Solitary: 7

Observations and analysis, like those concerning humor, were not formed and polished on the first pass. Instead, Josh felt flickers of emotion and thought in incomplete sentences. These accrued over indeterminate spans and were ripe to be gleaned in the refrains of his day. The beds of sediment left by the days as they cut through him were rife with tiny nuggets he used to enrich his life. The banal was transfigured through the process of abstraction. His life could be connected to something grandiose like philosophy and removed from the fourteenth floor. He thought for the same reason a child made believe: to take him away. Abstraction was a means of pain management. 

Focus was useful, too. A CT’s goal was speed and accuracy, not comprehension. It was best, from an output standpoint, to terminate curiosity or sympathy. Optimally, few specifics from these letters registered in the front of his mind while on the clock. This would affect the same end as abstraction: distance from awareness of the present moment and its concreteness. Josh oscillated between these two approaches.

Eventually, fatigue set in and neither could protect him. The concrete burst through. Data accumulated on a discomfiting scale, restricting the flow of energy with emotional sediment. After another hour and no less than three responses to facial tissue chaffing complaints, he could go no further. His hands went still and he stared through the screen. He dragged his index finger across the space between the function and number keys. He rolled the dust into a wad between his thumb and pointer. He flicked it in the general area of his trash can. He craned his neck backwards and closed his eyes. He let his chin rest on his chest. You can’t get to the end unless you go through the middle. What’s the middle? What is my middle? It is so arid and pointless. Not mindless. If only it were mindless, then I could use my imagination. It takes up just enough of my thoughts…The end, though, what’s the end? Not appreciation or respect. Not success worth talking about with others. No accolades. Not even an attaboy. Just a pittance automatically deposited biweekly. Just going home Monday through Friday to listen yourself chew your food and hear footsteps squeaking above you. The whir of an oscillating fan in the summer and the pings of a radiator in the winter. Over and over again, and that’s what I’m working for? 

Thanks to Camus, Sisyphus has become a cliché mascot for the team of modern individuals. The repetition of the tasks, the lack of an identifiable purpose commensurate with the effort exerted, the impersonal cruelty of the medium and the surface (i.e., how easy for the rock to roll downhill and how hard for the rock to roll uphill) all summated into the absurdity of human life as most Joe Six-Packs and Jane Does lived it. But this story of a big stone and big muscles did not describe Josh’s life. His charge and his abilities were divested of any of the legend’s silver lining of significance. Sisyphus shoved boulders up a mountain. Josh flicked pebbles into a pond. Sisyphus was a clever king who had crossed the gods. Josh was a feckless plebian who would not dare take on middle management. He occupationally expended himself creating items that, in all likelihood, went straight into the trash can (real or electronic) upon receipt after a glance at the first few sentences. He was manning a station that could, would, and (from a stockholder’s perspective) likely should be automated. What use is there anymore for a typist? Am I really fighting for that anyhow? Labor, generally, was passé. Software was vogue. It was a tantalizing prospect from ownership’s perspective: more manhours a day, less men. At other firms, Josh’s ‘job’ was performed in large part without so much as a push of a button, where customized programs pulled from relevant fields and patched together vacuous, vague e-mail responses indistinguishable from his own. The only reason his position existed was it excused First’s shameless profiteering in a niche market. Customers F1rst charged its clients a handsome fee for its “human-centered” approach. Whereas similar corporations lowered overhead and raised productivity through heavily integrating technology, First prided itself on its “living, breathing compassion.” This approach was bankable, PR-wise, and attracted companies concerned with an image of personableness (a concern usually taking root after bad press). The people who worked to create the image of personableness did not feel like a valued commodity, though. The affects of employment in the CT position were (at least for Josh) a vertiginous cocktail of guilt (for being paid to do a job so obsolete), spite (for being paid to do a job so meaningless), and dependence (for the aforementioned pay). 

