Decisions

I wrote this piece for the new site that I'm Co-Moderating with the wonderful Cormac Brown called Icarus' Flight to Perfection, haven't checked it out yet??? It's a Must do!

Decisions

A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed. It feels impulsion… This is the place to go now.

Just like the cloud, I was given to impulse, the urge to just do. I put myself together, checked my reflection in the mirror one last time and at the last second tried to replace my grimace with a smile that made me look worse than I felt. Keys in hand I walked out the door and locked it behind me.

My thoughts were rushing, the story I was supposed to write for NaNoWriMo and didn’t, my job that no longer had a meaning, and the question of where was I supposed to be headed. I pried open the frozen door of my car. Inserting the key into the ignition, I begged for my car to start as I listened to the engine’s poor attempt to turn over. Finally sputtering to life, I kissed my steering wheel and grabbed the ice scraper out from under the seat.

“God, I know I’m supposed to thank you for the four inches of snow that you graced us with last night, but next time can you miss my car so that I don’t have to freeze my ass off while scraping it…” I glanced at the sky, “please?”

The red sky that morning should have been my warning. Something was going to change.

Driving towards an unknown destination my mind raced back to the rest of the passage I had read and reread over and over again the night before and that morning.

But the sky knows the reasons and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.

I had been missing something or maybe everything lately. I just felt so tired and confused. Nothing in my life was making sense and I felt powerless. I’d been a rag doll being drug through the dirt by some unknown entity then dropped and left to rot in the elements.

Horizons, heh. I said to myself, I haven’t seen a horizon in years, just mountains surrounding me, how the hell am I supposed to see beyond them if I can’t even see them to begin with?

I pulled the car over to the side of the road and screamed, screamed at nothing, at everything, but most of all screamed at a God I had trusted who led me astray and left me scared and alone to make sense of where he had left me. I had been his marionette, then when the strings became tangled he cut them all.

A feeling of complete loss surrounded me.

My Aries mode kicked in and looking up I saw for the first time in front of me a horizon, a break in the mountains where the road cut straight through for as far as I could see. I did have something to do after all, survive.

I turned my car around and headed straight to work. I kicked the snow off my boots and walked inside throwing my keys on the counter and looked at my coworkers who were shocked at my unexpected arrival.

“I’m done, I’m done with this job, I don’t care what you think, and I don’t care what you have or have not said against me or in my defense.”

One coworker opened his mouth to say something and I held up my hand for silence.

“At one point, this job was all I was living for, I poured my life blood into this place, my tears, my sweat, my sanity, all of it. And for what? For someone to tell me instead of Thank You for everything you’ve done, the money you’ve saved us, the money you’ve brought in that we wouldn’t have seen, or even a simple Thank You for sticking with it, I get a ‘You’ve fucked up, in every possible way.’ So you know what? I’m done. Fuck this job, I won’t let it eat what’s left of my soul anymore.”

I cleaned up my personal belongings while I listened to their stunned silence. As I opened the door to take my things to my car, the sun smiled down on me.

Their silence would end, as I knew it would, and it was the second trip back in to get my keys that one brave soul finally spoke up.”

“You said you were in.”

“Yes I did, and now, I’m not.”

Another finally got her wits about her, “But when you say you’re in, you’re in. Get it?”

I could feel the unused muscles in my face coming together to make a smile, a true smile. The knowledge of it made me laugh and without mishap my life became hysterical.

“Yes I get it,” my face grew serious, “but you know, when you’re done, you’re done. Get it?”

Keys in hand I started back towards the door.

“You can’t just do this- I mean, you promised!”

I whipped around and faced them.

“You know, sometimes… promises are made to be broken. And this is one of those times.” In my most smart ass tone of voice I could muster I followed with, “Have a nice day!”

The door shutting behind me flooded me with relief, I was headed somewhere, somewhere forward and with a new cause in mind. Screw the corporate world. And besides, I had a novel to write…