The Harbor (469 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by <GhostWriter> (View user info) at 2004-10-11 23:34:09 EDT
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And the ship sailed away...
So long...
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"Let's go on a cruise" Sally whispered into my ear.
"A cruise? Not a bad idea" I whispered back.
We had always talked about going away on an exotic vacation, but work was always standing in our way, preventing us from escaping. Life isn't fun anymore. As a child, innocence was the ultimate escape. It was a gift that kept on giving. I could fly away to another world like Peter Pan by playing in the tree in my front yard. I could become a Pirate and sail the vast oceans and make people walk the plank. I could pretend I was the president of the world and have all the people in the world bring me candy and cookies.
Yeah, life was good.
But here I am, the gift of innocence depleted from my soul. I bear the weight of the world on my shoulders. I walk through life with a hunch back, trying to accomplish my daily tasks and activates.
I went to high school. Got into college. Dropped out of college to begin a family. With Sally. Oh Sally...So naive. She wants to just pack up and escape from life. She's like a child in a way. Always suggesting we run away to Paris or the Caribbean.
"I can't stand it here anymore. The same old sun shining down. The same old job. The same old car. The same old life" she would say when she was fed up with things.
I work as hard as I can to pay the rent, and here she is wanting to run away. Sometimes I think she wants to run away from me. I don't have a college degree because I sacrificed my way of life for her. I have a low paying job...I'm a mechanic in training. I hate being a mechanic, but I know it's a trait I can pick up fairly easily.
Oh Sally, how you make my world so much more difficult.
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I was driving home one day after training in my Mazda 4-Banger truck, which I call "The Hooptie". Oh Hooptie, how I love you so. So simple. You take me from point A to point B, never complaining. Oh yeah, you're the man.
So, as I said, I was driving home. The radio was on some light classic rock, the good stuff. I was about four blocks away from my house in a small, quiet neighborhood.
And there he was. The image that has been engraved into my brain forever. A kid rode his bike into the middle of the street. I froze. Our eyes locked. Then we made a connection. The front bumper connected with the front of his bike.
My eyes welled up as I put the car in park. The sun was setting quickly, the neighborhood was empty. I sat. And I sat. And I sat.
My phone rang. It was Sally.
"Hello" I gasped.
"Where are ya honey, we gotta get packed for our cruise tomorrow" she said.
"I made a mistake" I said as I hung up the phone.
I pulled up to my house, tears rolling down my eyes. Sally was outside to greet me.
"What's wrong, honey" she whimpered, sensing my pain.
I rolled my eyes to the back of the truck.
She collapsed. She lay on the ground crying. She got up.
"OK, OK, we can get through this. We can get through anything."
She sprayed down the front of the car with the hose.
"Get in the passenger seat" she said quietly. It was now pitch black outside.
We drove for about an hour until we got to a chain-linked fence. She pulled up to the fence and stopped. She stared blankly ahead. The car backed up then plowed through the lightly guarded fence. We were at the harbor. The huge ships came in and out everyday to pick up and drop off cargo.
"Shirley works down here. She showed me how to open the crates one time. She said that a lot of these crates don't get opened for months after they're shipped."
I just sat in the car. My wife kept telling me how much she loved me and that everything would be alright. We could get through this.
She opened one of the giant crates. Those crates had humungous doors. She seemed to have the power of ten men when she popped those doors open. I just sat there.
Sally backed up the car halfway into one of the crates. I could hear her rolling the body out of the bed of the truck. Tears rolled down my cheeks like a river. I was frozen.
We were there for what seemed like an eternity. The sun began to rise.
We drove out of the docking area, away from the crates.
We sat watching the harbor. We saw ships come in and out. Silence filled us. A ship came in...the crate, our crate, was loaded onto it. I buried my eyes into my hands.
And the ship sailed away...
So long...
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Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 11:47:51 EST (#)
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