Tuesday, February 21, 2012

A Beautiful Accident (short story)

***Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength***

     The light wet snow was hitting his wind shield as he drove down the black glass street in his plum colored ‘Saturn’. He grabbed his iPod and put on a song taking in all the aspects of Eddie Vedder’s vocals and the rest of Pearl Jam.  His mind was lost; so much stress had been taking hold of him. However, as he rode down the long street next to the mountains his mind became one with the road. He fixed his eyes on the dog park he was approaching, and as he entered the parking lot he lightly patted his friend on the back. Maybe not a human in form, but greater than a human in heart his dog Axel licked his ears as he eagerly noticed the location. He made his way up to the big friendly tree with Axel and got out his camera and notebook. Every so often Axel would have to leave behind a ‘property signature’ to large landmarks such as big plants, rocks, and trees.  Such things made him chuckle, he looked back to his notebook and began to write. He wrote about life and how the rude waves of the ocean must make way for the great wave, a tsunami. He wrote about hate and how the world was leading towards a war not of technology, but of hatred towards one another. He wrote about love, and how even he has been touched by the wickedness of a woman, the fear and lust that followed the dip into the unknown. Most of all he wrote about hope, about relationships. Such things, even if just fiction, found him dreaming of a world he chose to get lost in for a few precious minutes.
     The Charlie Brown theme started to echo around the baron dog park and he and Axel looked at one another before he answered it. With the blue phone to his ear he began to speak to his mother and was being sent on another ravaging quest to deliver the following ingredients to the house from the store down the long stretch of road. He had to force his dog back into the car treating him like a child who didn’t get the toy they wanted, and also ignoring Axel’s grumpy looking face squashed up on the dash board he made his way to the store for his mother.
     The parking lot was as crazy as usual, after a few minutes he parked the car and said goodbye to axel. As he made his way to the metal bars to grab the last cart another hand made its way to the cart. He looked up to see a blonde girl staring back at him with a confused smile. She laughed and let him take the cart until he offered it back. He made his way to the cash register when the Charlie Brown theme echoed amongst the frozen food section. He answered to hear the voice cracking of his brother. After a slight argument with his brother he made his way to the cereal section to get his brother’s desired ‘Cinnamon Toast Crunch’ when a familiar person grabbed the last.

                “Ok this is just weird!” He said with a smart ass voice.
                “Oh my god I know” she said “This is a sign!”
                “Of course” he said with a smile

      Slight warmth filled his heart as he walked away.  He turned around and watch the girl walk down the hall knocking down a couple boxes before turning around red cheeked and looking back to him.  What was apparent to him was that he had a choice; he had a few seconds to do what was going on in his head. Life is made on choices, it’s made on seconds, chances that few people can make but when they do they either fall, or rise. He grabbed the second best cereal he could find before rushing through the cashier which seemed to take hours. He barely caught the girl walking out of the store when he saw his whole future flash in front of him.

                “I was wondering, would you like to get a coffee or something?”  

     She looked down to her feet before looking up at him, her green blue eyes reflecting off the sun. She smiled and looked at her phone. With a quick debate in her head she nodded.  Something reached her mind, the same thing that reached his, it was the idea of destiny, about fate, and something that became very clear as they spend twenty five minutes at coffee shop down the block was that this world is made off of relationships. This world is made off of simple people entering other simple people’s lives. Yes, they are simple but they make amazing things. These relationships can be hard, they can be enemies, they can also be a simple hello on the sidewalk from a stranger. What makes it a relationship is the positive or negative difference you had walking away from it. And as he drove away from the coffee shop with her number in hand and tea in the other he smiled to himself. An accident, that’s all anything, really is.

               

    

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