Josh slumped forward and rested his elbows on his desk like a man under duress. He slowly pushed his hands over the sides of his head and ears. He linked his hands over his crown. He was not disappointed. Disappointment was a child learning clouds were not fluffy solids after all and, therefore, could not hold your weight should you somehow get yourself up there. He was inconsolable. He fumed uncontrollably like an overheated nuclear reactor. His life’s overarching dream was not dying. It was dead. It was now shriveled and rotting into a furry, ugly mound in his core. Like psychic arthritis, the semi-conscious memory of what he aspired to ached constantly. He had wanted to be great, but did not have a clear concept of what greatness was. The superlative functioned like an intangible, publicly verified quality. For many years, Josh ran on the fuel of favorable assessments (gold stars, report cards, trophies, etc.). Now, there was no feedback—at least not from anyone Josh thought qualified. There was only cold silence like something lunar.

What was so terrible about the Real World adults had referenced with so much foreboding was not the responsibilities (i.e., overwhelming demands or long hours). University involved its own taxing duties, all of which could be as cumbersome or as easily shirked as their Real counterparts depending on the student/adult. What was so terrible was how alien it was. The Real World, made up of a haphazard array of systems and conglomerated governing bodies, did not care. It was bereft of concern. College would be the last time people are paid to take an interest in another person and his development, doctors and therapists notwithstanding. The encouragement and support ceased. Adults were on their own and known to be readily replaceable. You had your chance, fair and square, and this is what you grew in to. Be it or go away. 

Adding insult to injury, his undoing was not the consequence of his choices. He had no more chosen them than a sponge chooses the dishwater. He was immersed in them from youth. His was instructed in the principles behind discontent. “You are special.” He was a good boy and, when his father left randomly, he filled the vacuum in his mother’s heart. He had taken to saying “yes ma’am,” making meals of cereal for two, and always putting his tennis shoes in his closet every night by his own initiative. His specialness went unquestioned. It seemed like a given, his unique mode of being, an ontological attribute. “You can do anything.” In his room underneath fire truck emblazoned jersey sheets, the fading and pilling of which gave the tableau an impressionist aesthetic, he listened to the story of the light blue train fueled by the Power of Positive Thinking. “You get what you deserve.” “You are what you do.” At school behind diminutive desks, the underbellies of which overlaid with archaic mucous like brail to searching fingers, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed children were spooned egalitarian, meritocratic, and carcinogenic principles. 

All of this well-intentioned encouragement and idealistic teaching had an ugly shadow which was visible in silence. What’s that make me? If you don’t do something (something really special) then you aren’t anything. This was the quintessence of cruelty: he could not properly be blamed, and yet he was punished. It was not his fault. It was merely his. 

Josh drummed his fingers. There is a line beyond which thought, the interior counselor, should not go. Knowing himself, or at least his tendency to overthink, Josh knew he ought to cut this line of thought. The last of the cold, bitter liquid sloshed in his mouth and down his throat. More coffee.

Exchange between Exes

Dear Sophia,

I frequently wonder why it is we are the only creatures cursed with the power of introspection. Humans, for all their aptitude for second-guessing and regret, are more pitiable than all the other animals. While other sentient beings may shriek and cry at the commencement of a torturous injury or the onset of death throes, we are proficient in pain beyond immediate agony. In us are piled volumes of woe so unspeakable as to never be uttered, if they are fully utterable at all. Have you ever considered how much guilt we have buried into the Earth along with our ancestors? How the great majority of it never we breathed to a confidant amplifies the tragedies?

As to the source of our woes, we are often none the wiser. A scant few of us are keen to a portion of our shortcomings. Others, I have found, never seem to alight upon a one of them. Most are prone to only have presentiments of thorns in our side, a nagging splinter one never manages to extract. Yet it is these pesky facts that never allow us full comfort, even in repose. As I have aged, I have gained a greater awareness the thorns lodged in me. None gives me as much discomfort as the one you placed there as a testimony to my misdeeds against you. The affliction has not let me forget, although you, I assume, have long since forgotten me.

