The Great Pelican Boy

Chapter 1

When I was younger I went out for a day on my grandfathers sailboat and dreamt of living on the sea and sailing around the world. I can still picture that day when I close my eyes, the ocean air and the birds patrolling the harbor. My Grandpa kept yelling at me to tie things down and would get mad that I always did the knots wrong. He would lose his temper a lot, especially when he was on that boat. When he was yelling at me to tie the knots down, I was too busy daydreaming about the first person who had the idea to try and find a way to put pieces of wood together in order to hold a person above the water. I couldn't imagine how that guy must have felt when he put the wood in the water and stood up in what would be the first boat. I kept wondering if that first guy had never built that boat, how much longer would have gone by before someone else did. I always loved thinking about how lucky we were to have people like that.

The smell of the ocean today brought me back to being on my Grandpa's boat. I didn't know much about sailing then and I may know even less about it now, but something brings me back to this harbor every now and then. My Grandpa is long gone now and his boat was taken as part of the settlement with his second wife, so now I just see the harbor as a place to come and stare at the sea, or look at the birds. It's kind of funny that birds have the ability to fly anywhere they want, but instead seem to always be sitting on a boats sail, or on a power line. I always thought that if I had the ability to fly anywhere I would never just sit in one place that seems so ordinary and boring. Maybe birds aren't just sitting there because it's convenient, they probably don't even think about it. My mom always told me I thought about things too much. Why it would ever be a problem to think about things "too much" I'll never know. I remember when she wanted me to go to therapy because she was scared I was holding too many things in. I really don't like the whole idea of being diagnosed with something. I can still picture Dr. Harmen while she was reading off the medication I had to start taking after making her assessment. I couldn't believe that for thousands of years we lived with no medicine and were perfectly fine. I could never really wrap my mind around why I had to take medication that ninety-nine percent of the humans in history had never even heard of. Why is it that animals never have doctors telling them that they have mental disorders?

I've come to see the world a lot differently lately. Today I was laid off from my job. When people were getting excited about the new technology that was starting to come out, they always seemed to forget about the impact it could have on the lives of everyday people. The invention of A.I. brought a lot of really useful things, most of them made our lives easier. But when companies found ways to save money, they did. The irony of people getting laid off from jobs in which they thought were safe is almost comical in some twisted way. It was always the norm to go to college, work hard and land a cushy job where you would grow old and die. I never saw any appeal in that, but my parents seemed to have had my destiny written by the scribes themselves. My dad always told me that he worked hard so that I could go to college. They felt that it was the only way I would find some peace of mind. In a way they were right, it really did bring me direction. Boredom and routine are sometimes a blessing, depending on the person. The years I worked in the office were some of the happiest years of my life. Perhaps happiness comes from the saddest, darkest parts of the brain being fulfilled I guess. The problem was that my parents lived in a different time than me. They thought that a degree equaled a good job for life. But, as most of us know now, some of the first jobs to go were the ones that paid the most. Tech companies started developing software programs that could essentially do whatever job you told them to do. The worst part was that they did it better than any human ever could. I suppose there's some type of solace in the fact you're getting replaced by someone, or something better than you.

When my boss told me I was being let go it didn't come as a surprise. The news was always talking about the record high unemployment numbers. I was one of the last people in my company to be let go. The only people that remained were those on the Board of Directors and some companies had even begun to replace them. I knew that I was eventually going to be replaced, as it was only a matter of time before everyone was.