A/N: These few stories (the rest of which will be uploaded later) are also English-class assignments. They are only related to each other through the pedestrian chicken. And if this sounds strange: well, then, you must read the stories. This first one I wrote with my friend Grace, and we wrote basically the same story from two opposite points of view. I wrote mine about a depressed man named Grace, and she wrote hers about an optimistic man by my name. Our English teacher never got the connection, however. He wrote on mine that it was "very unique". Poor fool. :)

Written on the margin of my story: This story was produced entirely independantly from anyone. No one even knew I was writing it. It was done in the dead of night. By no account did Grace S. Rich know about it. (My teacher still didn't get it, after this broad hint. Grace's story got a "very original, never read anything quite like it before" as well. I wonder if he even read them?)

A Chance Meeting

There once was a man named Grace, who was very depressed, because Grace is a very depressing name. At the middle of a certain day, Grace decided to go to Wawa, so he hijacked a carpool.
The car was pointed down the highway as Grace began considering his actions. He felt a little guilty about his hijacking, even though he hadn't hurt anyone and had promised the owner of the van that he would return presently. But he let his overall blahness overcome these feelings. -For some reason, I can't seem to remember the meaning of my existance, he thought as he passed a pedestrian chicken.
After an hour of driving and getting lost and swallowing his meager pride to ask for directions, he finally found a Wawa. Sighing with a mixture of depression and satisfaction, he double-parked in the parking lot (did you ever notice what a weird word "parked" is? Grace did.) and thought dismally that the police would probably get him for that.
-Perhaps the cure for my sadness is orange juice, Grace pondered. -Now, one must question oneself if juice is really real. What is reality? Reality is a gigantic pot of spaghetti swirling in the boiling water of the cosmos, he answered himself. And with this philosophical conclusion, he slumped into the store.
As Grace journeyed down the produce aisle scanning the shelves for orange juice and finding only potatoes, he suddenly was standing face-to-face with another man, whom he noticed did not have any orange juice about him.
"I say, you wouldn't happen to have any orange juice, would you?" Grace waited impatiently for the man's answer, but doubted highly that it would be good. Normally nobody ever had any orange juice.
The man paused happily. "No, but I'm sure we can find some, somewhere. By the way, have you seen a chocolate milk? Oh, you probably have."
Grace shook his head sadly. "No, I haven't. You probably won't find any, either. But I suppose we might as well look."
"Why are you always so pessimistic? Don't you know the world is a beautiful place?"
Grace was startled. "No, it's not. The world is a dung heap, and everyone is out to get you!" He was satisfied with his excellent comeback and thought rather proudly that Shakespeare couldn't have done better.
The pair continued on with this conversation for a full half-hour and eventually came to the conclusion that the world is a beautiful dung heap, with the occasional out-to-get-you-er. Then both departed from Wawa with a richer personality for the meeting.
Grace exited Wawa, the orange juice of his past life quite forgotten. He got in the hijacked car and pondered over those things that he and the man had discussed when he made a sad realization, "I didn't even know his name!"

END CHICKEN-STORIES PART ONE
Please review, I'll post the next parts soon.