Riley Gendreau
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We All Wish He’d Change (Ea)(Com)
🕑 Added 2025-11-13 20:54:17 +0000 UTCA commission for Last_of_workers
In the small town of Forgle lives a seventy-five-year-old man named Dale. Almost everyone in town knew Dale in one way or another. Most knew him because he has been a teacher for the last fifty years.
So most of them had him as a teacher at one point in their lives. The rest have unfortunately managed to encounter him outside of school hours. You’d think someone known by an entire town would be quite popular, but in Dale’s case that was far from the truth.
Dale was the most despised person in the town, and most people wish he’d leave, and not just by moving. The reason no one likes Dale is the way he acts and the way he interacts with those around him.
Dale considered himself the smartest person around, and everyone around him was inferior. He had a bad habit of talking to people like they were stupid, even if they were smarter and more educated than him.
He was always making meanish comments about people's appearances and their actions. Things like “Back in my day, women who dressed like that worked the streets” or “This subject is easy; if you don’t understand, you’re not trying hard enough, or perhaps you’re not cut out for this.”
He was also a menace in public spaces. He had no problem walking but always felt entitled to a shopping scooter, which he used to ram into stuff or honk at people who were in his way. Then after all that, he’d demand a worker help him grab stuff from the shelves because he didn’t want to get up.
Dale also had a bad habit of being doubly offensive towards women or people with different skin tones than his. He wasn’t a good person; in fact, he was the furthest from it. Most people even say he’s the most disgusting human being they’ve ever encountered.
Not one person liked him, but despite how bad he was and how much everyone despised him. He managed to stay within the rules of the school he worked at, as well as the laws put in place by the town and state he lived in, so nothing could be done about him.
He was simply an old annoying man that everyone tried to avoid, and Dale knew it, and he truly enjoyed how miserable he made everyone. After all, he was old, in pain, lonely and miserable himself, so he believed everyone else should feel as miserable as him.
Today was just another one of those days. It started with Dale honking and yelling at people while on the roads because they stopped to chat with someone; then Dale got to the school and during his classes he made nearly every one of his students cry or walk out.
Then he went to a clothing store to pick out a new tie, and he then spent an hour berating the cashier because they didn’t have the color he liked. Once that was over, Dale drove through town and saw that a lot of people were at a town festival that he had forgotten about.
He then laid on his horn and yelled at them, and before driving off, he yelled loudly that they better be done by eight, or he was having the cops come and shut them down. He then sped off, leaving everyone a bit mad but mostly glad he was gone.
Later that night, around the time Dale said he’d send the cops, people were watching the sky, as today was the hundred-year meteor shower festival. Everyone watched in awe, some from the festival, some around the town and some from their homes.
It was always rumored that if you made a wish, it would come true. So when it started, everyone who saw them closed their eyes and thought about a wish. Then they made their wish and hoped it would come true.
In the past, there were always hundreds of different wishes, but this year there were a lot less, all because over five hundred people wished for the same thing. They wished Dale would change and stop being so miserable and stop making the lives of the people around him worse.
As Dale was sitting on his porch fuming because he could sort of hear the music from the festival, he went to call the police like he said. He dialed the phone and dispatch on the other side saw his number and knew it was him.
She answered it and prepared to do her best to explain to him that the festival wasn’t being too loud and that the city had planned it, so there was nothing they could do. She was also prepared to listen to him yell at her until he fell asleep.
However when she answered, no one said anything. She tried several times to ask him if he was okay and was truly expecting him to flip out on her, but he never said anything. Knowing that wasn’t like him, she knew something was wrong with him.
So she did her job and sent an officer, along with an ambulance, to his home, just in case he was having a medical emergency. When they arrived, they found Dale’s phone on the ground next to his rocking chair and his front door open.
The cop went inside and looked around but found no trace of Dale anywhere. All they found was the clothes he had been wearing that day on the floor in front of his mirror. The cop continued to look around and it was clear Dale was gone.
Another strange thing about him is that he never leaves at night, as he believes someone will rob him if he does. On top of that, he’d take his car, but his keys and car were still at his house. The cops had two theories at that point.
The first was that Dale was old and losing it, and he had decided to take his clothes off and wander off. The second was that someone finally had enough of Dale and they came to his house and kidnapped him.
Either way, it was something they had to deal with, so the police got into action, sending word out to everyone that Dale was missing. Search parties were created to look around the town, and the cops went around checking surveillance and doorbell cameras from his neighbors.
After a week, no one found anything. Dale was gone, and there wasn't a single clue that told them what happened to him. The police closed their investigation, and that day the school principal announced to first, third and sixth grade classes that they’d be getting a new teacher.
For now they would be working with a substitute teacher from the next town over. The principal also announced they had a new student. She then had a young blonde girl walk inside and introduce herself to the rest of the first-grade class that she’d be joining.
The girl looked a bit nervous and was twiddling her fingers as she built up the courage to speak. After a minute she looked up at her classmates and introduced herself as Dalena. She then said she hoped to make friends with all of them.
Her classmates all smiled at her, and all at once they welcomed her to their school and class. The principal then smiled and bent down to pat Dalena on the head. She told Dalena to have fun and learn lots from the teacher.
Dalena smiled and said she would. She then ran to the only empty seat and put her bag next to it before sitting down. Almost instantly the girls next to her leaned over and gave her a more personal welcome, with some even asking to become friends right then and there.
Dalena was incredibly shy and still very nervous, but she nodded and said she’d like that. While she was talking with the other students, the principal pulled the sub in close so they could have a quiet, private meeting.
The principal told the sub to go easy on Dalena. She was new, yes, but also her whole situation was a bit messy at the moment. The principal mentioned that Dalena was found at the festival last week only wearing a blanket.
She then mentioned that the cops took her and tried to find her parents but were unsuccessful. They tried to ask Dalena about it, but she said her parents were gone and that she was actually an old man.
The principal told the sub that the cops suspected something traumatic happened to her and her parents, and they were still looking, but for now, Dalena is staying with a nice foster family and attending school here.
The sub said that was awful but promised to shower Dalena in love and affection and to make sure she learns what she needs. The principal thanked her and left them all to their first class of the day. After that everyone went on with life like normal.
No one ever found Dale, but that was because they were looking for an old man and not a small child. Had they really thought about Dalena’s name or even looked at her, they’d notice she looked just like Dale when he was younger, and they’d know the truth.
The night of the festival, everyone who wished for Dale to change got what they wanted. He was turned into a small girl, which freaked her out. She went to try and get help but then saw the meteor shower and was amazed by it.
She then made her way to the festival to watch alongside everyone else. That’s when she was discovered and then handed off to the police. She tried to tell them who she really was, but as time went on, she started to forget her old life.
As that happened, her old mean personality was overwritten with a new happily, kinder and very shy one. She was now, and would be for the rest of her life, the cute Dalena who made everyone around her happier, and Dale would just fade into a boogeyman-type tale that parents tell their kids to make them behave.
Comments
last_of_workers
Yes. I have to admit, I expected something a little different, but I like what turned out much better... I just expected it to be more of a punishment for Dale, but in fact, it's a lesson for him and an opportunity to live his life differently. I really liked this story; it made my soul tremble, thank you for this story, Riley!
