Chapter 1
The rose-colored rays radiated and bounced through and in between the blooming leaves like a tennis ball between rackets arriving at their destination: a forty-ounce miller high life. A story book ending if I’ve ever seen one. Maybe it was the high life that was truly emitting the rays. Perception is reality in that way, and I like to believe the latter of my two options.
Unfortunately, it seemed I was the only one to hold this belief.
“Springdale branch is now set to arrive – 15 — minutes late”
The machine bellowed.
Shirts and ties, dresses, polos all groaned. Only half meant it. The other half because they were supposed to.
To me, there seemed no better occasion to take a swig. The high life was warm in my hands. The beer bit my tongue with a de facto carbonation in the same manner that a dorsal spine pricks a thumb. Still did the trick. The damn sweat stuck to my forehead though like Grill grease on fries at the end of a dinner rush. The scent of the sun was prominent, and the only mixer added in was the financial man’s cologne that makes for a concoction that hits the olfactory system of my brain like Ali hits a punching bag. The high life was empty.
I looked at these soulless people and saw no eyes staring back. Their feet were stuck 4 inches deep in cement and their faces angled parallel to the ground. That can't be good for the neck. If they’re lucky they’ll be washed away by the waves of new life. If not, they’ll erode for an eternity. The notifications played ping pong between my ears and the cacophonous laugh of the woman behind me shaved the hairs off my ear. No joke is that funny. A symphony of fake nails played on glass screens like marbles bouncing on a countertop and here comes the train in the distance. The bells started to toll as the candy-cane-striped gate came anchoring down but no one looked at this beautiful man-made contraption that can fly on land. No one had looked in years.
The horn blasted through the air surrounding my head and pinned my ear drums to my temple with the ferocity of an angry stapler on a stack of papers. My feet are light. The only one lifted from the cement.
I gathered courage — the same courage that you get at the top of the high dive to take the next step.
And I took it.
Into the shallow abyss. To free my soul.
But don’t pity me, pity the ones still on the platform.…