I cannot be rid of this remorse. I venture you have known me to be insincere in all weighty matters, but I swear this apology is ripe and earnest. Forgive me, please, for what I did—all of it—and for the state in which I left you. Please forgive me, as well, for conjuring up these faded recollections. If I could rest, I would not take the risk of upsetting you after so long. As it is, I am relieved to finally name my discontent and to make it publicly known, even though my audience is singular.

Whether or not it is possible for you to grant me clemency, I know better than to disturb you once more.

Honestly,

Alan

***

Dear Alan,

What an uncanny sensation for my hand to once again write a salutation addressed to you. I cannot say I imagined having the opportunity since we went our separate ways. Upon reviewing your alarming introduction, I resolved to respond.

If there is a thorn that has been lodged in your side for five years, then no other human has put it there. Have you considered the pricking of your conscience may be a divine intervention, instead? I can assure you that—whatever its origin—my forgiveness will not help guilt's pain abate. All the same, you have what I can give you, though it has never proven to suffice.

Take heart. You flatter yourself to presume my wounds are so ill-healed as to be torn afresh by a single prompting to recall our past. You have neither upset me nor been forgotten by me. I think fondly of you when I catch a waft of Indian cuisine or hear a movement from the Slovanic Dances. Otherwise, I think of you not. Along the way, I have learned it is best to meditate on general principals and universal truths and allow the ungainly details to recede.

While I am saddened to hear you're haunted, I must add I think it fair. There is so little fairness in this world that to be graced by feelings befitting your past deeds bodes well for you. As you wrote in your letter, few people possess clarity about who they are. Fewer still comprehend the sobering truths of their sins and vices. Although I can forgive you for what you did to me, I cannot forgive you for what you are. You'll need to take that account up with someone higher up, as it were.

In regards to disturbing me, you need not fret. I customarily have the leisure to write letters and generally try to be of service, even to a sick pup such as yourself.

Sincerely,

Sophia

***

Dear Sophia,

I was aware of the limitations of your forgiveness from the outset. I did not, however, dare to dream it would be so easy to attain. For all of your characteristic kindness, I remember you could be quite stern and exacting if the moment warranted it. My condemnation was the words by which we parted. You swore never to "grant succor to a louse" again, I believe. (Which I must say was an apt description of my behavior.) I am humbled you decided to break that promise for my sake. I hope to provide evidence of my reformation—though the change is late in commencing.

I have needed the aid of a saint for some time now, someone who can reconnect me to life. I am a pariah. All the circles I used to travel in have spurned me. The social loops opened long enough to cast me out and then resealed. Consequently, I have been relegated to solitude more than I am accustomed. I cannot discern whether my melancholy is from loneliness or from discovering what poor company I provide. Regardless, I spend as much time in my preoccupations as my occupation, the rest being squandered in sleep or stupor.

I have the gilded luxury of considering at length the nature of that disappointment in the confines of my quiet apartment. As an upshot of my soul-searching, I can at least articulate my most pressing fear. I am afraid that I am not the person I thought I was. In the recesses of my mind, I am perpetually disappointed with myself. I have concluded either: (a) I always fail to perform at the utmost level I thought myself capable of or (b) I am not capable of the utmost I hitherto thought I was capable of. In sum, either I lack the will or the prowess to excel.

This whole description is vague and, though you may let the details fall away in your own approach to life, I would be still guiltier before the judge if I withheld relevant information. A case in point: to my consternation, I am nothing more than a lowly salesman. I sell luxury wares to people who, in all likelihood, haven’t the surplus of time to enjoy them because the very reason they can afford the wares we sell is because they are scantly at home. They buy the pricey items for the reassurance that comes from the knowledge of ownership, not the items themselves. I am daily in the company of the class I aspired membership to, yet this only serves to bring my relative pauperism into stark relief. It follows I disdain my job. I tell myself that it is well to be employed and well to earn enough commission to cover my expenses. I console myself with the belief that, were I living in a different time or born into a different family, I would be doing something much more distinguished and attuned to my capacities.

