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Hard Choices

It's all up to you.

By Jada MurrayPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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Credit: VectorStock.com/3431635

I let a coin decide my fate this morning. Tossing it in the air willing it to land on the side that would make my life even a little bit brighter. Heads or tails, one of these faces would tell me to either put my two week’s notice in at work or eat shit and continue my miserable life as an office worker. I graduated college 3 years ago and I swear I’ve been living the same day ever since, I wake up each day with less motivation than the last. The work day passes with my eyes burned from too much screen time and my back tight from being stationary for eight hours a day. I work to survive, yet it is work that makes me no longer care to live at all.

The silver coin sparkles in my dark room making its way to the ground and rolling under my dresser. I force myself from my bed to go grab it only to be interrupted by my cat, Mochi slapping it and causing it to flip once more. Before she can attack again I snatch it out of reach and clench it in my hand. No matter which face I see, I’m following through as I always do. I’ve done this coin flip many mornings and each day it was the same but as a I open my hand to reveal the smug face of a founding father, my breath catches in my throat. Heads… meaning I hand in the letter I’ve had written and ready for the past six months.

I contemplate flipping it again. I don’t want to be impulsive, how could I possibly allow a coin to determine my future. What are the chances that after weeks of only getting tails each morning, I’d finally gotten the go to free myself from the shackles of the 40-hour work week? But what will I even do once I quit. I don’t have much money saved, I’m estranged from my family, and I’m too depressed to make money from my hobbies. My bachelor’s degree in English is basically useless, I’m lucky to have even gotten hired in my current position. Then there’s rent, food, therapy, my sweet baby Mochi, how am I supposed to keep up with that?

But that raises the question, how am I keeping up with it all now. I come home from work each day too drained to do anything beyond feed my cat and fall asleep on the couch. I no longer have any interest in the things that used to bring me joy and I’ve been isolating from my friends out of fear that they’ll see me and just how pathetic I’ve become. What life is it that I’m living now that’s worth so desperately holding on to?

“You uh can go ahead and pack your desk up, we were doing layoffs anyway.”

Those words came from my nonchalant boss who couldn’t even be bothered to look up from his desk to properly send me off. I really tried to be considerate by giving him notice of my leave, yet he’s able to fire me at a moment’s notice. Firing me and plenty of others who have given their hard work and time to this company so that you and all the other big heads can continue to break even. I don’t know what I was expecting from a company who claims to treat their employees like family yet refuses any requests for raises. My coffee spilling all over my shirt in rush hour traffic on this rainy day should have been the most obvious sign that my putting in my two weeks’ notice at work would end in disaster. I’m not one to be superstitious but if that wasn’t one bad sign after another then maybe I’m just unlucky. The coin might’ve been wrong this time.

I take a look around my now bare cubicle and feel a strange weight in my chest. It sits somewhere between my stomach and ribs and it’s so tight that I can’t really seem to breath in any air. My hands tremble as I grab my box of belongings and make my way out to my car. While getting fired wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, I felt the fog over my brain dissipate as it fully sets in that I no longer had to show up to work after today. However, my body is not okay with this at all and the stress of this whole situation manifests in my tight shoulders and leaky eyes. I hated it there, I shouldn’t be crying over that when I’ve finally made a choice that honors my emotions and wellbeing. Each day I’ve awakened to making choices I don’t want and doing things that make me miserable…but why can’t my body and mind come to agreeance on this?

Rain pounds on my car as I make my second trip through traffic back to my apartment and before I get out the car, I feel it. The tightness in the back of my throat and the burn of hot tears streaking down my face. I allow the tears to fall in mourning of the loss of my only safety net in this world. I’ve built my life around pleasing others and making choices to avoid any conflict and the moment I make a choice of my own volition, it becomes clear I was never meant to do so. I’m always in my own way somehow.

My head begins to throb from the tears and my lungs unable to put any air out to replace what I’ve been desperately taking in. The heaving of my chest makes it feel as though the air around me is becoming heavy and I begin to feel restricted, too confined in the driver’s seat of my car. I scramble to open my car door and step out forcing myself to take in a deep filling breath. I close my eyes holding on to the moment of stillness and as I release, the air outside my apartment feels different. As I continue to breathe, it feels as though I’m learning to breathe for the first time ever. There is warmth in the air that doesn’t at all reflect the storm I was sitting in moments ago, but I feel a renewed sense of calm. It doesn’t feel like I’m a about to walk into my home after having lost my job, it feels like I’m standing in a space where I simultaneously do and don’t belong. I reach back in my car grabbing my box of office belongings and the weight is much heavier than before, but right now the weight stored feels like all I’ve left behind today.

As I enter my apartment, I set my box on the coffee table and make my way to flop down on the couch. That moment of peace outside my apartment didn’t follow me up the stairs to my apartment and I’m once again spiraling thinking about how uncertain my future is now. I wish I could just feel numb more than anything right now.

I close my eyes in an attempt to ground myself in the moment, but a shuffling noise alerts me to my mischievous kitten crawling into my box. Mochi lets out a meow of contest as I grab her out the box and the lid falls off. My eyes may well have fallen out of my head at the sight of cash stacked to them brim in place of my now useless office tools. I must be dreaming, I have to be dreaming. Either that or I blacked out and robbed a bank on my way home. No, no, no that didn’t happen but how did this money get here? Am I being pranked? Before the panic can set in, I close my eyes taking a long deep breath and send a silent prayer to the universe. When I open my eyes, the money is still there, Mochi is still trying to get into the box to smell the money, and I am still in awe. I quickly reach in the box to find a little black book locked by a chain and a folded note.

The note reads:

Hello Darling,

I would say I hope this note finds you well, but I happen to know that you are not in a good place right now. You don’t know us, but we know you and want to help you. You may have noticed the difference in atmosphere once you left your car earlier, but the air isn’t all that’s different now child. You have been disillusioned and jaded by the harsh world you live in and you have made the conscious choice to no longer be complacent in your own suffering. Now, we are giving you another choice. Here in this box there is $20,000 in cash and a locked black book. You will notice the key is not anywhere in the box. You now have the choice to either take the money and do as you please finding the joy in life that you’ve lost or you can take the book. This is no ordinary book, the information in there holds the highest truth of life and explain the complexities of life after death. The religions and spiritual practices of your time have sought to explain this in an attempt to tell people how to live their lives, but along the way have lost the true purpose behind your human experience. The information in the book has n monetary value, but the knowledge it has to offer is priceless. You now have the choice to either take the money or deny it in exchange for the key to the book. Do not attempt to open the book or you will lose both of your choices.

You have all that you need inside of you and we trust you’ll make the best choice for yourself.

The letter ends with no signature or sign as to who this could have come from. Or even what. I’m stumped. I have so many questions and no one to ask but myself. I want to trust this note, but there’s too much uncertainty surrounding this. Where’d this all come from? How do they know me? Why have they given me this opportunity? How does one even make a choice between the two? The money seems like the obvious choice considering my present circumstances; but the book itself calls to me, begging me to explore the depths of its pages. This needs to be shared, but am I up for the task.

I’m not good at making my own choices, this is too much pressure. This box of choices has somehow wound up in my possession and I’m scared to choose for fear of ultimately regretting my choice. Leaving my job today wasn’t even my own choice, I asked a coin for that.

And so, I guess I’ll ask it again, once more leaving up to the same unknown forces that have placed this opportunity into my lap.

fact or fiction
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