Retirement must really suck. If it’s anything like the past three months, no thank you. Pebbles and fissures along the road dig into my soles as I trek to the mailbox at 9:05am. Why our neighborhood doesn’t have a sidewalk is beyond me. Why the hell did we even pick this house? I can do without it mocking me from halfway down the road.
“Your severance is running out buddy,” it shouts with a thick southern drawl because of course it has one. It’s luck Isa really likes it.
My stomach hasn’t stopped churning since my damn phone rang and the heat of that phone call still blanches my cheeks and neck. That is going to be a fight when she gets home. Our last words were beyond tense and far from civil. That, boys and girls, is how I chose to start my day, picking a fight with my wife.
She meant well, I know that. I’m not the only one who’s worried about money and the baby. We’re each also worried about me. Thunder rumbles in the distance, but the sky above is only a pale gray. A storm is coming though, that is for sure.
The Millers aren’t in their usual perch today by their enormous bay window. Retirement suits them and they seem to enjoy it. He was a high school principal and she was an executive of some sort at the last local bank in town.
I bet they never got laid off. Different times I guess.
The soft jingle at my feet derails my rumination. Oscar, a black cat I named, keeps pace with me. While he has a leopard print collar, I have no idea who he belongs to. No one has claimed him, so I did. Unofficially of course. Isa has an aversion to cats and forbade one from crossing the threshold of our house. She probably won’t be happy I have been feeding him tuna on the patio when he comes to visit. He just showed up one morning when I decided to job hunt in the spring air a week after it happened.
He’s been a presumptuous little shit ever since. He comes around every couple days since then. He understands he can’t go inside. Isa would know. She always knows.
I usually sift through the job boards while Oscar purrs in my lap. He really does have the softest fur and reminds me of the kitten my little sister found in our backyard. I ramble to chaos in my head because he never tires of it or says I am wrong or being irrational when I share my worries. Because damn it, sometimes the sky is falling Isa. ”
I reach the green Range Rover forever parked in front of Tom Nelson’s house when I realize I passed the turn to the mailbox a while ago. The SUV isn’t Tom’s, but we’ve had theories. We used to talk all the time, but he works on the same floor I used to. We still wave hello when we pass in the street, but he always has that aggravating shade of pity. Would I have the same if it was reversed?
And why did I leave the house without shoes?
It’s been a rough morning. I don’t know why the thirty-fourth rejection hit me harder than all those that came before it. Isa was quick to point out that getting over thirty second-round interviews off a little over three hundred applications in this market is still very impressive. I shake my head like I did this morning, her words just felt hollow and trite. I was not subtle and she just threw up her hands and stormed out of the house swearing in Spanish.
All these houses are so uniform, just a sea of varying shades of red, gray, and beige. The sameness is so fucking annoying. Further down the street just resembles where I’ve been and if didn’t live here I wouldn’t be able to tell the two sides apart.
“What’re you looking for?” the velvety voice purred from Oscar.
“What do you mean?” I asked, which is honestly the best response I have since I don’t have a real answer.
“You don’t know, do you?” Oscar chides.
“I just know I want to be somewhere else.” Anywhere would be better than this suburban purgatory.
“Sounds like you need to get good and lost,” Oscar answers and prances a few steps ahead.
“Do you know your way around here?” I ask him.
Oscar looks back with what I can only describe as an air of superiority and replies, “I don’t think in such ways.” He returned to sit at my feet. “I go where it feels right to be.” He licks his paws and cleans the top of his head a couple times before walking into the unknown with his tiny bell heralding his approach like a foghorn.
My beat up Hyundai is just a speck of blue in front of the house whose gravity pulls at my shoulders with all it represents. How the hell am I going to pay the mortgage or take care of the baby when the severance runs out? Even with cutting spending, it will only last until just after Isa’s due date. It’s time like this I curse my dad for drilling into me his ‘prepare for the worst’ philosophy. The responsibilities and their corresponding numbers spiral in my head like a typhoon. It’s like I have to live through it at least once in my head if I am going to survive it at all in real life. More rejection calls and emails wait for me at home where I can prepare for interviews that fail to yield anything besides migraines, nausea, and wasted time.
But I really want to escape it all.
I march defiantly away from the known world. Screw my makeshift desk at the dining room table. I don’t want to dwell on how everything is not working or my argument with Isa. This is just for me. We walk several blocks in relative silence, the only things breaking it up are my footsteps on the asphalt, Oscar’s bell, and the warm breeze filling my ears. The hint of ozone tickles my nostrils with promises of a torrential downpour. The last time I was caught in the rain like that was back home during junior year. Me and Jimmy ventured into the thick of it and spent almost an hour playing in the constant rain. I miss the storms in Georgia, the ones where the sky turns black, and the thunder shakes the house.
