This Town Kills You When You’re Young

Adam Truman woke up today.

In his first conscious moments of the day he was defiant; the warmth in the cocoon of his bed too inviting, the weight of the layers of wool blankets pressing him to stay. His ears began to register the cacophony of the morning rain hammering relentlessly on the rooftop over his head, and he became aware again of his own surroundings. His mind centered him back into the middle of his universe around him.

Begrudgingly he left the womb of the borrowed twin bed he had set up in a kind stranger’s attic. Not my home, the thought pierced the forefront of his mind as his melancholy draped itself back over him while he dressed. He looked out his tiny attic window to see the clouds breaking up and found solace that his day’s plans wouldn’t be scrapped after all. He paused to take a deep breath, nodded at the pep talk in his mind and set out once more into the world.

The autumn was a chill blast on his senses and face as a cold front rushed across the town. As his determination pushed him forward, James Taylor was playing in his mind; Do me wrong, do me right. Tell me lies but hold me tight. A blast of wind forced him to clutch his overcoat tight against him, hugging himself as he leaned into Tempest’s harbinger. He chuckled at his daily mantra Don’t let me be lonely tonight, of course he’d be alone tonight, like so many countless nights before. After so much time, the sting of that truth dulls to a mild, yet constant, ache.

Finally Adam arrived at the shore of Lake Ontario after wandering through the college campus, a silent ghost town of classrooms and dormitories. He stood silent, looking north to the next storm approaching from Toronto. He stood and stared out to a horizon of choppy blue, just as he had done every morning since fate brought him here.

All his time spent, building up a life defined by what he valued and striven for had washed away from him now. All his efforts lost, in that far away land, now ebbing away slowly from his memory, yet painful still.

All the devotion he had given her, she had discarded and abandoned when times got rough. The memory of her face now produced a more sinister, primeval emotion than it ever did before. Vitriolic bile.

Adam straightened his back, a defiant posture against the constant rush of the cold wind charging at him off the lake. He forced his gaze away from the inland sea before him and looked to his left, at a large sapling planted alongside the path that winds along with the shoreline. Every twenty feet or so another tree just like it, lining the great lake, and each of them growing. Not up, but away from the shore. A choreography of arched trees in a ballet line each bending to the south, girls warming up and stretching at the bar.

He had not broken from the weight of his life. He adapted, he rolled with every setback that beat him down, relentlessly, for the past 5 years. He was once like the Biblical Job, stunned speechless as all he knew and loved was stolen, destroyed or unraveled before him, until finally he let everything go. His possessions, gone. His lover, in the arms of another. His dreams of family and comfortable living from a modest yet successful career, shattered. What to do with a closet full of sharp business suits now?

The waves beat relentless on the rocky shore of the massive lake in front of him.

He had sold off everything he could; he gave away what he couldn’t. This was Adam Truman’s last-chance break to get out of a downward spiral and save himself. And when he had his chance he took it, charging across the country and arriving here on the shores of Lake Ontario with fumes in the gas tank and two dimes in his pocket.

This was where the drowning man would come up for one last gasp of air and be saved, or drown trying. Here was Adam’s last chance.

The droning crash of the choppy waves thundered in his ears.

Months ago, Adam Truman could very easily have been the name attached to a sun-dried corpse, picked clean by scavengers. Just sun-bleached white bone baking in the desert heat, with a bullet-sized holed in the skull. Alas, poor Adam. I knew him, Horatio.

But Adam Truman did not give up there in that high desert. Adam Truman woke up today.

This town has gotten the youth of me, a fellow of infinite jest.

He remembers shards of memories, the innocence of a carefree youth. He remembers it was the most wonder-filled feeling. He rejects the lies of his old cold heart, that determinedly demands that it is as it says it appears.

He was once free and alive, and the fire of carefree love may yet explode and consume him once again. That ember is not dead.

Adam stood there, having lost everything that other people use as yardsticks to measure success. Now he rejects their bases of defining worth.

Each day dawning is a victory snatched from defeat, as determination pushes him forward.

And tomorrow, Adam Truman will wake up to meet a new day again. He will not give up with a noose, or a blade, nor a gun.

He will wake up tomorrow, and deny this fate or circumstance its triumph over his soul. Adam will persevere, though the world may constantly strain to crush him.

I woke up today; I win. I will wake up tomorrow, fate be damned, and win again.