Paul said I should've become a lawyer, like him. Back to the day I died. Long story short, I got run over by a speeding vehicle. Don't remember size, make, or any such significant details, save that it was dark red bordering on burgundy. Might as well have been a comet, seeing how it sped by. My whole body was broken, on (figurative) fire for all of a few minutes, then I drifted away and that was that. Didn't even get to shut my eyes beforehand. When I next blinked, I was at... a stable? I figured it had to be one, with the procession of steeds coming and going and whatnot. Strangely enough, those stallions bore six legs rather than the usual four. I looked around everywhere. My surroundings were more than a bit off, to say the least. They seemed "ordinary" enough at surface level, but if you looked close enough you'd realize something wasn't quite kosher, so to speak. "I've been kidnapped!" I said to myself. "I'd better bail before I--" "Good of thee to awaken, young warrior!" A boisterous male voice boomed, echoes reverberating through my wiry frame. Before me stood an elderly man with a white beard, clad in a robe. Wielding a walking staff on the left hand, the visitor bid me follow him outside. We emerged in a torchlit courtyard connecting the stables with the rest of that citadel. The old man insisted I accompanied him some more; I didn't have it in me to refuse. At last we reached a banquet hall of sorts, filled to the brim with burly warriors from all across the Universe, if the countless races and species I beheld were anything to go by. The old man spoke to me again: "I have many names, Young Sir. Thy fellow mortals call me "Odin," among countless others. "Odin!?" I all but froze. At long last my brain caught up with the rest of me. Those weird horses, that strange pack of wolves chasing after strange golden and silvery objects... this place could only be... "Valhalla... the ancient hall of slain warriors!? This... this must be some kind of mistake!" "'Tis no mistake, Young Sir. Hadst thou proved unworthy, thou wouldst not be here." "Worthy!? Worthy of what!? I-I'm just a nerd, a stinking geek! The only battles I've ever fought were against bullies from my old high school, and *those* didn't end well!" "Do not disparage thyself. I and mine have kept thorough chronicles of thine endless struggles against fear and despair, the first and final enemies of Man, from which all others foes are born." "Fear and despair? You mean... depression? Y-Yeah, it's true; had it all my life. Don't see how it makes me worthy of Valhalla, though." "Thou didst fall and stumble, yet thou relented not. Many a day thou couldst have carved thyself thy final rest through bane, noose, or bodkin, yet thou didst none such thing." I thought back on the worst days of my life. That time I was invited to join a fraternity in college, only for them to haze me, kick me square in the nuts, toss me into the mud, and walk away laughing. That time I asked my best friend Lenny out for that stupid school dance, only for him to punch me in the face and get out of my life altogether. That time I did nearly all the work as part of a research team and the head researcher passed it off as his. God, I bawled my eyes out for months! The fact that waste of space got caught and lost his job, titles and awards ten years later wasn't as gratifying as I'd hoped, though. The night I came out to my folks, only for them to tell me to pack my things, leave, and never return. Those fifteen minutes I sat at the railroad... my closest brush with death yet, till now, that is. So I took my seat among such beauteous warriors (the females were quite the lookers, too), ate and drank my fill. I've been here ever since, training, honing my skills. Little do the living know Ragnarök is upon us. Chances are I'll run into my parents, my so-called friends, that day. Good thing their blood isn't worth spilling... \ Originally written for r/WritingPrompts. OG Prompt: "You have lived an unimpressive life, and died an unimpressive death. Surprisingly, Odin welcomes you into Valhalla, citing the many battles with depression you fought.