Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 |
Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Epilogue
Part 7
I’LL EXPLAIN IN THE CAR
Derek rushes to Sky’s workplace and calls her cell phone. He wants to tell her they need to go but he can’t risk her not coming to the car. If he can just get her to the car…
“Hello?”
“Hey! Sky, I’m outside. I need you to come out to the car.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Just come out, please.”
“Uh, okay, gimme a minute.”
Sky heads out to the car and sees all the luggage packed in the back seat with the cat litter. “Huh? What’s going on? What happened?”
“I can’t explain here, we have to go. I’ll explain in the car, just please… get in.”
“No! I can’t!”
“Sky, get in the car. We have to go.”
“Why won’t you tell me what happened?!”
“I’ll explain in the car, just please… get in.”
“Derek… you’re scaring me.”
“Look, you don’t really have a choice, now get in the damn car! We have to go… NOW!”
Sky fights an inner sense of dread. She could say no and just go back inside… couldn’t she? I mean, whatever it is that’s wrong, Derek could at least tell her and then give her the choice. Why’s he acting this way? What is wrong with him? Why won’t he say what happened? This is weird.
But it all happens so fast that she can’t discern all these feelings and thoughts going through her at once; only the truest desire of her heart would drive her in the decision she was about to make… because really, in the grand picture, there were only two choices here: 1) Take the easy road and go back inside; or 2) Get in the car and take the hard road, come what may.
Whatever other thoughts were going on inside of her, whatever other feelings, were all irrelevant in light of this basic choice, whose decision would reveal the true nature of her heart.
Inner chaos increases as the pressure of choice closes in on her heart. The high road, or the low road, high road, low road, high road, low road… The choices close in tight, oscillating faster and faster, increasing chaos, until suddenly, they close in so tight that they annihilate each other completely. In this one brief moment, which could just as well be considered eternity, a decision erupts from the very depths of Sky’s being. Now this was not the illusion-of-choice kind of decision that we’re so accustomed to making, for those choices were gone now, dead, annihilated. No, in this moment was creation itself, a decision born from the purest chaos, the absence of choice, the absence of oscillation. And so her mind shut up for just a moment, but long enough, and her heart chose…
“Let me call my boss real quick.”
“Sure.”
Sky calls her boss and tells him she will take a half sick day. Derek wishes he could just tell her that it doesn’t matter what the hell she tells anyone at this point, that come soon none of it will matter at all… the job, the coworkers, the worries, the apartment, the bills… none of it. From here on out, only the two of them finding their place in a new land, somewhere safe, somewhere where they could start over… but for now, he just wants her to get in the effing car.