I take haphazard turns onto streets I don’t recognize, and the new locales pull back the layers of fog from my mind. Who cares if I ever make it back home? Oscar is right. It feels good to get good and lost. There is an excitement in it. There is so much possibility. This neighborhood actually has sidewalks, and I am surprised at the difference in my stride when I leave the street. By the size of the trees in the yards, these houses have been here for a while. Every lawn is manicured and crisp. Vibrant colors are everywhere as the houses are more eclectic with rich hues of crimson, cobalt, and indigo. A pleasant feeling swells within my chest, and I reach out to immerse myself in some semblance of the serenity and playfulness of living here.
A four-way stop sign gives me pause. The world dims ever so slightly as the clouds above grow dark and the delicate touch of coming rain taps my head and shoulders. The street signs are foreign to me. Thoroughly into my wanderlust, the break in my stride beckons the real world to come nip at my heels. The sour taste of the knot twisting itself in my gut bubbles into my mouth. We’ll lose the house if I don’t get a job soon. It burns into my chest, bringing its own tension and sharpness. The fights will get worse and more often. So much worse than this morning. Heat pulses through my skin with each quickening heartbeat. She’s going to leave me and take the baby. My thoughts outpace my pulse. We have so much debt. Isa could get into an accident on the way home, and I never get to say I’m sorry. Myriads of catastrophes strobe through my mind. The air confines and constricts my body. My fingers pull at the ends of my shirt. It’s too much.
“Which way?” Oscar asks.
Bewilderment overtakes me, and I try to reacclimate to the world around me. Straight ahead is a new neighborhood filled with houses that, while colorful, feel stale and bland. To the right is a street that is more of an unfinished thought, a haphazard cul-de-sac with a basketball hoop along the curb. To the left, however, is a road that begs to be travelled. It leads up a hill lined by lush trees swaying in the strengthening breeze. The sirens’ call of ocean waves beckons my approach.
“Well?” Oscar asks with annoyance in his mewling. He shakes the dampness from his fur as the rain continues to spit.
“What do you think is up there?” I ask him.
“What do you want to be there?”
His question repeats in my head on a loop for several minutes as I struggle to determine an answer. I just stand dumbfounded at the sight in front of me, at the possibilities. I should go home. The thunder crawls across the sky. I still have time before the worst of it gets here. Even if it does, would it be so terrible? At the end of the musing, I still have no answer or expectation, but I go left anyway. I’m not ready to go home just yet. The twinge of excitement conjures images of Christmas morning, alone in the living room with just the lights and the presents under the tree. That precious hour where the world still slept and anything was possible. Oscar’s bell jingles behind me, and I smile at what a strange little companion I have. He trots up to my side.
“You’re not very talkative, are you, Oscar?” I ask him.
“I talk when I need to,” he replies with his standard sass. I can’t pinpoint why, but he reminds me of Isa. It’s confusing because Isa is actually very talkative. She loves telling me everything about work, her friends, or the finer character interactions on her favorite show at the time. It’s been different lately, though. Conversations are shadows of what they used to be. I think it’s because she doesn’t want to say what’s on her mind. She has said before that she feels like she can’t ever really let go because she is afraid it will stress me out. I don’t manage stress well sometimes. Most of the time.
It isn’t fair to her. I should be somewhere she feels safe, but she has to be so guarded. I wonder if that is where our fight came from. The sad part is that the conversation was the most substance we have had in a week.
Earthy scents fill my senses as the wind awakens the leaves above my head. It is cooler than the humid air from before and bites in just the right way. The banner of red leaves from the tallest tree waves at the summit of the hill. A small bench sits across the sidewalk from it, and while it is odd to see red leaves in April, I look forward to sitting under the branches. I almost don’t want to look over the hill when I get there. Once I do, my memory of what it could be will forever be spoiled.
I’ll never get this feeling back again.
I’m almost there. I can turn back right now. I can go back to my pretend desk, and this will forever be a wonderful memory of possibility. I can instead fill my time with applications that will most likely go nowhere.
Is that the life I want right now though? A few steps away from the bench my trailblazing fervor leeches away from me. The risk of spoiling the magic that draws me forth seals my eyes and my steps grow timid and tenuous. My fingers fumble in the air to grasp the bench that I know is coming closer. My other senses sharpen and the air smells colder, but the dapples of warmth tickle my arms. My feet grow in their confidence and my strides widen. Cool metal slides under my fingertips and the bench becomes an anchor, tethering me to this space in the darkness. The wood is firm and warm against my back when I sit down, a broad patch of sun warms my face. I could sit here for hours listening to the song of the leaves above me, but curiosity gets the better of me.
