[Author's note: I'm kind of blank from a creativity standpoint at the moment so I thought that I would dig into some of my older material. Here is the prologue and opening chapter to the novel that I am working on. Enjoy.]
Prologue: I Always Wanted to be an Astronaut
I never intended for my life to end up this way. When you’re a kid and someone asks you what you want to be when you grow up you always answer something glamorous like football player or doctor. Some outlandish, success filled profession where the rest of the world would look at you with admiration and awe. You never answer “I want to grow up to be a faceless cubicle drone just hoping to get through the day without having my soul forcefully ripped from my body.”
And I don’t care how much fun you have in your early twenties, when life simply consists of endless adventure and carefree existence, you always know that those moments are going to be fleeting. You’ll soon meet the woman that completes you (or at least doesn’t actively annoy you) and you’ll move out to the suburbs with your wife and your dog and an immaculately manicured lawn. That is the end goal and not for one second do you doubt that it is going to happen.
But life has a way of messing with your plans. What was always intended never occurs and you find yourself spending Valentine’s night working late in an office for a job you grudgingly perform because it gives you something to do during the day. Not even upset that you aren’t out because you were so unceremoniously dumped that the very concept of seeing happy couples sickens you. All of those dreams and convictions that fed you have slowly disappeared and all you can do is ask yourself “Is every day going to be like this for the rest of my life?”
That’s where I found myself. A seemingly successful thirty two year old lost amidst his life. No one to love, no burning passion in his heart, and a sinking feeling that life had past him by before it even had a chance to start. As if all of my dreams of happiness were as silly as my childhood dreams of being an astronaut.
Fate has a sense of humor, though. Life can take you for an adventure when you least expect it. The world can show you things that you never imagined.
Like I said, I never intended for my life to end up this way. But it makes for an interesting story.
Chapter 1: Some Mornings It Just Doesn’t Pay to Wake Up
Tuesday mornings are the worst. There is nothing more painful than coming to the office on a Tuesday morning. At least on Mondays you have a built in excuse for laziness. No one expects you to be a functional human beings and even the bosses are a little slow on the uptake. Everyone in the building is of the same mindset. No one wants to be there. We’d all much rather be in bed.
But on Tuesdays you lose that societal pretense of collective laziness. You’re expected to be in the office at eight and working whether you have your coffee or not. It’s part of adulthood, I guess. You show up at the faceless corporation and do your job. In my case you do it drudgingly trying to find the point of maximum results with minimal effort. I certainly don’t want to be there. I’d much rather be on my couch watching ESPN Classic and waiting for happy hour. Maybe that is why I spend most of my workday writing emails. At least that doesn’t feel entirely like work.
When I woke up this morning I actually felt pretty good about myself. Sure, life wasn’t entirely perfect and I’d have to drag my body through another day in the office but for once being Brian Evans wasn’t a bad proposition. I might complain about my job but at least I am successful at it. People in the office refer to me as the spreadsheet guru, the guy who can make numbers dance and that weirdo who always has headphones on (depending on how they feel about me at the time). I have a group of buddies who keep life interesting for me. Plus, there was Mary.
I don’t know about other people but I tend not to start relationships. It is more like I awake one morning to find myself in one. No one ever seems to inform me of the fact, there is never any paperwork to sign, all that happens is one night at the bar someone starts asking about my girlfriend and it suddenly dawns on me that I am dating someone. That’s kind of how things were with Mary. Met her at Pops and started hanging out. Before I knew it we were a couple and had actually started to like each other.
We spent the past few weeks doing all of those early relationship rituals. Spending night after night on the phone, secretly texting each other from the office, and finding every excuse to be together. “Want to go get coffee?” “I need to do some grocery shopping, care to join me?” No errand was too silly if it meant a few minutes together. Every word we shared was a revelation. I even made big plans for tomorrow. Dinner, flowers, the works. It is Valentine’s Day after all.
It didn’t surprise me that there was an email from her waiting for me in the morning. That’s just one of the ways we stay in touch. It did confuse me as to why she replied to an email that I had sent her two weeks earlier. All that email was about was how the Star Wars films created their own philosophical milieu. I tell all this just so you know that before I opened my email my world was, for all effective purposes, decent. I certainly did not expect the first words I read this morning to be
“Brian, I’m sorry but I don’t think you should ever talk to me again.”
There was only one thought in my mind after reading that.
“When does the bar open?”
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