Well, It Was Nice While It Lasted!
Abe Simpson sat in a ratty old chair that he vaguely recognized as one he had owned ages ago, or at least an incredible duplicate of the thing. The cloth was torn in many places, grimy stuffing starting to spill out and he could feel a spring starting to poke through the seat and against his keister. All in all, it was an incredibly uncomfortable position to be in, but Abe would have gladly endured it all for an eternity if not for the mad, raspy cackling of C Montgomery Burns at the other end of the vast wooden table that they were on opposite sides of.
"I truly have to hand it to you Sergeant," Burns was saying, his tone absolutely mocking as he waved a silver table knife around like a conductor's baton, "I knew that you were going to cock things up around here, but even I didn't expect you to be so absolutely miserable at being a wealthy man that the rubes of this hole of a city would rise up against you! Truly, from the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry for overestimating you!"
Abe flinched at the words as his former subordinate began to cackle again, slumped over in his seat and looking for all the world like a man who had found the very bottom of the barrel and decided to keep on digging for the hell of it.
Things had started off so well after the poker game; he'd managed to get the city mostly fixed up quickly enough that most people hadn't had to live in the squalor of the formerly domed, ruined city for too long, and he'd managed to hire enough people to run his new company that they'd started to turn a profit! But not long after that things had started to go pear-shaped, in the worst possible way!
First the negotiations with the Plant's union had stalled, the workers unwilling to give any ground until Abe had demonstrated some effort on his part to make the place safer. But the safety regulations were a byzantine mess and everything he had tried to prove that he was different from Burns had backfired in a variety of increasingly unlikely ways!
The narrowly averted meltdown certainly hadn't done him any favors either; he'd been forced to fire Homer after it had become apparent that he had misread the gauges at his station until damn near the last possible minute, and his son hadn't spoken to him once in the months since, not even to yell at him!
Then more disasters started to pile up: Many of the city's kids had been kidnapped by criminals, only being returned when they'd exploited their labor for every red cent they could, and it hadn't taken long for fingers to start wagging in his direction. His own grandkids had been taken too, and yet everyone seemed to think that he'd had a hand in the travesty!
Crime had gone up as well, with out of town groups and even a few local scoundrels taking advantage of the void that Fat Tony's downfall had left to turn the town into a criminal paradise! That would have been bad enough, but not long after that the town had been besieged by a combination of mutant animals (courtesy of the Plant's awful environmental record naturally) and of all things a horde of the walking dead! Any one of those groups would have been too much for Springfield's eternally incompetent police department, but all three at once? In some parts of the city things looked worse than they had during the worst parts of the Dome!
Abe had tried to help out where he could, really he had, but there were just so many fires to put out that it had been incredibly overwhelming, and it seemed like on the rare occasion he'd managed to solve one problem three more had appeared to replace it in the meantime. All while the people of Springfield had slowly been growing more resentful of his presence at the top of their garbage heap of a city. The fact that nobody feared him like they had Burns certainly hadn't helped either, so when the former Private had finally reappeared after a few months of blessed silence, talking about how "Oh if only I still had my fortune, surely I would be able to solve all these problems facing our fair city…" Well, people had been willing to hear him out, even those who knew without a doubt that he was probably full of shit.
And so, one night just as he'd been settling in to watch a few episodes of Matlock before bed, Springfield once again demonstrated it's ability to form an angry mob at the drop of a hat. Citizens with torches and pitchforks had marched up to his door and outright demanded that he return everything to Mr Burns so that he could set things right.
Abe had thought about putting up a fight, using every last dime he had to make sure that even if he lost Burns would still have far less to throw around for his whims…But when he had looked into the crowd and seen his son's frowning face, he had simply given up, throwing in the towel without so much as a whimper. What would be the point of trying? He'd clearly failed at being a rich man as much as he had at being a father.
And so Monty had been brought to the front of the crowd, making a show of thanking the crowd for their faith…Right before releasing his hounds, the beasts running rampant as people fled the scene, many getting trampled in the confusion. For some reason Monty hadn't set his dogs on Abe though, simply bringing him back into the house, and the massive dining room that Abe had never felt at home in. Monty, it seemed, wanted to drive the knife even deeper into him, and as much as Abe hated the other old man he couldn't deny that he was an expert at twisting the knife.
Eventually however it seemed that Burns grew tired of taunting someone who didn't react no matter how hateful or barbed the words were, and with a sigh the newly instated billionaire softly clapped his hands, a pair of massive thugs grabbing Abe by the shoulders. When they lifted him up out of the seat, he didn't fight back.
"Well Abe, this whole turn of events has been fun, but I think you've more than overstayed your welcome," Burns said, his voice still gleeful as the minions frog-marched Abe out of the room, "But don't worry, I won't leave you with absolutely nothing; allow me to give you a place to stay for the rest of your miserable life! My treat!" Burns' cackling echoed through the manor as Abe was all but thrown into a car, his head resting on the window as he watched the city pass him by. Eventually the car parked at a very familiar place; the Springfield Retirement Castle, the place looking just as wretched as he'd left it.
The car door opened and a pair of orderlies walked up, their intent to escort him in clear. "Don't worry Mr Simpson," one of them began to say in a snivelling voice, "We've kept your room exactly the way you left it!"
And indeed they had, Abe didn't think they'd moved so much as a dust bunny in all the time he'd been gone. The orderlies dropped him off inside, making a big show of telling him when dinner would be served before closing the door. Abe stood there for a bit, and only now when he was alone did tears start to fall from his face. Not only had he lost the money, but he knew deep in his heart that he would never see any of his family again, and they were right to stay away.
Alone in a prison of his own making, Abraham Simpson wept as he lamented just what had become of his life. And it was, he knew, all his own fault.
STUNNING BURNS VICTORY
GAME OVER!
Achievement Unlocked: Status Quo Is God
Play Again?
Y / N
