Roads Untaken

Broken routines and clearer minds

Hey! Have you ever gone out of your way to take the longer path?

Back in high school, I would sometimes take alternate routes. Not because they were faster or easier or there was any less traffic.

I just needed to clear my head.

I often broke down in tears or shouted in anger as the music blasted on the stereo. I think I wanted to avoid the monotony of the main streets—the inevitable end.

That irreplaceable teenage spirit is filled with a taste of freedom. Rare moments where we prove we can step outside the lines.

Here’s a little peek at the emotions and the memory in this week’s piece of flash fiction.

Almost Gone

I’ll never understand why they make us wake up so early. The sky’s still dark and no one wants to be anywhere. I let the movements come to me naturally.

The less thinking involved the more likely I am to get through the day.

It came in flashes.

Suddenly I’d realize I can move my own body.

Right there in the middle of traffic.

Right turn. Left turn.

I can control where I go.

And so I would. I took the reins of reality in my hands and pushed myself to cross that bridge. If for nothing else but to feel as if I were my own master once again.

The music would grow louder in my mind—the notes and syllables well beyond my control. A notorious villain or a few giant steps for that morning kind of blue.

Then the weight of the world would crash and crush my dream.

There I was moving in the wrong direction. Late for the first roll call as another day’s worth of panic set in.

Alone or otherwise, it was always a disguise.

“Is this really where I want to be?”

It came back in another flash as I pulled into the big lot. Number three hundred and something in a square I wish I’d sooner forgot.

Left to abandoned hope and unrealized surprise, I could only imagine next time would finally be the time I pushed past that wall and ventured further beyond.

And with all the grandeur of a paid performance, I parked the car and turned off the engine. The music stopped and a deafening silence replaced all sound in my ear. Dreams and desires left as wake on the water flowing down paths and roads unknown.

The bell rang from behind the walls and the real day officially began.

I crawled into homeroom and pledged allegiance and all that jazz.

It wouldn’t be long until I lost myself to the music again. Maybe one day I’d find the courage and the will to push past my incompetence for good.

And even basking in the glory of the morning’s light, I still felt a deep darkness in my soul.

Abrasive Pause

While I wax poetic with a dramatic flair, I will add that I truly did want to just get up and run away.

Those times are fading into distant memories, but I can’t help but wonder if that wasn’t the better choice.

I think many people ask themselves similar questions. The many little what ifs that lead to what could have beens.

Like an inverse sophistry that fuels the most annoying post-hoc complaints. But I won’t give in to the deluge of nostalgic gripes and paralyzed choices.

So rather than another Holden Caulfield, I’d like to better understand those over-the-top emotions as a tool for writing stories and knowing myself. Unrealized potential is the compliment I always received and I believe it’s time I take active steps to render it more realized.

These are just a few of the thoughts coursing through my veins, poisoning the well from which my blood drips—coloring the stories I tell and the memories I revisit.

Perhaps this short pause before diving into revising and editing Significatorius is simply the perfect moment to match these moods.

I can transform my words into something tangible—one draft, one story, one step further down the road less traveled.

Until next time.

—JMB