If only that was where the story ended! There comes to mind a recurring suspicion like a dripping faucet in an otherwise silent house: what if the period and my lineage were altered? Would I nonetheless be mired in mediocrity? What if I chronically overestimated my own worth and ability? What if this life I'm muddling my way through is the best I can muster? And so I arrive at my fear of not being the person I thought I was. 

When I was younger and disappointed by my performance, it was natural to say, "But what does it matter now? I am not there yet, but someday I will be." Such excuses are out of reach now. Vain people cannot long survive in the awareness of their vanity, you know. It requires constant self-deception, which I am struggling to maintain. I cannot endure the likelihood of my misplaced confidence much longer. To be vain is more pardonable than to be living in vain. At least vanity entails ignorance. To be knowingly living in vain—for that there is no defense. I think I am simply a worthless man with a robust conception of worthy men. Worse still, I think it's too late to alter course. What can I, a non-entity, do? All of my actions amount to nil. All that nothing can do is nothing. To be average after so long considering yourself exceptional is to be a walking privation.

But enough. Your patience must be wearing thin.

I know your task as a confessor is not one of atonement, so I have no illusions about what is to come of this. I bring it to your attention as much as mine. I am relieved to pour out these over-fermented thoughts. I am further grateful for your lent ear.

Honestly,

Alan

***

Dear Alan,

I have been tricked. Whether it was you or I who did the tricking, I cannot decide. I had previously been lead to believe you contacted me to make amends. You expressed a desire to ease your conscience regarding your shameful past and the no doubt large part of that past of which our past was made. However, I now see your agenda was not apologetic in intent but pathetic. You continued your narrative with near exclusive emphasis on your own woes and relayed next to nothing about those you inflicted upon me and, presumably, those other circle-goers.

You poor, poor narcissist. Although you may have changed addresses, you still live in a house of mirrors. As much as I do not wish to give you what you desire, I cannot help it. You have my pity. Recall, though, we are commanded to take pity upon the wretched and the weak. I see nothing laudable in understanding yourself more at the expense of knowing others. You cannot hope to gain much of the one without the other. Where is your fellow-feeling? Where is your altruism? You are not as isolated as you take yourself to be. You are a part of a community of people. You cannot be extricated from it by a few people giving you a few cold shoulders. You still have your family, peers, neighbors, and, apparently, me with whom to relate. Please stop thinking so atomistically.

Furthermore, you do not prove yourself remorseful by converting momentary concern for others into a springboard to lamentation. Is it not telling that the only concern you display for others is to heap scorn on the common person? Have you ever asked yourself why it is so odious to you to be average (whatever that means and however you measure it)? Scores of average people are happy enough and rightfully so. From the looks of it, you would rather be a tormented genius than a contended pleb. Let me clarify the option for you, since the dream has gotten out of hand.

Genius is rarely respected. The rest of us cannot properly fathom the trait when it makes an appearance. The brunt of the individuals who are widely appreciated are so because they are relatable, not because they are an unapproachable breed. (I am not arguing we ought to live for the esteem of the laity. Esteem is oft misplaced, as you yourself can now attest.) What is more, genius bears within itself the germ of its undoing. Barring an overdose of arrogance, the genius knows better than we normals the extent and whereabouts of his or her limitations. With greater acumen comes more acute grief.

I did not communicate clearly earlier when I referenced principles and details. Details are important, though we ought not rehash them incessantly. Minutiae are the font of dreadfully myopic emotional lives. That said, what is it exactly that you want? Be specific. Is it an income with more zeros before the decimal? Do you crave the esteem of your critics? Would you like to be the protagonist in a modern tragedy? You poor honors-chaser! You are on a forlorn treadmill, busy making no progress. How often need you be dissatisfied in short order upon gratifying your desires before you realize that you are fickle before anything else?

