It was October 11<sup>th</sup> and 10:11 in the morning when the world was synthesized. Hundreds of millions of Jacks had just been created, and none of them knew who the main character was. The main character himself didn’t even know. That main character found himself synthesized in a semi-truck, driving down a highway. The fact that he just came into existence didn’t surprise him nor any of the other drivers on the road with him. From non-existence to existence was a smooth transition, and not a single vehicle even so much as swerved.
Thank God, Jack the Trucker thought to himself. He was relieved at the fact that he was a simple truck driver, meaning there was no way he was the main character, in his mind. The personality he was synthesized with didn’t want him to have a real role in the story world. Leave main charactering to the more ambitious Jacks. He was fine with just being in the background of this fantasy world.
He had been synthesized with an understanding of the fact that he was in a story in the Jackverse, but he didn’t have much knowledge besides that. He didn’t know what interstate he was on, where he was going, or what he was hauling. He couldn’t place any city names, although he knew there was only one country in the world, The United States of Jackland.
He had a GPS on his dashboard, he still had hundreds of miles to go, so it’d be some hours before he reached his destination.
Just as he had finished his calculation, static came over his radio, and then, when it cleared, a voice came on and said the following message:
“Uh… hello. This is… DJ Jack, I guess, here at KCAJ. Welcome to the Jackverse. Welcome to existence. I’m here to inform you that our president has just signed the Reckless Driving Initiative into law, which is to cover everyone in this broadcast area. All interstate travel is to be done in a reckless manner, in order to make the world more interesting for whoever the main character is. So you may speed, engage in light road rage, and drive drunk to make the world a more dangerous place.
“I’m told that representatives from both sides of the political aisle were present at the signing and found it to be a most excellent development. When asked if there was an afterlife for us to go to, the president said he wasn’t sure, so be reckless, but be safe, too. That’s it. This has been DJ Jack. Please now enjoy the song “I don’t know where I am, but I’m home” by Jack the Bard, who is performing it live in our studio. And may Jack Himself look over us all.”
Jack Himself look over us all indeed, Jack thought. He didn’t have much time to think to himself before traffic next to him started acting erratically. It was gradually speeding up, so he supposed he should speed up as well. He smashed the accelerator to the floor and started shifting gears. Due to the size of his truck, it was still a rather gradual process.
Jack the Trucker was driving through a desert landscape, broad and flat. He could see for miles ahead. He rolled down his window. The desert air was a dry heat, and the incoming wind felt good against his flesh. His acceleration steadily increased. So far, speeding was the only thing the vehicles near him were doing. He needed to be careful, as one of them might get it into their head that they needed to start driving crazy. His personality was made in such a way that he didn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s death. There was not yet any indication about what mood Jack Himself was in when he made this world, and no indication that he’d be a benevolent God.
What was this, anyway? Who was authoring the thoughts of the background characters, if they’re not actually in the main narrative itself? Did he even exist? He thought surely he must, otherwise he… well… he wouldn’t be thinking these thoughts right now, would he? ‘I think, therefore I am,’ he thought. Yes, he must exist. A voice in his head told him something about a ‘World Maker,’ a being that creates the backgrounds of fantasy worlds. The stuff that never gets in. But all that was a bit too cosmic to be thinking about. He needed to be in the here and now, for the sake of road safety.
There was an exit coming up, a town named Jack’s Compassion, an odd sounding name to Jack the Trucker’s ears. He saw on the next sign that there was a Jack’s Truck Service and Eatery at the exit. That’s what he needed to do, to stop and get his bearings. He was feeling hungry, too. He guessed he wasn’t preloaded with breakfast in his belly.
Before the exit to get off, there was a billboard on display. ‘Trust in Jack,’ it read. How did he feel about that? Fine, he supposed. He wasn’t a totally devoted believer in The Author, but he did have a little appreciation for the world that had just been made. And he enjoyed existing, too.
The exit was coming up, so he signaled to change lanes, as he had started out this existence in the fast lane. There was another semitruck that wouldn’t let him in. Jack the Trucker tried slowing down but the other truck slowed down with him. And then when he tried speeding up again, the other truck sped up, too. What a jackass. The exit was coming up soon, and he needed to get over a lane so he could get into Jack’s Compassion.
The driver of the other truck sped up a bit so that their trucks were right next to one another. He rolled down his window, so Jack the Trucker rolled down his passenger side window as well. The other trucker slowly thrust his hand out of the window and flipped him off. The jackass had black aviator shades on and a wicked grin on his face.
