The year is 2077. The world teeters on the precipice of absurdity, a swirling vortex of chaos and irony where the very laws of physics seem to be negotiable. Self-driving cars, once hailed as the pinnacle of technological advancement, now routinely get lost in parking lots, their sophisticated algorithms defeated by the simple geometry of painted lines. Kale, that leafy green monstrosity, is not only considered a delicacy but has somehow achieved sentience, its fibrous tendrils slowly but surely infiltrating every aspect of the food supply. Grocery stores have entire sections dedicated to "Kale Defense," featuring products like "Anti-Kale Spray" and "Kale Repellent Field Generators."

  Climate change has long since abandoned subtlety, transforming Denver, Colorado, into a semi-tropical swamp where the humidity hovers around a suffocating 98%. The once-majestic Rocky Mountains are now perpetually shrouded in a thick, fetid mist, and the native wildlife has undergone a series of...unfortunate...mutations. The most notable of these are the mutated mosquitoes, now the size of small birds, with a taste for human blood and a disconcerting tendency to hum opera. Their high-pitched arias are a constant backdrop to daily life, a reminder of nature's cruel sense of humor.

  In this bizarre, soggy world lived Dave, a 30-year-old man whose life was a symphony of suffering, played on the kazoo of misfortune. It wasn't that he was aggressively unlucky, like falling into a volcano or being born with a fatal allergy to oxygen. No, his was a more subtle, insidious brand of misery, the kind that made you question the very fabric of reality, the kind that made you wonder if the universe was actively conspiring against you in a series of increasingly elaborate and petty ways. He often felt like the protagonist in a poorly written sitcom, where the punchline was always his pain.

  His job at the "Ye Olde Burger Emporium" wasn't just bad; it was a medieval-themed fast-food restaurant, a monument to misplaced nostalgia and culinary mediocrity. The building itself was shaped like a giant, slightly lopsided castle, complete with plastic crenellations and a moat filled with suspiciously green water. He was forced to wear a ridiculously itchy tunic, the wool scratching against his skin like a thousand tiny medieval peasants wielding pitchforks. The tunic was also perpetually damp, thanks to the swamp-like climate, adding another layer of discomfort to his already miserable existence. His nametag read "Sir Dave," which only added to the indignity. He had to pretend to speak in Ye Olde English, a language that sounded vaguely Shakespearean after a week but devolved into guttural grunts and desperate hand gestures by the end of a shift ("Hark, doth thou desireth a side of yon fried potato sticks?"). Most customers just stared at him blankly, or worse, tried to correct his grammar.

  His coworkers were a collection of LARPers who took their roles far too seriously. There was Gareth, a shift manager who insisted on being called "Lord Grimgar" and spoke only in booming pronouncements about "the sacred duty of burger-slinging." He carried a plastic broadsword at all times and would occasionally hold impromptu "knighting ceremonies" for new employees, using a spatula as the ceremonial blade. There was Brenda, a cashier who believed she was a woodland elf and would occasionally disappear into the back room for hours to "commune with the forest spirits" (which usually involved a cigarette break and a surreptitious nap). She also had a habit of leaving cryptic notes written in Elvish script, which Dave suspected were just grocery lists. And then there was Todd, the fry cook, who was convinced he was a time-traveling knight and would challenge customers to duels with spatulas, his preferred weapon of choice. He'd often yell "En garde!" before flipping a burger.

  The customers were even worse, a motley assortment of suburbanites and tourists who demanded extra "dragon sauce" with the fervor of religious zealots, complained that their "medieval milkshakes" weren't cold enough (despite being served in pewter tankards), and frequently tried to barter with actual medieval currency (which, to be fair, was sometimes more valuable than the restaurant's wages). Dave once had a customer try to pay with a rusty helmet, insisting it was "a rare artifact" worth at least "three gold sovereigns." He'd also encountered a group of history buffs who staged a full-scale siege of the restaurant, demanding "passage through the gates" (the drive-thru) and hurling stale bread rolls as projectiles.