At least you have sought assistance, though you expect me to do the greater part by running to your assistance. If you have been mistaken in your own estimation of self, so be it. Be mistaken no longer and leave the cycle altogether.

Sincerely,

Sophia

***

Dear Sophia,

Please forgive the tardiness of my response. The delay is amply fathomable when you consider the extent of your criticisms. I am wounded, but I cannot say I did not deserve your lashes. You have me dead to rights. You still know me better than myself.

You asked what I wanted specifically out of life. I take your query as a response to my airing of grievances. If I were able to relay my demands to you, I would be the exceptional man I long to be. The details bewilder me. So many scenarios would be preferable to the one I am currently chained to. I can sense that frustration and despair follows from not being clear-headed on the topic, but what can I do? Do you presume to know what it is you want, specifically? My sense for what affronts me has always been keener than what I require. I can, for instance, assuredly assert that I do not want to be here in this apartment. I do not want to be forever relegated to my lowly position. I have tried and tried and tried to take care of myself, to maneuver and advance—for naught! I am mired in a pool of quicksand. I am sinking into the slop of false accusations and disrespect. The ignominy of it all! Have you ever been lambasted by a 'superior'? How can the world function with power so haphazardly bestowed upon blockheads!

Enough of these ravings. I do not want to court more reproaches.

I confess I feel frail and prone to rambling. I am exhausted by my inner-volleys. I was proud, am wretched, and dart between the two sides every minute. In the social sphere, I have fallen and rightfully so. I have been conniving. But in my livelihood: here I am an innocent victim. The shame of it all! I am spared from downcast introductions only because I'm not one new asks. Why is job title the first question out of everyone's mouths? "What do you do?" I perform various and sundry acts. This morning I awoke, made my bed, ate breakfast, watered my house plants, dressed, brushed my teeth, and shaved my face. I packed a lunch and drove my car—all before 8 a.m., mind you. "But what do you do?" Oh, you mean specifically. I am paid to squander my time, if you must know. Isn't that how it always is? How tired I am of all of it!

Am I so conceited, Sophia? I do not take myself to be. Should that concern me? Can self-loathing and hubris coincide in one person to such a fevered pitch? I fear the surest sign of a prideful heart is a lack of contrition. Memories of my callousness towards you shame me, but I may have confused my wealth of vexation for guilt. How is it that a man can try to do no wrong and yet transgress the boundaries of error at every turn? You do not hold my mistakes against me, merciful creature that you are, and yet I feel as though pinned. 

At the risk of decorum, I always wished I could love you. I never could see it through. I am a changed man, a child awakening. Like a child, I am cranky and irritable. I cannot carry on with this. I am as confounded by what I expected from this correspondence as what I expected from this life. I am sorry for dumping this refuse upon your doorstep.

Yours,

Alan

***

Dear Alan,

My tone was stern. I admit I turned the screw too far. For that, I apologize. Let us both calm down and take stock of the situation. You are somewhere between proud and miserable. I am somewhere between unnerved and concerned. Let's both commit to baring only the better side of our Janus-faced hearts. In order to do that, you need to stop thinking about deserts and I need to stop considering you my responsibility.

I think you are completely right in your dissatisfaction regarding the standard mode of personal identity. We are all much more than our titles suggest. Still, convention demands strata be swiftly revealed. Moreover, convention has a knack for simplifying what would otherwise be needlessly complicated. If we could not draw upon a set of stock questions to ask at dinner parties and church meetings, how much more awkward would first meetings be? Moreover, one can gain insight into a person from know how she spends a third of her waking hours. It would be ill-advised to conclude that her current station is her final destination, of course. To learn how she reconciles herself to the role would be informative. Granting a concession to propriety, I would applaud that original person who would ask what I did this morning instead of where I work or who's my spouse.

