Pajarito sin cola

Pajarito sin cola

September 07, 2024

He received the notice on Friday, after he got home from work. The good news was he had the entire weekend to think about what he could do. The bad news was he now had to spend his entire weekend planning what he would do.

Already, they were winning.

His savings were limited, his bills were mounting. At 46 years old, he was too old for this not to be taken seriously.

Time was running out.

He began making calls. People owed him money. They owed him favors. Normally, he would let each slide, but today was not filed under “normally”. However, he began to sound desperate calling so many, so quickly, asking for so much. They would start talking and realize he was desperate. As such, they might low-ball him, or gas-light him, or just ignore him. He would lose whatever advantage he had in a feeble attempt to redeem collective value.

So he slept on it. Perhaps his mind would be clearer in the morning. Perhaps someone would call him and explain the details of what awaited him on Monday. No sense losing sleep over it.

However, by 4 am, he had lost sleep. His dreams were awash with a myriad of possibilities too great to fathom, let alone count. He made some coffee. It tasted as poor as he felt. He went for a walk, something he had not done since college. He took his old camera (the one with film still in it) and watched the sunrise during his stroll. He felt revitalized. Normally, he would be sleeping off last night’s beer binge. He might have the luck of seeing an attractive woman sharing his bed. The details of her appearance, let alone her name, would make for a brief, but interesting conversation. But that was then. This was now. He had to remain focused.

He picked up his pace. It reminded him of his high school football days while in training. He no longer had the stamina to keep this pace for ten miles, but he could for two.

That, alone, made him feel good about this morning.

He thought about the people he had not seen in years. The people he should have remained close to. The one that got away. Truth be told, he drove her away and did not fight for her when he had the chance. He was a shit then and deserved what he got.

That was over twenty years ago.

Time to stop being a shit today.

He turned to take the “road not taken.” He remembered reading Robert Frost in college. He also remembered, “I am the captain of my fate, the master of my soul”, or something like that. He could not remember the poet or if he even remembered the poem correctly. But, he did remember.

And that was a start.

He pushed until it hurt. Then he had to break stride and walk it off. He noticed he had one more exposure on the roll of film. He asked an old woman to take it of him. She would know how to work the camera. The glint in her eye proved so. She waited for him to pose. He asked that she use her best guess and take the last picture when she thought it would be best.

He did not have to wait for long.

After thanking her, he continued his walk.

Then, on Sunday, he repeated his foray, bracing himself for Monday’s inevitable.

He watched people, not just exist, but live. He wondered why he did not have a house. He rented. He had always rented. It was a good place to live, but it was not his. He saw pictures of Paris and the Pyramids and thought about visiting them. He even spent one hour watching a mime trying to escape an imaginary box.

He passed on a beer. He passed on pizza. He opted for something different. He sat down and ordered sushi. When asked what type, he said he didn’t care. The waiter brought him a six piece platter. The saki was delicious. The sushi tasted like bait. But, it was something new, something different. Style points for the appearance. No points for the taste,

So ended his weekend.

On Monday, he went to work to face the reality of the notice. He gave his boss his pass key and access code for his computer. He said he understood as he reached for his letter of resignation.

“You understand what?”, his boss demanded.

He showed the boss the notice. His boss laughed. He said that was sent in error and he was not fired. He asked why he was not informed of this sooner.

“Only a fool believes everything he reads. Now, get back to work.”

The pause between hearing this order and accepting it as fact should have been no longer than two seconds.

Should have been.

Yet, two seconds was just enough time to lay his resignation letter on the desk of the man who just played him for a fool, waking him up in the process.

He had to locate someone to develop a roll of film. He had to learn what non-sushi food items taste like. He had to see what he was missing.

The envelope hit the desk as loudly as his career ended. For those who didn’t care, it was a whisper. But for those who understood, it was as loud as a bullet discharged from a rifle traveling with a rarely encountered velocity and force required to get to locales worth getting to.

It was Monday. The start of a new week. The start of his new life.