  His love life was equally abysmal, a wasteland of awkward encounters and escalating disasters. His last date, a seemingly normal woman named Sarah, had ended with him accidentally setting her hair on fire while trying to light a romantic candle. It wasn't even a regular candle; it was a trick candle, a gag gift from his well-meaning but utterly clueless brother, designed to relight itself after being blown out. The ensuing chaos involved a flaming Sarah, a panicked Dave wielding a fire extinguisher, and a very confused waiter who thought they were part of a performance art piece. Sarah's screams echoed in his nightmares, often accompanied by the smell of burnt hair.

  Before that, there was the incident with the interpretive dance flash mob. He'd thought it was a romantic gesture, a spontaneous eruption of artistic expression. He hadn't realized it was a meticulously planned performance by a local community college dance troupe, and his attempts to join in had been met with a mixture of horror and pity. His flailing limbs and off-rhythm gyrations had cleared a wide radius around him, and he'd spent the rest of the evening trying to explain that he was "just feeling the music." Then there was the rogue unicycle, the flock of seagulls, and the incident involving a porta-potty, a strong gust of wind, and a marching band... but he tried not to dwell on that. The memories were too painful, too visceral, a symphony of humiliation that played on an endless loop in his brain.

  And then there were the daily indignities, the small cuts and bruises inflicted by a world that seemed determined to grind him down, to test the limits of his sanity. The parking tickets for spaces that didn't exist, phantom violations issued by a tyrannical parking enforcement system that operated on its own twisted logic, a system seemingly designed to punish him personally. The pigeons that seemed to have a personal vendetta against his head, their droppings landing with pinpoint accuracy, a constant reminder of his insignificance in the grand scheme of things. He'd started carrying an umbrella on sunny days, but even that didn't deter them. The constant, low-level hum of despair that followed him like a gloomy cloud, a soundtrack to his miserable existence, a Gregorian chant of disappointment.

  But today... today was the day the universe decided to play its final, cruelest joke, a symphony of suffering so audacious, so breathtakingly awful, that it transcended mere misfortune and entered the realm of cosmic performance art. It was as if the gods themselves had gathered to watch, their celestial popcorn in hand, to see just how much he could take.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  It started, as so many terrible days do, with a broken coffee maker. But not just a "it's out of coffee" broken, or even a "it's making a weird noise" broken. No, this was a catastrophic failure of engineering, a full-on geyser of scalding brown liquid that erupted from the machine with the force of Old Faithful, coating the kitchen in a sticky, caffeinated film. The smell of burnt coffee hung heavy in the air, a pungent aroma that promised a day of jittery anxiety and profound disappointment. The kitchen looked like a Jackson Pollock painting, if Jackson Pollock had been commissioned to decorate a coffee-themed torture chamber.

  Then, on his way to work (after slipping on the coffee-slicked floor and twisting his ankle, an injury that he suspected was less a sprain and more a profound statement about his life's trajectory), his car was swallowed by a sinkhole. A sinkhole. In the middle of downtown Denver. One moment he was listening to a podcast about the existential dread of modern life, the next he was staring up at a rapidly shrinking circle of sky as his car plunged into the earth, accompanied by the bewildered honks of other drivers who, for once, were having a slightly better day. His car, a beat-up sedan he affectionately called "The Misery Machine," was now presumably residing in the subterranean realm, possibly becoming a geological exhibit for future archaeologists.

  He arrived at Ye Olde Burger Emporium three hours late, limping and smelling faintly of burnt coffee, only to find that his tunic had been inexplicably replaced with one three sizes too small. It clung to his body like a medieval sausage casing, restricting his movement and chafing his already irritated skin. He looked like a particularly uncomfortable Renaissance fair attendee who had lost a bet. As he tried to explain his situation to his manager, Lord Grimgar (who was having a particularly bad day due to a shortage of "dragon sauce" and a rogue squirrel infestation in the thatch roof), a customer dressed as a particularly surly barbarian stormed in, demanding a refund because his "dragon burger" didn't breathe fire. He punctuated his demands by slamming his fist on the counter, causing a nearby display of "ye olde onion rings" to collapse, scattering greasy rings across the already sticky floor.

