All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 2: Zen as Zen

Was this epic win/fail something I might have already done or set in motion? I counted off my list of achievements, which consumed all of three seconds of my life. And even my most embarrassing moments were hardly news worthy. It couldn't have been something I had done in my past...perhaps something I do in my future? It was a fortune after all.

But what could my future have in store for me? And for a few moments I thought about my future and allowed myself some small measure of hope, which I hadn't allowed myself for a long time. Maybe life wasn't just going to keep handing me a shit sandwich forever. Maybe something was bound to go my way eventually. Maybe, the fates had something special in store for me after all. Maybe my next meal would be something more substantial than a fistful of fortune cookies. Dare to dream! I know.

But what if I was reading the future the wrong way? What if my name went down in history for being that guy generations to come would loathe and jeer. Like Hitler. Or Caligula. Or that guy who invented spam email. I shivered and banished the thought.

Instead, I kept skipping stones, one after the other, and just emptied my mind. Of everything. While watching the concentrated rings in the water ring out and ring in together. I would alternate trying to beat my personal record of eleven skips and then trying to get the skips closer and closer together so that the ripples of each concentrated circles would smoosh into each other, which is Zen as Zen if you think about it – or rather, empty yourself from thinking about it.

I continued like that until nightfall, and only broke out from my reverie when I heard my stomach growling. Oh yeah, I had just eaten my last meal and that was hours ago. I staggered around in the park and looked around at the crowds of whoever thought the park was a place to be. I swatted the flies and stared at the water that was there because it was told to be. What else could I do? I needed to eat so I turned and half-stomped my way up the hill and toward seventh and Alvarado.

I must have been pretty hungry. Let's put it this way: I'll spare you the details on how or rather what I ate that night, and let your imagination fill in the blanks. 

When I got back to my apartment it was way past dark. Opening the door, I went to turn on the light to my humble abode when I remembered that hydro had been cut last week because I couldn't afford to pay it. I cast a glance askew towards my phone-puter on the couch and a chill ran down my spine. I hadn't thought this get-out-of-the-house-to-escape-the-creepypasta-only-to-return-home-in-the-dead-of-night plan very well.

I stood in the doorway, pondering if I really wanted to go in or sit in the stairwell where at least I'd have some light when suddenly the phone rang.

Now I had to go in and at least see who was calling. My mom was paying for my plan so she could keep tabs on me and would get worried if I didn't answer when I was "supposed" to be studying for finals and not out scrounging for food. It was harder to make up "where I had been" than to lie and pretend I was in the middle of studying for an exam at a school I no longer attended.

I dashed into the dark and picked up the phone. The screen said: Atticus Mayday. Now why in blazes would he be calling me of all people?? I knew I shouldn't answer, I should just let him sit and stew but then curiosity got the better of me.

"Atticus," I answered in as flat and non-committal a voice I could muster.

"David?" I heard Atticus's gravelly voice timidly inquire.

I waited for him to speak but there was only a tense silence on the other end. I wasn't going to give into it. He called me, remember? Let him do all the talking.

"David, don't be like that..." Atticus began but then became consumed with a coughing fit. I waited patiently while the old codger hacked out what sounded like a fur ball before resuming, "What are you doing tomorrow? Let's grab lunch...I'm buying."

My stomach growled loudly at the words and I quickly covered microphone with my palm. I couldn't let him think I was going to let him get off that easy. "What's in it for me?" I demanded.

"Besides lunch?" Atticus laughed with incredulity, "You strike a hard bargain, David. Tell you what, you just show up at noon to Bru's Wiffle and I'll tell you what's in it for you." And just like that Atticus hung up and I was listening to the dial tone.

I looked at the phone and smiled. There is no way Atticus would be buying me lunch just to apologize for everything that happened. The word wasn't to be found in his dictionary. Something big must be going on for him to overcome his pride and call me. He needed me.

I cast my eye around my dark, dingy hovel of an apartment. Perhaps my luck was about to change after all.

//

A/N

Cheers and thanks so much for hitting 550 reads already!! SO EXCITING!!

~C

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All Your Fates © 2012 Carrie Cutforth, Jim Martin and Tom Liljeholm. All Rights Reserved.