After a few minutes of confusion and general morning stupor the soreness of the bumps and bruises hit me like a truck. I stripped down and walked into the bathroom to take a shower. While waiting for the water to warm up to a reasonable temperature I surveyed the damage in the mirror. I had a sizable bruise on my hip from being tackled onto a cement sidewalk. I could feel the bruise I couldn't see on the back of my head, although "Eric" had not managed to cause a bump to form on my head with his punch. My gut was sore and my arms were mildly bruised from our encounter on Massachusetts. Overall I'd say I was in good shape considering that his intent had been to kill me. He hadn't even drawn blood.
I felt a strange pride in that fact. In spite of the fact that I had put out the contract on my own life, because I really and truly wanted to die. It was a strange type of validating feeling to know that someone had tried to kill me, and had not managed to make me bleed. It was one of those moments that made a guy feel manly. I was tempted to flex what little muscle I had in the mirror. I was, however, too sore and confused about everything to allow myself such frivolity, or at least that's what I'd like to believe. Really what happened is that I noticed the water had become sufficiently warm, so I hopped in the shower to get clean, and massage out some of the soreness from the previous days exploits.
After showering, I of course dried myself off and got dressed. I sat in the one chair provided in that room, which was an uncomfortable wooden chair placed near a small table. In spite of it's inhospitable nature I sat in this chair to contemplate. I had many things to think about. What was I going to do next? Why had I foiled my own plan? What did it mean that I was strangely proud of that accomplishment? How would I continue to run, or for that matter did I want to run? Should I just let the next person kill me and take my family's wealth? Was killing me sufficient to earn such a lavish prize? Like I said, a lot of things to contemplate, and each question seemed to lead to another question. The answers seemed to be just around the corner sometimes, but they must've seen me coming because they alluded me at every turn.
In spite of the fact that I knew being in public made me vulnerable, I also knew that there was a certain safety provided by being surrounded by witnesses. I also had the strange delusion that someone would be tracking my credit card already, and know exactly which hotel I was currently resting at. Therefore I grabbed the few things I had with me and drove to the nearest ATM. I made the maximum allowed withdrawal, and reminded myself that I should get to a bank and empty one of my accounts to have a sufficient supply of cash, that is if I wanted to continue running. I also needed more clothing and some breakfast.
In order to make things simple I thought I would drive back to my place to get some things to make this escape possible. I had begun to pack a bag before going to campus, but then realized that if I waited longer the business day would end before I had finished my wild goose chase at M.I.T. So I had resolved to come back home and pack up my supplies.
As I drove back I noticed a mall off to the right of the highway, and decided that would be a fine place to get breakfast and some fresh clothes before I got home. I bought an entire outfit and changed in a restroom. Then I went to what seemed to be one of twenty corporate coffee shops in the mall in order to get some breakfast. The particular corporate coffee establishment that I selected was located within the bookstore at this mall. As I walked toward the coffee shop I saw the aisle containing journals. That's when the idea to write some things down in hopes that it would organize my thoughts occurred to me. This story is being written down not to entertain, but simply to help attempt to make sense of all of this.
I then got a medium roast fair trade, and a delicious looking blueberry coffee cake. I sat down with my breakfast and started to scribble down what you know as chapter 1.
No comments:
Post a Comment