While on the topic of queries, I'd like to make you aware of a possibility. You could genuinely ask me about myself. That would be original, wouldn't it? You could ask me what I have done with myself the last five years. I would then tell you how, after we parted ways and I went through the requisite mourning process, I decided to pick up anchor and set sail for this metropolis. (I assume my mother was kind enough to forward you my address. She was incorrigibly fond of you.) My experience here has been, all in all, refreshing. It is simultaneously easier to lose yourself and to be found in a big city. I appreciate the anonymity dense populations provide, although being in close proximity to so many other people increases your chances of meeting a scoundrel. Everything here is faster. There is no time for pleasantries, yet there remains just enough for rudeness. Even then, the city proves ambivalent. Provided the offender is not a neighbor, the odds are against ever running across the same villain. It is safer to turn your cheek here as a result, since it is improbable to be struck twice. Wouldn't it be nice that I could say all this and it would appear we were interacting rather than alternately acting? But I am distracting myself, imagining as I do.

I hope you are better now. Do yourself a favor and search out someone to help in whatever small way you may.

Regards,

Sophia

***

Dear Sophia,

I apologize for not asking you sooner about your subsequent past. I intended to do so, but I admit I am not healthy enough to make good on good intentions. It is all but impossible for a person so adrift in his own past to maintain curiosity about another.

As usual, your critique it apt. Perhaps we can finagle a way for you to live my life for me. Ah, but that would not work either, would it? I suspect you are not immune to the commonplace form of ignorance that so easily afflicts us all. I will never understand how oblivious we can be about our own motivations. What does it say about self-absorption that, for all of the attention, we know less about who we are after a session of navel-gazing?

To continue the list, I will never understand how we can at once be so free and so out of control. What paths would we take were it not for the light other people cast on us? I think you're the only person I have every taken seriously. You actually prompt me to wonder about what's inside you.

Look at what I am doing. I am lying another trap for myself. Enough of all this. Forgive me for being so slow to right myself. Forgive me for all of the forgiveness I request. I'll stop.

I agree with your course. Let's move on. Let's be friends, ask questions, and tell stories of the city and chance encounters. We can rebuild our castle. We would both be benefited by that, right? 

The other day I was washing my hands in the lavatory at my workplace. As I was rubbing the soap on my fingers into a lather, the building custodian entered. I recognized him but could not greet him by name. I do not recall him ever uttering a word in my presence. He had a couple rolls of toilet paper tucked under his arms. He was surveying the bathroom's supplies. He was bashful. I watched him in the mirror dart from stall to stall. While he riffled through the keys on his large key ring, I said hello. He turned towards me with a surprised look. "Good afternoon," he replied with a little hesitation. Not knowing what to add and thinking it too obvious to compliment him on the cleanliness of the facility, I asked him instead about his plans for the weekend. He smiled and looked more at ease. His shoulders sagged to a less tense position. He told me he was taking his wife and child to the local amusement park to celebrate his son's high marks in school. I told him that sounded grand and wished him a good time. He smiled again and returned to his duties. I watched him grab an orphaned wad of paper from the ground and flick it into the trashcan. He told me to have a good evening. 

As I discarded my paper towels into the receptacle, I reviewed what had transpired. It seemed as though, in an unplanned moment, I involved myself in an exchange that featured two of the topics from your last letter. At once, I was a participant in a conventional conversation and was helping someone (albeit in a trifling manner). I know it helped me. Small, congenial human interactions disproportionally affect us. He and I managed to care for each other more than the sycophants who ask me what I do for a living while looking past me to see if someone else of greater stature has been freed up for fawning conversation.

This story above is a means to thank you and prove that a few of your seeds of wisdom have taken root in me. I am taking you seriously. For further proof, I close this letter with questions for the recipient. And so, what was on did you do this morning? Do you have any tales you'd like to tell? I'd be a liar if I assured you I was all ears, but I am not truly myself when I am being all mouth either.