  That was it. That was the last straw. The cosmic camel's back had been broken, shattered into a million tiny pieces, and scattered across the multiverse. Dave stared at the barbarian, his face contorted in a mask of primal rage; at Lord Grimgar, his smug, judgmental face twitching with barely suppressed fury; at the ruined remains of his day, the sticky floor, the ill-fitting tunic, the smell of burnt coffee and despair. And a strange sense of calm washed over him. It wasn't peace, exactly, but a kind of numb acceptance, the serenity of a condemned man facing the firing squad. He was done. He was finished. He was checking out of the Grand Hotel of Existence, and he wasn't leaving a tip. He was going to write a strongly worded letter to the management.

  He walked out of Ye Olde Burger Emporium, ignoring Lord Grimgar's shouted threats about "treachery," "unpaid servitude," and "being banished to the kitchen dungeons" (which, Dave suspected, was just the walk-in freezer). He limped past the gawking customers, their faces a mixture of confusion, amusement, and a dawning realization that they were witnessing something truly extraordinary, a man finally snapping in a truly spectacular fashion. He hobbled past the bewildered police officers trying to figure out the sinkhole situation, their faces etched with the kind of weary resignation that comes from dealing with the inexplicable on a daily basis. They'd seen it all, from rogue squirrels to sentient kale, but a man walking away from a medieval burger joint in a too-small tunic was a new one. He even managed to evade the pigeons, who, for once, seemed to be at a loss for words, their cooing replaced by a low, guttural murmur of disbelief. They watched him go, perhaps sensing that even he was too miserable for them to bother with.

  He went home, the world a blurry montage of muted colors and muffled sounds. The neon signs of strip malls and fast-food chains blurred into abstract streaks of light. The cacophony of traffic and construction faded into a distant hum. He felt like a ghost, a phantom limb detached from the body of reality. He grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, his hand moving with a strange, detached purpose, driven by a force beyond his conscious control. He wrote a note. It wasn't a heartfelt goodbye, a tearful farewell to loved ones. It was more of a sarcastic resignation letter to the universe, a final, defiant gesture of middle-finger-to-the-cosmos. He considered adding a postscript demanding a refund for his suffering, but decided it was too much effort.

  "To Whom It May Concern (and I'm guessing it's not a very concerned entity)," he wrote, the pen scratching against the cheap paper. "I quit. Effective immediately. I'm pretty sure I'm owed some back pay for all the suffering and indignity, plus hazard pay for the mutated mosquitoes. My lawyer will be in touch. Don't expect me back. And seriously, get your act together. This whole 'existence' thing is poorly managed. It's like it was designed by a committee of bored gods with a penchant for practical jokes and a complete disregard for human well-being.

  P.S. The coffee maker was sabotaged. I'm looking at you, Tuesday. You've always been suspicious. Also, I'm pretty sure that kale is plotting something. Just saying.

  Sincerely (not really),

  Dave."

  Then, he walked out his back door, into the woods behind his house. He'd never really been in those woods before; they were always a bit creepy, with their gnarled trees, their unsettling silence, and the faint, pervasive feeling that you were being watched by something unseen. The woods were rumored to be haunted, home to all sorts of strange creatures and unexplained phenomena. But today, they seemed... inviting. A sanctuary from the relentless absurdity of his life, a place where the normal rules of existence didn't apply, which, frankly, sounded like an improvement.

  He found a patch of bright red berries, growing in a small clearing bathed in an eerie, twilight glow. They looked almost... artificial, like something out of a bad fantasy movie, the kind of berries that would be labeled "Poisonous" in glowing neon letters in any sensible world. He didn't know what they were, but at this point, he didn't care. They could have been labeled "Guaranteed Instant Death" and he still would have eaten them. He popped a handful into his mouth, chewed with a kind of grim determination, and swallowed. The berries tasted vaguely of cherry-flavored cough syrup and despair, with a hint of something vaguely metallic, like sadness.

  He lay down on the soft bed of moss beneath the ancient trees, the damp earth cool against his cheek. A faint smile, the first genuine expression he'd worn all day, touched his lips. It was a smile of resignation, of relief, of finally being free from the relentless onslaught of misfortune. Finally, he thought. Sweet, sweet oblivion. The world began to fade, the sounds of the forest – the rustling leaves, the distant hooting of an owl, the buzzing of a particularly large mosquito – growing fainter and fainter, until there was nothing but silence. The last thing he saw was a swirl of colors, like a cosmic kaleidoscope, and then...nothing.