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Showing results for tags 'branching out'.
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Note: "exit number 117" is meant to be read as "exit number one seventeen." Exit Number 117 Fortnightly Flash Fiction #5: Branching Out In this wild twisting chasing highway we like to call life I suppose the first time I found myself facing an impossible choice Was the midnight I came to exit number 117 And it wasn't the number that made it particularly special The sign was old and worn and the 7 was sort of scratched As though a bird had flown into it or something And the road was cracked and faded and the puddles of Asphalt I saw in my headlights were gray and older than my parents I slowed down because I was the only one on the road It's an interesting moment when you're the only one on the road Because nobody else can make your choices for you You can walk on glass if you like, or walk by The sky was full of stars and a bright moon and planets and galaxies But I didn't bother looking at them because I was busy Wondering which way was right for me You see, my parents always taught me to follow my dreams And I was sure that my dreams lay farther down the highway Maybe exit number 200, or number 179, or the place where the asphalt ends But exit number 117 had a strange charm all the same The dusty road begged to be travelled And the darkness beyond the highway begged to be explored And how is an 18-year-old supposed to know exactly which exit to take anyway? I guessed that this wasn't my road But who knew, and did it matter? So I put it off for another day, put the engine in gear, and my tires squeaked as I Pulled away from exit number 117 And set my tired eyes back to the highway The wide road was easier to drive And easier than thinking about other places I could go More comfortable than thinking about branching out, diversifying, changing Because, after all, the easiest road to travel Is the one I've been driving all my life And it's simpler to keep exit number 117 in my rearview mirror than to keep it in front of me But every now and then, I'll feel a twinge of regret The bite of nostalgia as I look back and think for a moment I see that exit I passed A faint glimmer on the horizon It's not there of course: I passed it long ago And I've never found the time to go back Who knows if it would even be there by the time I got around to it Now I'm farther along the highway and it's been a fun ride But I'll always wonder what lay beyond exit number 117 I guess that's how it works: you choose an exit, or you don't
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City The clamor of a thousand people headed in a thousand directions engulfed me as I stepped out of the taxi cab and onto the pavement. Sirens wailed in the distance; car horns blared at each corner, near and far. The sun had long ago set, but the city seemed no less alive at night than it did during the day. It seemed to me as though I was at the crossroads of humanity, as though every person alive was at this very moment passing through the same city as I was. And it was this city that would now be my home, I realized as I walked toward the building where I’d purchased an apartment a few weeks back. I moved slowly, gazing in wonder at the flashing neon in the window of every business on the street, at the blur of the headlights of cars racing past, at the glow of the street lamps casting pools of light and shadow along the road. It was all completely foreign to me, something that I’d seen maybe once or twice before. I’d lived most of my life far from the city – not quite a rural area, but definitely somewhere on the fringes of the suburbs. I’d always enjoyed that particular setting growing up, always assumed that that’s where I’d live when I was on my own. Sometimes, though, life doesn’t work out the way you expected. Sometimes the only work you can find is in deep in the heart of a massive city on the opposite side of the country. And so you take it, especially if you can find an affordable place to live in a decent area of town. It suddenly dawned on me that, without knowing it, I’d ascended two flights of stairs and had been standing at the door to my apartment for several minutes. I dug the key out of my pocket and slipped it into the lock, twisting it open without too much effort. The door swung open, revealing an empty room, completely devoid of contents save for a window on the far wall and a door into another small room on the wall to my right. My furniture had been shipped by land and was supposed to get here tomorrow, but for now all I had was what I’d brought in my luggage. Which was fine with me. I set my suitcase against the wall and dug out my sleeping bag. As I threw it on the floor, a faint glimmer in the corner of the room caught my eye. A few strides led me to its source: a single penny, glowing dully in the dim light of the window. I picked it up and looked it over. Some said pennies brought luck to those who found them. I’d never put much stock in that sort of thing, but this did not change the fact that, as I looked at the coin, a feeling of hope began to swell within my chest.
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I'm branching out, man. Think about it. You and I, we're a lot alike. We're both sitting here, looking at a computer screen, reading unfeeling words, composed of smaller letters, which go even further on this screen to be composed of small little pixels, each a single, small unit of colour or non-colour on an otherwise blank screen. They branch, sure, but going from pixels to words means that they come together, not fall apart. But you and me, though, we're people. We've got friends on the outside, man. Real people, living real lives, and each of them gets a lot of interaction with each other. What do you and I do, though? That's right. We sit here, reading, every day. Yeah, we've all got friends here, we've got things we don't like, but just like so many other things, this is only a proxy of interaction. We aren't actually getting together and talking, but we're just sending messages via BZP's system, or over Skype. We're writing words, endless words, but there's no sound. No tone, no inflection. Just the sound of silence. But outside, in real life, we've got friends, we've got things to do, we've got energy we can release, more people we can meet, it's full of limitless possibilities. You might not have known it, you might have - heck, I didn't even really think about it until recently. But there's a lot of things out there, y'know what I mean? It's a veritable ocean of experiences, just waiting for us to dive right in. But we keep ourselves stuck here, a lot of us, held to our roots. We don't want to grow past this, we don't want to expand, we want to stay in our comfort zone. Well, I want something new. I want an adventure. I want to live life, and bro, I want to go crazy. So I'm going to branch out. Think about it: We have friends, we have family, we have acquaintances. We have what we know already. But what do they know, that we don't? What do you think we can learn from them? And then there's all the people they know that we don't, really. What do they know, what can we learn from them? You see it now? Infinite. Possibilities. So many things we haven't tried, so many we have but we're almost afraid to go do again, because sure, it was fun, but it's not really our 'thing.' It's not really 'safe' for us, because we don't know how to do it much. But that's not really it, for some things, is it? You can learn to do something, and you can learn to love it. Remember that food you used to hate when you were little? Yeah. We all had that food. Remember how you ate it just a week ago and you freaking love it now? Exactly. Anything else you've tried lately? Maybe just a new style of food, if not something specific? Italian? Chinese (the real stuff, not what they try to pass on to you in most of the restaurants)? Boom. Try one food from that, if you like it, make yourself try more. You might find an entire culture that you'll learn to love, just through food. It sounds weird, but it happens. Things just kinda branch out. You see where I'm going with this? Through everybody we know, every-thing- we know, there are limitless possibilities we can take to learn more, to do more, to -live- more, and yet, we don't take them. We stick to our roots. And let me tell you, I'm tired of it. I'm going to take advantage of what little I have, and make it into something huge, and it's going to be awesome. I'm following every last path I can take, every last little trail, every last branch of information and experiences. Yeah. I'm branching out, man. --- You ask me who I wrote this for, and you'll get a million different answers. Just know this: If you're tired of the same-old, same-old, having no variety in life, being stuck to your roots and not going anywhere, this is for you.