Yours,

Alan

***

Dear Alan,

I am pleased and relieved to read of your kind act. May it be the first in a lengthy succession. To that end, refrain from the practice of self-commendation, lest it outstrip your merits or disorient you from forward movement. We ought to be charitable toward others for their sake, not for our own. Any fruit we reap from the good deeds we do are accidental and must not be part of our motivation.

But enough of that, as you say.

I have found that directness is the surest way to bear bad news. The preceding paragraph is exemplary of why I cannot indulge in correspondence with you any longer. I am not your caretaker, still less am I your confessor, or your priestess. Yet, even after years, we are swift to perform our familiar parts. They are the most comfortable. 

I will take a turn begging your pardon. I am sorry for beckoning your interest. We are not, as has been borne out previously, edifying for each other. I fear I would forestall you from fully realizing your independence were I to persist in offering correction.

For my justification, I cite no less an authority than Aristotle, who found parody to be at the core of the richest friendships. Suffice it to say, our souls haven't the requisite resemblance. I here make no judgment, let alone indictment, of character. I am merely stating the obvious. Our goals and are our aptitudes are too disparate to sustain a relationship, however innocently we come by it.

Lasting isolation does a man ill, but proper seclusion often yields wise perspective. We are both on that path, I take it. Let's not ruin our chances by drawing this out.

Sincerely,

Sophia

Finished

Timothy Fleming sat on a bed with worn-white sheets, questioning what good he was. Everyone wants to give something back or at least feel like he's altered the world in some fashion. Previously, he thought he was a talented athlete. As a little boy, his tee-ball coach bragged about how fast he was. He could outrun all of the boys on his street. He beamed with pride at his natural ability. He made his speed a defining characteristic as he aged. But he never wanted to rest on his laurels. A coach told him the fastest runners in the world aren't either born or made. They're both. He trained rigorously, beefed up his muscles, and read copiously on the mechanics of running. He took all the best paths in competitions and concentrated as singularly on excelling a possible. Throughout high school, he moved up the rankings in his state.

Timothy never bothered with his classes. He did enough to avoid academic probation, but otherwise was disinterested. His only acquaintances were other runners, but he rarely had time to socialize. Even on the long intrastate bus rides, he would close his eyes and imagine the courses over and over with Wagner playing in his ear buds. The local media covered the state race in his senior year. The sportswriters speculated that Timothy Fleming was bound for the Olympics. Careening around the track earlier that day, Timothy knew he was on state record pace. He felt strong. He heard the metal of his spikes dig into the rubberized surface, the frantic clacks of his opponents, and his measured respiration. The strands of blond hair fluttered atop his head. In the moment, everything was as it should be. Crossing the finish line, he completed the race faster than anyone ever had in his home state. Hands slapped his back and his coach embraced him with his sweaty, hairy arms.

A pronounced sense of accomplishment never formed in Timothy's mind. High school competitions are child's play. Legends aren't made in Springfield, Illinois. He wanted to set world-records. He needed to train more. His body had more developing to do. Then he could captivate larger audiences. They'd be in awe of his speed just like his tee-ball coach. Before the other events were over, Timothy was already thinking about how many reps he needed to do on the leg press tomorrow. Ascending the steps to the bus for the long ride home, a teammate called, "Congrats, Timmy!" He turned his head around to scan for the face that matched the voice. Distracted, he clipped the edge of the second step. Quickly bringing his leg down to regain his footing, his knee joint gave. All the sinews in his knee tore, shooting pain up the relays to his brain. As Timothy fell forward in a heap, he knew his ACL and MCL were torn and hoped he was dying.

Waiting in an emergency room bed wearing a white gown with sky-blue small polka dots, Timothy wondered. Is it possible for a person to have a talent that goes unfulfilled? Nobody cares about high school records. I have nothing now. No prospects. I'm not good at anything else. What a waste of space!

Hooked

Jonathan lightly pinched the wriggling worm between his index finger and thumb. Its slick segmented body squirmed about as he drove the tip of a fishhook through it. What is this poor worm thinking? Jonathan thought as he gazed for a moment at the hook. Oh well. It's for a greater cause.