I open my eyes and turn to the undiscovered country. Beneath the hill is a sleepy little valley of a neighborhood. Memories of that little village we lived in when Dad was stationed in Germany dance in my mind. I never knew the name, but I recognize the feeling of it. There was that park Mom would take us kids to that had that gigantic yellow slide that wound its way down a hill a little bit larger than this one. My tiny kindergartner legs felt like I was climbing a mountain just for a ride. The trees in the valley undulated around rooftops that peaked above the canopy. One of them looks strange, almost like a stone turret. How curious.
“Are you going home now?” Oscar hops onto the bench and asks me. His soft head bumps into my arm.
“I probably should,” I reply but pause at the feeling tickling its way up the back of my head. It is the same way I would feel as a kid when the doctor would look in my ears and check my breathing. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m about to get a surprise. It’s that feeling that draws me off the bench and down the hill. My mind is surprisingly clear during my journey down and I just count my footsteps all the way to the bottom. Five hundred forty-six.
At the bottom echoes of where my troubles started rattle free in my memory. The name of the meeting room was ‘Always Ready,’ because who doesn’t like a little bit of irony. There were whispers all morning about the fifteen-minute meeting on everyone’s calendar. There were theories, the most popular was that our boss was going to be leaving the company. So close. I certainly wasn’t prepared for what happened after I sat down. Something told me to sit facing the door. I guess even my subconscious wants to see what is coming. My boss and the vice-president of our division came in, pleasantries were brief and then the tsunami of words. Words like ‘impact’ and ‘business need’ were thrown in for good measure. Then time slowed.
Hearing I am out of a job didn’t impact me the way I thought it would. There was no anger, not even panic. That came later when I had to tell Isa, that is when it became real. No. There was a cool stillness that I liken to standing in the center of a snow covered clearing with heavy flakes of white billowing to the ground. Time stopped so the world could change. Then they talked about severance and a million questions flooded my brain, many of which remain unanswered.
The beginnings of the neighborhood at the bottom of the hill are ethereal and resemble something painted with an impressionist’s brush. The near perfect canopy of trees along the street sways ever so slightly in unison in the wind above my head. Cars are parked in driveways and on the street, but nothing is crowded. The lush sounds of dogs barking and children playing pepper the air from a distance. I don’t feel like an intruder as I venture further in, no I feel like an old friend. There is a brick cottage on my left that looks out of place and right at home in a strange dichotomy of design.
A house further down the road on my right has a collection of sexually suggestive garden gnomes throughout the yard with a hand painted sign that reads ‘Real friends come in the rear’. The road curves left and then right until it splits in two directions.
“Which way do you think?” I ask Oscar.
“What feels better?” he asks in return. Today is odd because he doesn’t usually answer questions with another question. Which is funny because that does seem like a very cat thing to do. However, it is a good question.
I muse on it at the fork in the road while a multitude of other thoughts fight for recognition. The burning pressure sizzles and beats at the hollows inside me so ferociously that I want to destroy the serenity of this place with my screams. Instead, I breathe deep like Isa taught me. I place each problem demanding attention into a box and set it to the side. Compartmentalization doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Although I worry my collection of boxes is becoming unwieldy. The sea parts and I open my eyes. A whisper reminiscent of a pleasant dream urges me to the right. I look left and the tingle in my head returns. I turn left.
I wander deeper with Oscar at my side until I come to a break in the tree line. The sun pours onto a two-story house that is so mundane it looks like someone plucked it from the real world and dropped it here. I have never seen something so plain be so remarkable. I marvel at its mediocrity a moment longer before I press on, but something catches my eye.
It’s the turret I saw earlier.
“Do you see that?” I ask Oscar.
“See what?” he asks.
“That thing behind the house. I think it’s a turret.”
“Does it look like I can see over that house?” Oscar retorted.
I step onto the sidewalk in front of the house and weigh the repercussions of knocking on their door. Would it really be so terrible? I mean, who builds something like that in their backyard and doesn’t expect attention? The back of my head tingles and the sensation radiates through my body. The gravity of the unknown pulls me up the empty driveway.
“What are you doing?” Oscar asks with an impatient meow.
“I need to see what’s back there,” I answer and step onto the covered porch.
“What if it ends up being nothing?” Oscar asks with a little less piss and vinegar in his voice this time.
“At least then I’ll know,” I reply and knock on the door. I made it this far, I might as well see this through.
No answer, so I knock harder, but it the sensation is much bigger than before and doesn’t seem to match the door. The sound is deep, hollow, and echoes throughout the house inside. Nothing happens after a couple minutes. Frustration takes root in my gut and there is no movement beyond the beveled glass, just slivers of an empty hallway leading further into the house.
The trudge back to the sidewalk is as somber as a death march. I just stand there and stare at the house and the stone structure peaking over the roof. What was the point of this adventure anyway? Was it to come all this way and be disappointed? That would be on point with how things have been going. Isa says everything happens for a reason. Constantly. Especially over the past three months like I will somehow just start believing it.
