Famous
He made it to his car and rode with his sister to his parents’ house. On his way there his voice was being broadcasted everywhere. Nations outside of America knew of Jared. World leaders saw his face. Celebrities dropped their two cents on the matter, either heralding their sympathy or persecuting him as a fraud. People spotted him in the passenger seat. They pointed, waved, and snapped photos. He ignored them at first, but it wasn’t until he saw a father and his young daughter walking down a crosswalk that something changed. The father noticed him and pointed him out to his daughter who couldn’t have been older than four. She saw him and her face lit up. With a tiny white hand she waved at him. Now how was Jared supposed to deny a face like that? He mustered a weak smile and waved back. Through the tempered glass of the windshield he heard the girl laugh.
That was the end of his reclusiveness. Every person who noticed him and pointed got either a nod or a finger gun in return. People who took pictures usually got a big smile or even a tongue, a far cry from the stoneface they had gotten before. When he got out of the car at his parents’ house, the neighbors saw him. They didn’t even have to wave or interact with him. He immediately started waving at them, a huge white smile on his black face. His parents were so proud of his quick turnaround. All day they had been getting calls from friends asking if he was OK. Jared took the initiative to call those people and tell them personally that he was. He even asked for his parents to turn the TV to see what they were saying. Naturally, his face was everywhere. Riding his high of fame, he called several local news stations and gave them each a more personal statement. He promised TV interviews. That meant he had to get a suit. When he called a tailor, they promised that it would be free of charge, so long as they got to advertise the fact that he had chosen them. He said ‘sure’. He read the great many words of support and had a good laugh at the number of memes that had already been born. Skunk lovers nationwide wrote him fan letters. His dad was right. There were boatloads of women who were into that kind of thing. There were a great many of those who claimed a hoax, but that didn’t bother him. He knew himself that it was real. What did it matter what they thought? He recorded a video of himself telling everyone how he was and posted it on YouTube. Hundreds of thousands of views in a matter of hours. Plans of vengeance on Leland had disappeared. If he ever saw him again, he was going to give the old man a fat, sloppy kiss.
He spent the next day at the tailor. As it turned out, fixing a suit for a furry skunk with a four foot bushy tail was a bit of a challenge. Regardless, they fashioned a dashing suit for him that almost made him look human again, not that he would want to by this point. He performed his interviews for the world. The women who interviewed him touched his face and tail for the cameras. Each one of them swore on their careers that what was in front of them was very real. That quashed a great number of skeptics, but not all of them. Jared honestly didn’t blame them. With all of this happening so quickly, he hardly believed it himself.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 14 December 2022