joshua's journey

The day is Wednesday, March 16th, 1986. I stand in my office, my corner office, with plush carpeting. A big, mahogany desk with a smooth, shiny finish. I stand up from my seat. The feet drag against the pilled shag; it’s such an ugly color; a shade of turquoise that cannot decide as to whether it is blue or green. I look out my window; twelve floors down is a frenzied mosaic of passing Time, a City that moves without me. Taxis whiz by, so do people; men like me in business suits, ties whipping in the subtle wind that only blows by to annoy us. Women, they walk like goddesses amongst mortals. Some are dressed in suits and jackets; pink-blue-yellow-green flash by. Some are dressed in nearly nothing at all. Some walk around with compacts in their hands. Some with cigarette packs instead.

I sit down at my shiny desk and reach for a drawer, The bottom

One in a row of three; I smile in this sick way when I pull the handle.

Out comes the drawer and inside it, I see my escape. A long necked

Bottle of swirling pink that I have been saving for the day that I am ready.

I lift it to my eye level; the swirling pink becomes a galaxy of never-endingness.

I twist the cap and lift it to my lips. It burns going down.

I am sucked into an endless sleep so quickly that the word ‘goodbye’

Doesn’t even leave my lips. When I open my eyes, I am still sitting at my desk.

The afternoon sun has gone down a little bit. Not much time has passed at all.

It didn’t work, nothing ever works. The bottle, my escape, sits on the corner of

my desk, half empty. The ugly, shag carpet still sits under my feet. I screamed.

But no sound comes out. I try again, and again, and again until I am sure

My throat will come apart. A hand settles upon my shoulder.

A smooth, manicured hand. That was the color of milk settled on my shoulder.

It was followed by a voice that sounded like Tte tinkling of bells.

You sound like a child, it tells me, you have a long way to go until you reach Serenity. We haven’t time to scream about what we cannot change.

Serenity? I wonder. Serenity is not a place, it is a feeling. I turned around to look at the hand-voice, and it was gone. But standing a few feet in front of my desk was a young woman

Slim and tall - I knew she was as such even though she wore a shapeless scrap of fabric. Long alabaster legs and arms. Her face was round. Her eyes were pools of hazel I thought I could

Get lost in. Her long dark hair framed her face in strands that moved with minds of their own.

Serenity is where I am supposed to take you, she says. Her pink petal lips turned down into a frown. But now I’m not sure that you deserve it.

I slammed a hand down on my desk but it went right through - I fell from my seat and on the carpet. It burnt my skin. She, the angel, the bringer of death, the bringer of hope, pulled me to my feet. My office is gone, gone is the scaffolding of wealth I was born into. We are on a stretch of land that seems to go on for forever and ever and ever. She glided upon the ribbon-path feet never touching the ground. Gone is my suit jacket, gone are my shoes. Only my pants, my shirt, and my tie sat around my neck - a silken snake. A dead one.

What did it mean when she said I did not deserve it? Did she not know that I did not live a happy life, one that was riddled with pain and suffering that no child, no man, should face? She turned around, and beckoned me to follow after. The journey is long, Joshua.

Do you have a name?

Eulalie.

That is a beautiful name.

It does enough.

What does that mean?

The journey is long, Joshua.

The ribbon of road seems to become longer and longer with each step I take.