[January] NEW YEAR, NEW ME

Another morning, another stomach ache.

Marbun found himself lying on the soft carpeted ground, light blaring in from the window. Normally he was mindful enough to close the curtains before, during, or after his late night binges, but last night was different. After spending time outside in the snow lighting sparklers, he had come back inside. The sounds of wild parties filled the neighborhood, but Marbun spent the New Years in his own home. Sometimes a good party could be you, your little imp friends, and a table of party food. As he was stuffing his face with slices of pizza and sleeves of cookies, he had completely forgotten to close the curtains.

Now he was regretting it.

The succubun lifted his head and looked around, blinking away sleep from his eyes. In the middle of the night he had managed to find a pizza box to use as a makeshift pillow ( which hadn’t been as comfortable as just using the carpeted floor ). He reached down and slowly removed a fast food burger wrapper that was laying on his stomach, something that he had tried to use as a tiny, greasy blanket. The sound of scratching caught his attention. Slowly he turned his head and watched one of his Imps, a soot black phloof named Slag, bounce around in a nearly empty bowl, slathering itself with the remnants of an icecream sundae that had melted over the night. When Slag noticed Marbun was finally awake the imp hopped out of the bowl. The imp scurried over, leaving ice cream and a sooty substance on the carpet, and flopped onto Marbun’s stomach.

Oof.

A burger wrapper on him was fine. An imp, though? Even if it was light, his stomach was still working on digesting all the garbage he had the night before, and gurgled in protest. Carefully he picked up Slag and set the critter down next to him before sitting up and taking in more of the room around him. Half eaten food, food containers, paper plates and cups, knocked over drinks that were still dripping liquid onto the carpet… he had a lot of cleaning up ahead of him.

But first - breakfast!

The succubun pulled himself to his feet and waddled over towards the fridge, the stomach ache from several minutes ago now a distant memory. On the table that once held all of the food that was now either eaten or on the ground, he spotted a notepad with his handwriting on it. He stepped closer and saw that sometime last night, he had scribbled something down on the notepad. The handwriting was terrible, but it was his own terrible chicken scratch, but he couldn’t recall jotting it down. The words on the paper read ‘New Years Resolution: ??????’.

Oh, right, that was a thing. Having a goal to work towards in the new year was a fun thing to think about. Either you succeeded in reaching your goal and had something to brag about, or you didn’t reach it and could easily pretend you never had a goal to begin with. Was there something out there that Marbun wanted to achieve?

He looked back at his kitchen and living room. Maybe he should focus on being a little more tidy and clean. If not for himself, then for the imps that lived with him. This specific thought came to mind as Slag roamed around the room, finally shaking off the rest of the ice cream from its body only to nudge its way into a pizza box. Slag began to roll around, collecting grease and bits of cheese that was still stuck to the box until most of his sooty body was covered.

.. No, keeping his place super clean for, like, a whole year was impossible. New Year goals could be outlandish, but he wanted one that was actually achievable. Like, eating pizza. That was as natural to him as breathing. Gosh, just how many pizzas had he eaten last year? He never thought to keep track. A smile appeared on his face when an idea came to mind. That’s it! That could be his New Year’s goal! To eat a thousand pizzas! No, ten thousand! A million! And he would keep track of every pizza he ate. By the end of the year, he’d feel like the king of delicious pizza.

Marbun picked up the notepad and pen from the table. Underneath the scribblings from the night before, he wrote down ‘Eat 1 million pizzas’, then followed that with a single tick mark. What better time to start reaching his goal than right now? After all, breakfast pizzas were still pizza. The succubun hummed happily to himself as he sat down the notepad and stepped over to his fridge.

One pizza ( soon to be ) down, nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine more to go!