Fragment #14 - Junction

There are times when your life reaches a crossroad. It doesn’t happen very often. Everyday you are faced with a handful of choices. But these are choices, not crossroads. When you make a simple choice, your life doesn’t change. But when you choose the right side of the junction, there is no going back, even if you’re going to regret the left road until your dying day. Once you’ve jumped down the white rabbit’s hole and found yourself lost in Wonderland, waking up may not be possible.

Somehow you know that you’ve reached one of these moments. The knot inside your belly that prevents you from eating all day is just one of the many symptoms. It’s like you’re walking on a crumbling bridge. You have to move forward, heading where the roads fork. You can take another step before you decide which path to follow, but it only brings you a little closer to the moment of making the choice.

It’s raining. I do believe it has to be raining on days like that. It tends to make things more dramatic than they really are. Have you ever seen a film where the hero has to make up his mind on the most important matter under bright sunlight? Of course not. Rain is mandatory. Though, snow may do the trick too. Obviously rain is better, would it only be because snow isn’t available at all times. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that the sun is shining three blocks from here. But it is raining down on me. Just like Four Weddings and a Funeral, when Andie MacDowell throws herself into Hugh Grant’s arms under a thick and abundant rain, and you can almost see the technician with the water nozzle watering them down.

The beating of my heart rhymes my pace. Blood pulses through my veins. I’m hot and I’m cold. Sweat drops stream across my face. Why is everyone looking at me that way? They must feel something is not right. Or I’m just imagining things.

Am I really doing this?

Nothing is decided yet.

Who am I kidding? My footsteps are taking me there anyway. I don’t really think I could stop my legs from moving. Here I am anyway. I am not going to give up now that I sit in front of it.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax.

I push the door. The place is bright. The place is empty. My heart starts racing. I’m going for a heart attack at this rate. I can’t do it! I turn slowly on my heel and prepare to walk away.

“Est-ce que je peux faire quelque chose pour vous Monsieur?”

Of course… The film wouldn’t have been a success if he appeared a moment earlier.

“Oui, je… Je cherche une bague.”