Departure

"Hello,"

"Hi dear, its mom. How's everything going?"

"Hi mom. Things are fine."

"That's good. What's new? How're classes? How's Amber? Is that her name? How is she?"

"Nothing new. Classes are fine. Yeah that's her name, and I'm sure she's fine."

"Oh good. Are you ok? We never hear from you dear."

"Yeah, everything's ok. Nothing wrong."

"Well ok. Your father and I were just talking the other day and--."

"Mom I gotta go. I'll talk to you later."

"Oh ok, well b--" He hung up as he rounded the corner.

He generally enjoyed these walks to the coffee shop. To anywhere, really. It wasn’t so much the destination that he fancied, but to merely escape from the blatantly white walls of his studio apartment. This day was an exception. He would have very much enjoyed to stay home and stare at his ceiling, and he couldn’t help but wince as a glance up from the sidewalk informed him that he was a mere two minutes from his dreaded destination.

The cause for his unease on this day was a phone call he had foolishly answered the day before. Amber was upset, which was often the case, and had called to inform him of the abhorrent activities of so-and-so with somebody, and how this person told this girl some things that he really didn’t care about. Although he tried to listen, and care, and do things a boyfriend should do, he inevitably drifted into his own thoughts. What most would consider falling, he embraced as flying. From and to where, he couldn’t tell. There was no ledge, no ground; there was just the wind rushing through his hair, washing over his body. It was per—.

“Are you listening to me?” Amber said, and he was sucked back.

“Sure.” was the only response he found.

“Sure? I’m sick of this. You always do this. You never care about what I have to say. I’ll be back in town tomorrow. We need to talk, so let’s meet somewhere.”

“Ok. Coffee shop.” he replied blankly, and hung up.

It was the words “we need to talk” that caused his distaste of the meeting that he was shortly to attend. Particularly, it was the word “talk” that caused the tingle in his stomach as he looked up to find himself a matter of steps from his destination. There wasn't much weight in the things that were going to be said.

He was a few minutes early, and odds are she would be late, so he took a seat on a bench out front. The sign above him read, “To Bean, or Not to Bean! ” in letters of varying size and personality, and the smell of coffee was being gently wafted from the nearby door. Despite what surely was to come, he was at that moment content--sitting alone, watching each cog move precisely as it should. Though just about every moment of happiness—including this one—that he’d encountered in the past three years had come with a vicious, erosive undercurrent.

He had outwardly gone to college because it was the next step in his life. His first year of school was new and exciting. He was going to make fifty-seven friends, have several girlfriends, join every club he could, and maintain the highest grades he could manage. And for a month or two, that seemed to be true. He’d made a few friends on the first day, joined a couple of clubs, and maintained above average grades. But slowly, his situation deteriorated. More time spent with these friends revealed them to basic and consistent. The clubs weren’t really appealing after a few weeks of inefficient meetings and what he deemed to be useless event planning. And his grades slowly declined to a level best described as “good enough.” His girlfriends during these years in no way stimulated his early ambitions, but he had nothing else to cling to and could not bring himself to jump ship. And so the next three years continued in the same way, and he was left with what friends and family whispered to be—“a lack of motivation.”

But there was no denying he was doing what he should do. He was going to college to get a good education to get a good career to pay for his good education and a good suburban life he was going to fit so well into. And he could think of nothing more terrifying. There were few times that he was entirely happy, and equally few times that he was ever sad. Why should he be? He had the promise of a good career after school, and a chance to begin a life. But it wasn’t his life he seemed to be preparing for.

“Hey,” said a voice he recognized to be Amber’s.

“Hey.”

“Wanna go inside?”

“Yeah, sure.”

There was a reasonable amount of bustle as they made their way to a table that seemed to be the most secluded, in the back corner of the room. The coffee shop’s commotion pleased him, and he couldn’t help but briefly imagine himself in the midst of a busy city. Someplace foreign. He was tempted to get a cup of hot chamomile tea (with a touch of lemon), but decided that they were probably not here for any form of enjoyment. They sat there for an uncomfortable length of time, Amber tapping her fake nails on the table between them. He was waiting for her to speak first, as he had nothing to say. Her face told him that she was trying to find the correct combination of words. He hated her for this.

“How are you?” she said

“I’m fine.”

"That's good." He could tell that she wanted him to ask her about her conference over the weekend. She had joined the college's Business Leaders of America club and had gone to a conference. He didn't feel that there was much more to know.

"So, the conference was like sooo much fun. And we...." She continued talking but he couldn't bring himself to listen. He knew that the only reason she was telling him this was to get to her golden question. After several minutes of an account of the weekend activities she asked him the question he'd be dodging for three years.

"So how's the job hunt going?" she asked with her familiar veil of cordiality

"I don't know. Not really looking right now"

"I told you to drop off some applications this weekend."

"Can't see any reason why I should."

"No reason? Your future! You don't have that long, you know. You're gonna start a career after school right?"

"Career? No, I don't really think so. "

Irritation was building on her plastic face. “This…I don’t know about this anymore.” Her considerable emphasis on each “this” made him think of a snake and it took a bit of effort for him to reel his mind in from the jungle scene it so wished to enter.

“Ok. Why’s that?” he replied. He was neither shocked nor angry, but legitimately curious.

“You don’t seem to care about—about anything. I can barely get you out of your apartment, you don’t have any friends, you refuse to get a job and I can’t seem to get you to do anything!” She paused. “It’s just a wonder I’ve stayed with you this long.” ‘There it is,’ he thought. He’d known she’d been longing to say something more cutting and he couldn’t help dawn a modest grin at her release of it.

“Well?” she said.

“That seems about right to me. Anything else?” He knew she needed him to care.

“What? That’s all you’ve got to say!" He nodded, letting her continue.

"Of course that’s it. I shouldn’t have expected anything else. I’m leaving. We're done.” And she turned and stamped out of the room with an irritated sigh and a flip of her hair. He sat for a bit, enjoying the coffee shop with a look that said 'Hi' in a cheery tone. He then got his tea and a perfectly moist lemon poppy seed scone, and made his way to the park down the road.

There, in the park, was a bench that overlooked a playground. To his right, and down a slight slope ran a tranquil river. It was there that he sat to think. Not of what had just occurred—as he had been expecting and wanting that episode to play out for some time—but of his current surroundings. Directly ahead, several children were running and screaming among the jungle of bars, slides, spinny-things, and things-that-made-noise. He watched them for several minutes

"I'm a fireman!"

"Well I'm an astronaut!"

There had always been that question looming. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" “Be” seemed at fault—obsolete. He was already doing that. There was something wrong with this question. It was the next two words that came to him that seemed magnificently appealing. “Do. Go,” he mused grinning. There was a slight breeze and the quivering leaves rustled above. He closed his eyes, and lay on the beach, the waves gently crashing…

"Wooooo ah wooooo ah!" cried one of the children sprinting by

He opened his eyes. At his feet he noticed a worm on the drying sidewalk before him. It was not yet dead, but close. As he looked more intently he noticed that it was inching its way not toward the moist grass behind, but toward the dry, golden bark chips of the playground. His eyes were securely fixed to this spot of life or death. He had an impulse to change its direction, but this moment passed and he realized the error.

The next day, Joe got a job and a suitcase.