Shorts – Page 2 – Picking Up Roots

Tornado

Nothing remained except the pieces of shattered heart strewn about the lawn. The tornado had hit hard. The sky flashed with lightning, but no thunder, as the winds battered the house. Branches and pine cones banged off the windows making us jump. The sky darkened but was light, then the rain began to thunder upon the roof and everything went black.

We’d been huddled together on the couch watching the storm track on the television. We could feel the tension in one another, but didn’t speak it into existence. We moved closer as it gathered strength.

When the blackness lifted, I was by myself. What had hit me, I couldn’t say, but Kay was gone. I searched through the wreckage of the house, wandered dazed through each room from attic to basement before stumbling outside to search the yard.

There wasn’t a trace of her amongst the ravages left by the storm.

In a panic I went back into the house. I went up to the bedroom, her things were all in their closets and drawers. Her photos had tipped, but were still on the nightstand. I called her name and ran out to the garage.

Her car was in its spot. I ran back into the house. Her keys were on the hook by the door. Her purse hung there too. Her shoes rested below.

I went back downstairs to check the basement, wondering if I’d missed her, if she’d gone down there after I’d lost consciousness. I checked every corner. She was nowhere. I screamed her name with every ounce of strength left in me.

So powerful was my anguish, I didn’t recognize the sound leaving my body. It was the sound of an animal in pain. I screamed again and passed out.

I came to shivering on the concrete slab of the basement floor. I heaved myself up and climbed the basement stairs. I threw myself onto the couch and stared at the screen on the mantle. Kay sat to the right of the screen. Her final resting place a subtle, deep navy that didn’t stand out.

My heart shattered again as the tornado struck again.

Around or Through

Everyone he talked to said things would get better in time. If he just waited another day, another week, another month, maybe in a year. He held on. It was all he knew how to do.

He’d spent too much of his life dancing around his problems. Time wasn’t a renewable resource. That lesson had hit home in his 30s. He was done wasting it. Now he went through his challenges.

This was different. It wasn’t outside him. It was within. It was eating away at his insides. No one knew. He didn’t want anyone to feel bad. Pity would destroy the strength he kept calling upon.

Everyone who told him things would get better, thought he was just like them: unhappy with his work, disenchanted with the struggle to make ends meet or upset by the state of the world. He was all those things too, but what was consuming him made those problems pale in comparison.

He’d grown up in a family of hearty souls. They took what was before them, accepted it as what it was and made the best of it, carrying on.

In his 20s he’d moved away from that mindset. In truth, he’d never known he had it. Somewhere in that decade he’d thought he could avoid his problems. If he ignored them – or gave them a wide berth – he might avoid them.

One morning time slapped him in the face as he stared at the reflection in his mirror. The soft, sleep deprived face staring back at him showed patches of gray; the face of a stranger. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked closer. He didn’t recognize himself. He thought about his life. Wondered where the gray had come from, wondered if his life had had any meaning.

Over the course of the morning he looked back and saw how empty he was. How he’d thrown relationships away by running from their challenges. How little that had left him with. He felt like a shell. In that moment, he determined to change. To take life head on and do his best to live it, no matter what came his way. He’d done that. He’d changed. Life was better.

But now this.

Ever since that morning, he’d always looked for a way through; was always confident he’d get to the other side. Today, in his current state, he wasn’t so certain.

He sat upon the bridge, legs dangling into the nothing below. The river looked calm, inviting. He thought about peace.

The world was waking up. Cars rumbled by behind him. The sun was beginning to burn up the horizon. He’d need to decide soon: around or through.

Success

I don’t profess to be the best at what I do. I’m not the worst either. I’m the old-school pitcher. I take the ball every fifth day and I get you six to eight innings. I give up a few runs, but the damage is never catastrophic. I keep you in the ballgame. I don’t get hurt. I show up. Nothing about me or my performance sets your hair on fire – unless you have a thing for steadiness.

These used to be valuable qualities. They used to matter. Now it’s all about the numbers and how we can make good ones even better. It’s not enough that we’ve dug a well that produces more water than we could ever need, we have to try and squeeze water from the rocks around it as well. as well. It doesn’t make any sense.

Harper – my 30-something boss – scheduled a meeting with me yesterday. Our cubicles are right next to one another and we speak no fewer than a million times each day. He reserved time in the conference room and everything.

After a couple of pleasantries, he got right into it, “Roy, what can I do to help you be successful?”

I don’t remember much of the rest of the meeting. My immediate reaction was to imagine various ways of throttling the little turd. Reactions 2-37 ranged from ‘go away’ to verbal encouragement on the insertion and/or removal of body parts from certain orifices.

Then I processed what he’d said, that I needed to be successful.

And that messed with my head. As I laid out above. I show up. I do the work. I’m not the best. I’m not the worst. My numbers are never below the goal, but they aren’t so high above it I stand out either. And now this little shit has the audacity to say to me that I’m not successful!

Never once has he come in and asked me for more or better. All I get are ‘good jobs’ and ‘attaboys.’ Half the office misses days of work as though they were required not to be there. Their results swing from missing the mark to above the line with no predictability and this young punk has the gall to imply I’m not successful.

I’m afraid I don’t understand the work-world (or the world at large) anymore. I’ve been in it longer than Harper’s been alive. If I’m being honest, I can’t say that I care to know any more about it. Hitting all my numbers and being told I’m not a success. Since when is that a thing?

I don’t want to be appreciated for showing up. We’re supposed to, it’s the job. But I show up, and produce steady, bankable results and it’s not enough.

I’ve never understood the business people who would surpass $100 tomorrow for $10 today. I don’t understand the current crop who prefer the possibility of $100 once a month to $10 every day.

Maybe I’m too old. I don’t know anymore. I still have the energy. I’m still up for the work, but maybe the times have passed me by. Maybe I don’t understand what success means anymore. Maybe I never did.