Then I will be full of shiny thoughts and rainbows will shoot out of my ass. Bad things happen and that’s the way it is.
That thought sends a surprising shock through my body. The invigoration solidifies into a singular purpose. The breeze brings resolve and renewed spirit. My head nods in the rhythm of the chant echoing in my head.
I’m going to see what’s back there.
It wasn’t even a question anymore. My footing is solid as I round the left side of the house. The tall grass tickles my ankles as I approach the gate with Oscar’s bell keeping pace with me.
The latch on the gate doesn’t budge. Fiddling with it does no good.
I can’t even accomplish this one, small thing.
The heat radiates from beneath my clothes as the skin beneath grows clammy. A familiar fire surges within and brings with it the need to scream. Instead, I stomp my foot into the ground. I lean against the siding of the house. The cool texture refreshes me and eases my temper.
All the winding turns that led me here are not enough to keep reality at bay. It roars around the corner of the house and I have nowhere to run. Thoughts swirl and rage while cycling through all of the negative outcomes I did, can, and will endure. The fire of it all burns and the need to claw my way out drives my rapid breathing.
This is stupid. Why am I so fixated on this yard? Why am I doing this?
You need a win.
The thought breaks through the din and chaos. A clarion bell whose tone pulses throughout until there is nothing but silence.
That’s right. I need something, anything to go right. I won’t survive this otherwise. The rough edges of the gate dig into my palms while my arms burn to pull my body above it. In the backyard the tall grass waves me in. The small grove of trees in the far corner of an expansive yard lazily sway in the breeze. Swinging my leg over the edge gives more momentum than I expected.
I crash into the ground and my shoulder rages in pain. I roll onto my back to catch my breath. Clouds float along above me in a peaceful waltz of reality. It dawns on me that I haven’t just watched the sky like this since the picnic I had with Isa the day of our last ultrasound. I see so many things in the clouds above me. Shapes, animals, and even faces reveal themselves to me in the fluffy cumulus above. My mind wanders and my imagination ignites into pleasant pathways regarding our baby and what she will look like. The tiny bell jingles near my head where Oscar sits with severe expectations of me.
“How did you get in here so fast?” I ask him.
“Do you not realize you’ve been lying there for five minutes?” he asks. “Besides, I’m a cat,” he elaborates with a mix of annoyance and pity before walking deeper into the foliage.
I follow him around the corner of the house and am dumbfounded.
It’s a fucking castle. Somebody built a whole ass castle in their backyard.
The majesty of it is easily twenty feet tall and looks to be solid stone. What I saw from the street towers above me with several smaller turrets surrounding the building like quiet guardians. I scamper closer and the dry musty scent fills the air. It reminds me of the mountains in New Mexico after it rained. I press my hand against the wall and can sense the weight of solid stone. My whole body vibrates as I follow the curve of the wall until I come to an opening that is just a couple feet taller than me.
The well-manicured courtyard is surrounded by amazing details. Oscar trots along and up the stairs to the second level, just above an armory filled with toy swords. Imagination is fused into every stone and piece of wood around me. Illusions of lit torches line the walls as phantom soldiers patrol the upper walkways, on the alert for intruders.
Memories of exploring the desert outside the army base in New Mexico tickle their way to the forefront. Every rock and bush was a discovery. Every bend was a mystery to unravel that was wonderful in just experiencing it. I want to feel like that again.
This is it.
This is what drove me out of the house today. It pulled me deeper and deeper because that is what I need. I need the excitement of the unknown. I sit on the ground. The grass is soft and almost feathery in its texture. This place smells untouched, unspoiled in a way. Almost like I am the first person to set foot here in centuries. Oscar rubs against my arm.
“It’s time to go,” he says.
“Just a bit longer?” I ask.
“You got what you needed, best we leave now.” He trots out of the courtyard and back into the long grass.
I don’t agree. I want to stay here longer; it’s such a wonderful escape. But, it never lasts because it will inevitably become the new normal. It’s the morning after the nightmare; I see that now. The murkiness of my future is an invitation, not a death sentence. I guess I just forgot that sometimes the big reveal can be really great as much as it could be fucking terrible. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Maybe I don’t need to.
It is a quiet journey back to the tree with the red leaves. Oscar and I don’t speak, but there is an understanding. I get the feeling I won’t be seeing him much more after this, so I savor the rest of the time we have together. We sit on the bench for a little while and I watch the world below me soldier on. There are many more adventures in that sleepy little neighborhood. I can feel the possibilities in my bones, but, those will be for someone else to discover. It’s time for me to go back. I wonder if Isa will feel the difference like I do now.
I hope it lasts.
It would be really nice if there was a huge yellow slide to ride the rest of the way home though.
The End