What was Jack the Trucker going to do? Skip the truck stop? No, he wanted to get off. He at least needed to see where this load was going. He needed to orient himself. He blared his air horn and the other truck responded in kind. Jack the Trucker sighed. He really didn’t want any problems with anyone. He started slowly merging to the right towards the other semi. His large truck and trailer inched over the white lane markers, starting to take up space in the neighboring truck’s own lane. The truck started blaring on his horn again, but Jack the Trucker ignored it. He kept inching over.
Jack the Trucker saw that the other driver was still grinning wickedly. He watched the other trucker turn his steering wheel a bit to the left. The trucks bumped up against one another. When they did, the other driver threw a Styrofoam fountain drink out his window into Jack the Trucker’s cab, hitting him in the face. It was a Jacka-Cola and would get sticky in the heat of the desert.
God fucking damn it, Jack the Trucker thought. He resisted the temptation to careen into the other truck. That would be dangerous. Instead, he just started slowing down, way down. He wasn’t going to let this get under his skin. The other trucker started to slow down along with him, keeping his truck even with Jack. Jack the Trucker’s semi then came to a complete halt on the roadway, along with the other truck. Cars behind them were honking, and some of them had taken to driving past them on the shoulders of the two-lane highway.
Jack the Trucker set the air brakes and then opened his door. He first made sure he wouldn’t get hit by a car driving up the shoulder before jumping down. The sun was getting high in the sky and the desert air was hot, which made him start feeling sticky from the soda that dripped from his face. His shirt was soaked, too. That really pissed him off. Why was the other trucker such a fucking jackass?This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Another car was coming up the inner shoulder of the highway fast, and Jack the Trucker had to dodge out of the way lest he be hit. The car honked at him as it passed, and so Jack flipped him off. When it was clear, he walked around the front of his semi over to the other truck. The jackass was still in his cab, watching Jack the Trucker walk up towards his door. He had on aviators, a trucker’s hat and was wearing a trucker’s vest. There was a toothpick in his mouth that moved as the jackass gave Jack the Trucker a big toothy grin.
“Get the fuck out of my way!” Jack the Trucker said.
“Why don’tchya make me?” Jackass asked.
“You think you’re the main character or something?” Jack the Trucker asked.
“Could be,” Jackass replied. “Shit, it could be you.”
Jack the Trucker laughed bitterly. He wasn’t just dealing with a jackass, but also a dumbass. There were things he knew about the Jackverse, and one thing he knew for sure is that neither of them were the main character. Jackverse was about world ripping powers and deep philosophical conversations about the nature of their fictional reality. It was not about driving a truck in the middle of nowhere. “You don’t actually believe that,” Jack said.
“What I believe? I believe I’m going to beat the ever-loving shit out of you,” Jackass said as he opened his door and made his way down to the road. “I wasn’t sure about it before, but, yeah, I think that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Wha… why?”
“For the good of the story.”
“We’re not in the fucking story, you fucking moron! This is just the background!”
“The whole world’s the story,” Jackass said.
Jack the Trucker didn’t have much time to think about that before he got kicked in the testicles. Pain shot through him like electricity. A lot of pain. This was the first time that he had ever felt pain, and he immediately decided that he didn’t like the sensation. He crouched, cupping his injured area. “Wait!” he yelled hoarsely.
Jackass grabbed Jack the Trucker by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. More pain. Then he started kicking him in the ribcage, causing yet even more. Jack the Trucker grabbed his assailant’s foot during one of those kicks and rolled over with it, bringing Jackass to the ground with him, one leg locked in Jack’s arms.
Jack the Trucker didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. Why did this have to be happening right now? He supposed it was happening all across the story world right now. Hundreds of millions of Jacks, and a portion of them were going to be jackasses. That was how it was in the world above, so that was how it was written to be in the story world. The story world was just a reflection of the real world, after all, and that came with reflecting the bad parts, too. It didn’t have to be that way, though. But Jack the Trucker didn’t have time for these thoughts right now. He-
Jackass used his free leg and kicked Jack the Trucker in the mouth with his boot. One of his teeth broke in the impact. Jack tried to grab that leg but, in doing so, he lost control of the other one. He didn’t have any real fighting skills to speak of. He hadn’t been created with that knowledge. Fuck this shit. There was no reason he needed to be here, anyway. He wanted to get away.
Jackass kicked some more and freed himself from Jack’s grip, then he jumped back up to his feet. Jack retreated towards his truck as fast as he could. He got to the passenger side of the cab and opened the door and tried vaulting up the steps, but Jackass grabbed him by the back of his shirt while calling him a coward. Jack held onto the door with all his might. He spun around haphazardly, causing his shirt tear, and kicked Jackass in the mouth with his own boot. Jackass recoiled and fell to the ground, hands to his bleeding mouth.