Jonathan's grandfather, William, commanded his pre-teen kinsman to cast his bait into the water before it wore itself out. The bobber soon made a soft smacking sound as it crashed into the surface of the water. Though there was not another soul for miles, the area around the pond was teeming with noise. The cicadas and crickets combined into a muddled cacophony. The two of them sat in well-worn folding chairs in the back of a well-worn red truck.

Jon and Bill spent hours in the back of Bill's truck. Nary a word was spoken between the two of them. They stared at their respective floating pieces of plastic as the sky around them went from pink to yellow. Once nine o'clock came, they both reeled in what was left of their bait, closed the styrofoam container that housed the nightcrawlers, and reentered the cab. A fifteen minute jaunt and they were back to the cottage.

Jon lacked the stomach to eviscerate fish. Bill, being a compassionate man, never forced him to. As a result, all the fish that were caught were shortly thereafter thrown back. It was enough for Jon to spend a week's worth of mornings with his grandpa in the back of a a truck.

Given the small size of the fishing hole the Westinghower's frequented, it was inevitable that the same fish were caught more than once. The last summer that Jonathan fished with William, he reeled in a particular blue gill for the second time. Carefully grabbing it around its spiny fins, Jon was dismayed by the fish's appearance. Years ago, William had promised a younger Jonathan that the fish quickly healed from their wounds owing to the cleanliness of the water they lived in. The particular fish he held then in his hands showed no such regenerative abilities. It hopelessly puckered the remaining half of its lower jaw as the gleam of brass shined out of its right eye. Previously maimed in the mouth, it now suffered the degradation of blindness. Jon became queasy at the sight. I'll never fish again! This poor fish! Caught twice and for what?! Only to be thrown back and caught again next year?

Unsure of what to do next, Jon held the fish in his hand. Bill, noticing his grandson's hesitation, asked him for his catch. As carefully as possible, Bill removed the burred hook from the blue gill's face. He tossed it into the pond. It landed with a splash and flourish of motion as it dove back into the murky depths.

"I want to go home."
"It's not nine yet."
"I know that, but I want to go home."
"Are you upset about that fish?"
"I don't want to fish any more."
"Because that fish is a little worse for the wear?"
"For God's sake grandpa, he can't eat or see right anymore!"
"He got two meals out of the deal."
"You're inhumane! I want to go home!"
"What does humanity have to do with fish?"
"We shouldn't just hurt animals for the fun of it."
"We weren't trying to hurt animals, were we?"
"Being stabbed must hurt."
"If you can figure out a better way to bring them out of the water so we can get a better look at them, I'm all for it. As it is, we have to skewer them a little."
"We don't fish to see fish better."
"We don't? Well, what do we do it for?"
"I don't know."
"Because you wanted to when you were younger. You were all sorts of excited at the opportunity to go on a fishing expedition in the great unknown of your grandparent's farm."
"Well, I've seen enough of the farm."
"Have you seen enough of your grandpa?"
"If it means we have to hurt innocent animals, yes."
"You didn't have an issue hooking the worms. They are the ones that great the real raw deal out of this activity. They get gored only to be eaten."
"All the more reason not to fish anymore."
"Pain isn't so bad. You shouldn't let it have the only say in deciding whether to do something or not. Sometimes pain is worth it."
"What does a fish--or a worm--get out of being apart of our game?"
"Like I said, the fish gets a little meal. It gets to live a little longer. As for the worm, well...it's more of a sacrifice. We thank it for letting us have time together."
"I don't think the worm is busy thanking us."
"You think the worm is busy holding it against us?"

Jon paused thinking for a while. He could see his grandfather was getting the upper hand in the conversation and opted for obstinacy rather than continue to reason with him.

"Can we please go home?"
"Fine."

The two fishermen shared a quiet ride home, and never went out to the pond again.