Treat One: The Death of Mr Boring

The Death of Mr Boring

The world’s most boring man was about to die. Only he didn't know it. He was sat at home living his life in the most boring way possible. The day before he'd been lying in a hospital bed, letting his usual boring thoughts fire against his dull synapses, when the doctor came by his bedside to tell him the bad news.
"I'm afraid it's worse than we thought."
"Oh" said Mr Boring. This was not his actual name, which was so boring it would induce a coma in anyone who read or heard it.
“I’ve got two pieces of bad news for you.” continued the Doctor. “Firstly I’m afraid we’ve found you have lung cancer.”
Mr Boring took it all in his stride, to do anything but would be to break his boring mould. The doctor was taken aback; this moment usually induced tears, snot and high emotion. He decided it was a refreshing and relaxing change, and boded well for his second piece of bad news.
“Secondly, we also found that you have the onset of Alzheimer’s.”
Mr Boring took a second or two to take it all in. Then spoke one sentence.
“At least it’s not cancer.”

He walked home at a slow monotonous pace wondering why on earth he’d been at the hospital in the first place. Upon arriving at his boring two up two down home, in which he lived alone Mr Boring had a spark of memory. Maybe these illnesses make me interesting, he thought. He smiled, the first smile, in fact the first sign for years that he even felt emotion, to himself. The moment passed quickly though. Fourteen seconds after thinking the thought he’d forgotten the moment ever happening, forgotten it forever. Mr Boring was back to where we joined him at the beginning of the story, sat at home living his life in the most boring way possible, oblivious to the fact he was about to die.

Mr Boring had the most boring selective memory. Over the next few weeks he remembered to go into work every day to do the most boring of jobs, but forgot to go to a house party he had somehow been invited to.
He remembered to pick up Charlie every morning. Charlie was in his twenties and was temping during the summer holidays to fund him through university. Charlie sat quietly everyday in the passenger seat, and they travelled to work in silence.

It was a normal Friday and Mr Boring picked up Charlie for another boring day in their boring job. Their job consisted of pressing the number 5 followed by Enter every thirty seconds for twelve hours. This normal Friday was changed by one small utterance made on the journey to work. It must have been another spark of interest firing in Mr Boring’s brain, for as they waited, and waited, and waited some more at a roundabout he turned towards Charlie and spoke.
“My favourite day in work is Friday.”
“Why’s that?” replied Charlie. This was turning into a conversation now.
“Because for two days after it you can pretend you’re not coming back.”
This made Charlie smile, which made Mr Borings heart skip. He’d never made anyone smile before. Maybe he was becoming interesting. This moment made it the best day of his life, the only thing which sullied the day was the constant coughing.

The coughing continued all through Friday night. Every time Mr Boring coughed he wondered what was making him cough. He thought he must have been coming down with a cold. Unfortunately it was his lungs in their last throes of life, and equally unfortunately Mr Boring never got to pretend for two days that he was never going back to work. Most unfortunate of all was that Mr Boring didn’t get to see Saturday morning, at around four o clock in the morning those cancerous lungs just stopped working, and he died. Because Mr Boring had no friends it was weeks until he was found. Apparently the smell was very dull and boring.
This was the end of Mr Boring’s life, he had nothing else to add to this world. You’ve now learnt about his death, to tell you anymore would be to bore you into the same fate.