Fate?

by Ross Levere

Had John known what was being asked of him on that lonely evening in September 3 years ago he would have run a mile without stopping.
Three years ago John was miserable, sat answering a phone that never stopped ringing from 9 to 5 with only a weekends salvation to recuperate. A weekend spent shopping, paying bills, cleaning, washing, gardening and masturbating, this wasn’t what the brochure had promised him after university. The life we desire, so often gathered from images in the media, is a pale comparison to the one offered by those who allegedly care for our well being. Early aspirations are met with the stark realisation that we have to accept work in a ‘similar’ field to our chosen profession. Being an artist John had once held an ambition to work on graphic novels, to see his art bring to life a world that existed only in those pages. Reality however took away this dream with relish when his mother told him to stop drawing silly pictures and work somewhere with a decent pension. That day saw his favourite dream die as he could no longer envisage himself being questioned by fans eager to bemoan the Hollywood version of his work. He was no longer an artist, no longer destined to marry Milla Jovovich and no longer living with hope in his heart.
It was here that John found himself at the leaving party for a work colleague he barely knew. The inevitable oversized card had been around the office filled with vague and impersonal sentiments scratched into it by people who would struggle to recall him the moment he left that Friday afternoon. A faceless drone in a nest of brainwashed individuals. The drinks after work little more than an excuse to try and make sense of it all by intoxicating the senses with something created in a lab rather than a distillery. For John there was not even the primeval urge of other men eager to try their luck at sleeping with a co-worker on a boozy night out.
Except … Except the woman looking at him from across the room, her green eyes piercing straight though him. That moment frozen in time, impossible to describe but infinitely resonating in his heart. A stranger in which he felt no fear or disgust in imagining a future with - love, sex, even marriage. Everything and nothing making itself clear in an instant.
What was asked of John on that night 3 years ago was never ascertained, whether or not he even spoke to the woman with the green eyes remains a mystery. Some of us run a mile because we’re running from something, it is also true that in running we reach a destination. We see the world through our own eyes make our own decisions and live with the consequences. John made his decision 3 years ago.