It was a regular day for Mr. Apathy. He got up to get dressed. Then he said, “I don’t care about today so I will wear my regular black bow tie and regular brown top hat.”

Mr. Apathy put on his clothes and walked downstairs to eat his regular plain cereal because he didn’t care whether or not food tasted good. When Mr. Apathy opened the cold fridge, he got out the milk, but the milk was old and past its due date. He didn’t really care and said, “I will just throw it away later.”  

Mr. Apathy made some coffee to bring to work even though Mr. Apathy doesn’t like coffee. He passed by the fruit bowl on his way out to grab a fruit. “Which to choose?’ he thought, “Eh, who cares . . . I will just grab a banana.” He walked out the door but was too apathetic to lock it; he really didn’t care if a burglar broke in while he was away.

Mr. Apathy walked to the bus stop and . . . oh no. Not on a Monday, please. It was Ms. Firebrand. She wasn’t the first person Mr. Apathy wanted to see in the morning.

“Well hello, Mr. Apathy. It might be a surprise to see me here this late, but I am on my way to help out at the People’s Lives Matter March. I have to plan our walking route. Also some other stuff too.” Ms. Firebrand kept on going on about the march.

“How can she be interested in this stuff?” thought Mr. Apathy. Finally, his bus pulled up and he said, “Oh, looks like my bus is here, great to see you.”

“Same to you,” shouted Miss Firebrand as she walked away.

Mr. Apathy opened the door to the bank and got to his desk in the back. “Ah,” Mr. Apathy said calmly as he leaned back in his black, comfy chair. “Time to do no work,” he whispered as he played cat videos on his computer. “Eh,” he said as he clicked and clicked on different videos. “Nothing is interesting these days,” Mr. Apathy said apathetically. He decided to march to the staff room because he was already bored at his desk and it only had been ten minutes.

Mr. Apathy walked into the staff room and saw people admiring someone. Wait, that wasn’t just anyone; it was someone new. That someone new wore a brown bow tie and a black top hat.  Then Ms. Nosey asked Mr. Apathy, “Hey have you meet the new guy? His name is Mr. Apathy, but we like to call him Mr. A because a cool name needs a cool nickname. Am I right or am I right?”

Mr. Apathy looked at Ms. Nosey and walked towards Mr. A. Though every time he got closer to Mr. A, he had a weird feeling like he had confidence in himself. But that can’t be right, because he is Mr. Apathy and has no interest in anything whatsoever.

Mr. Apathy walked up and said, “Hey Mr. A,” in a weird but cool voice.

Mr. A responded, “So you must be Mr. Apathy. I am Mr. A, nice to meet you.” Mr. A put out his hand to shake Mr. Apathy’s hand, but he just stood there awkwardly. He didn’t feel he could show any agreement that Mr. A was the new Mr. Apathy at the bank. Mr. A pulled his hand back slowly and tried to not show any signs that there was an awkward tension between them.

Luckily, Mr. Boss marched into the staff room. He shouted, “I am handing out a promotion soon. I don’t know who to give it to since I just fired Mr. Chuckle for laughing all day. Good thing I did that because I need a new CEO and it better not be someone who chuckles all day. The person who gets the newest clients gets to be the new CEO.” Mr. Boss marched out of the door and back to his office.

All the bankers rushed to their desks and started to make calls. Mr. Apathy thought of something: what if he won against Mr. A and got CEO? Ya, like that would happen. I mean Mr. Apathy didn’t have any interest or enthusiasm for anything. I mean come on, if you look at his life so far he has participated in nothing. Also, rumor has it that once he even changed schools because he was so bored in every single one.

Then right before he could leave the staff room, Mr. A said to Mr. Apathy, “ Mr. Apathy I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I really don’t want to be known as Mr. A 2.0 just because we have the same name. So I suggest that the winner of the CEO job be called Mr. Apathy 2.0.”

Mr. Apathy thought for a moment and thought it over. “Fine, I agree to this challenge,” he responded and they shook hands to seal the deal.

The days were going by and somehow Mr. Apathy was actually doing well. He was less apathetic than usual. Normally he would be lazily scrolling through cat videos, but he was working hard. No YouTube videos on his computer history for almost a month. Mr. Apathy went up to check on who was at the top of the CEO chart. It said that Mr. A and Mr. Apathy where at the top of the chart. “Hm,” said Mr. Apathy.

He thought and thought about how to become the number one banker of the month. Then of course, why didn’t he think about it? Ms. Firebrand. She was always so passionate about everything, of course, she would help! That night Ms. Firebrand came over to help put out flyers all over town to get more clients for the bank.

Then it was finally the day when Mr. Boss would announce the new CEO. Mr. Boss gathered people and then he said to them, “The new CEO by 1 percent is Mr. Apathy. The first one I hired.”

Mr. Apathy smiled and looked at Mr. A. He said, “Good game Mr. A 2.0.” After that Mr. Apathy tried new things and found some interests of his own.