Jack the Trucker continued getting back in his cab. He slammed the passenger side door and hurriedly locked it and pressed the button to roll up the window. The window ascended slowly. It got about a third of the way up when Jackass jumped up the steps and grabbed Jack by his head and tried dragging him out through the window itself. Jack had to stop rolling up the window lest he be choked with it.
Jack the Trucker pushed himself back from the door with as much strength as he could muster. He successfully broke Jackass’s grip on his head and landed backwards in between the two seats in his cab. He was free for a moment.
So, what should he do now? Jackass would no doubt be up the door any second now trying to unlock it to get inside. Driving away wasn’t an option, the big truck would be too slow. Jack the Trucker scrambled back into his sleeper birth, rushing through the blackout curtains that separated the driving area from the sleeping area. He needed something he could use as a weapon.
There were closets and compartments in his sleeper berth that would be holding stuff. What they held was a mystery to Jack the Trucker, though. He hadn’t been loaded up with any knowledge of his own supplies. He didn’t have time to rummage through each of them; he needed to think fast. He shot a glance over towards the passenger door again and, just as he had expected, Jackass was up at the window, reaching through for the door lock.
Jack the Trucker didn’t know the layout of his own supplies, but he knew what should be in any truck on the road. He found a latch under the bed which clicked when he grabbed it. The bed was hinged to the backside of his sleeper berth so that it could open upwards and give access to the exterior supply panels from inside the cab. He quickly found what he was looking for.
The miniature fire extinguisher was in the supply panel compartment on the right. Jack grabbed it out of its holder and spun around with it just as a bloody Jackass climbed through the now open door. He sprayed Jackass in the face with it, blinding him. Jackass let out a growl as he tried wiping his face off, dazed long enough for Jack to hit him in the head with the canister. It let out a loud, satisfying metallic thump. Jackass fell back toward the truck’s dashboard in a daze.
“Get the fuck out of my truck!” Jack the Trucker screamed. He wailed on Jackass with the extinguisher a second time, breaking his nose and knocking out his front teeth. He hit him again and again. After a few more hits it occurred to Jack that Jackass wasn’t moving any longer. And also, his face was caved in. He let the extinguisher drop from his hands in a stunned silence. He watched the blood drip down in a large pool below his opponent. Jackass didn’t move an inch. He wasn’t breathing. His head was a caved in tomato. He had… he had just killed him.
“Fuck,” Jack said aloud. He went to him and checked for a pulse. There was none. “Fuck!”
Jack the Trucker hadn’t wanted to kill him. He didn’t want to be a murderer. Jack hoped against hope for an afterlife. Jackass was a jackass, but he was just acting out the personality and dispositions that he was synthesized with. “God damn it,” Jack the Trucker said. “This is, ultimately, your fault, you know? You didn’t have to be such a dick.”
And now what the fuck was Jack supposed to do? Were there police in this world? He wasn’t sure. He could call 911, he supposed, patting the phone in his pocket. It was self-defense, right? Right? He wasn’t sure what the law would say about it. He was no lawyer. There was no telling how serious or comical the legal system was created here to be. No, best he avoid entanglements with the law, at least for now.
So, what was he going to do? He thought about dumping the body on the roadway and leaving it there. That’s evidence, though. Maybe he could stash the body somewhere and forget about it. What he really needed to do was get his bearings. Figure out a little bit more about the world that had just been created. At that point he could figure out what he needed to do.
He needed a shower, too. He was covered in blood and soda. And he was damned hungry, too, even still after murdering Jackass. Time to finally get to that truck stop, he thought. Jack the Trucker went up and drug Jackass’s body into the sleeper berth and went through and closed the curtains. Then he closed the passenger side door and got in his driver’s seat. Cars were streaming in front of the two trucks, having driven over the shoulders. He looked over at Jackass’s truck. A Jackbilt 379, an older model of truck. Everything was just created, but some stuff was older than others. The name “JJJ Trucking” was emblazoned on the door. “Rest in peace, you fucking asshole,” he said back to his dead passenger.
Jack the Trucker unlocked his airbrakes and put the truck in gear. Then he started slowly taking off, eager to get to the truck stop and take care of business. He rode down the interstate a ways and signaled to change to the right lane. He had to assert himself over the four wheelers to get in there, but they let him in in the end.
Jack the Trucker was still bleeding and sore, still missing a tooth and in a ripped shirt. Still sticky. His truck’s cab was in no better state, there was blood everywhere.
“Welcome to Jack’s Compassion,” the sign read as Jack took his exit. “All good things come from Jack.”