By the time he turned twenty, Tonny had come to a grim conclusion: writing was his only escape.

He landed a modest gig at a niche publication, NeuroIndustries Monthly, where he penned a column titled The Mechanics of Consciousness. It was a bizarre blend of scientific jargon, armchair philosophy, and razor-sharp irony. And people loved it.

Letters poured in, praising his ability to make readers feel intellectually superior while also quietly questioning their own intelligence.

But there was one thing that always gnawed at him:

"People don’t read to understand. They read to feel better about themselves. It’s as if reading alone is enough to claim enlightenment."

This realization became the cornerstone of his early writing. Tonny didn’t want to write texts that merely impressed—he wanted to unsettle. He wanted his readers to squirm, to confront their own ignorance, and to grapple with the uncomfortable truth: that most of them were fools, and they didn’t even know it.

Tonny Rugless Pinchchitte Jr. was a man who rejected the world in order to understand it. His writing wasn’t a cry for connection; it was a scalpel, dissecting the absurdities of modern life with precision and ruthlessness.

He wasn’t interested in being liked. He wasn’t even interested in being read. He wrote for the sole purpose of watching the world squirm under the weight of its own contradictions.

And so, armed with his wit, his cynicism, and a perpetually smoldering cigarette, Tonny set out to do the one thing he knew he was born to do: write. Not for the masses. Not for the critics. But for himself—and perhaps for the slim chance that, somewhere out there, a reader might be smart enough to keep up.

Tonny Rugless Pinchchitte Jr. had been preparing for this moment his entire life.

The first whispers of a mysterious virus wafted in from China, accompanied by the usual barrage of American social media wisdom: “Is Corona just a fancy flu?” and “Did you hear? Bats are the new pigs!” While the rest of the country was busy panic-buying toilet paper and blaming everything on millennials, Tonny packed a single bag, booked a one-way ticket, and ghosted his entire existence.

His destination? Not the Bahamas you see in travel brochures, but a forgotten island that could generously be described as “the Florida of the Caribbean.” No five-star resorts. No tiki bars. Just a patch of sand, a smattering of shacks, and an economy that revolved around overpriced coconuts and mopeds that threatened to kill you every ten minutes.

Tonny’s bungalow, if you could call it that, stood isolated at the edge of the island, surrounded by mangroves and mosquitoes with lifespans longer than his patience. It had the kind of Wi-Fi that only worked when the wind blew west and a rusty old antenna that picked up TV signals from God-knows-where. That’s how Tonny first saw the news:

"BREAKING: America braces for COVID-19 lockdowns. Experts warn of widespread toilet paper shortages."

He switched off the TV, leaned back in his rickety wooden chair, and smirked. “Perfect. Global panic with no redeeming narrative. It’s like living in one of my books.”

His days passed in a haze of quiet monotony. He’d ride his sputtering moped into the village to buy groceries, spend hours staring at the horizon, and occasionally scribble half-thoughts into a battered notebook.

"Maybe I’m not condemning moderation itself," he mused one afternoon. "Maybe I’m just pissed off that I feel the need to condemn anything at all."