One: Broden

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

 

“Mother…Mom,” My muffled voice is barely audible as she continues to keep me in a head lock, with my face pressed into her neck. My father finally takes the initiative and pries her off me.

 

“Honey, he’s going to miss the flight,” My father puts as gently as possible, so as not to send her into another fit of hysterics.

 

“I can’t believe my baby boy is leaving me,” She holds back a small sob as she peers up at me with an already tear-stained face. “What am I going to do…I don’t see why you have to leave in the first place. Why? Why do you have to go to another province to get a job?” At this point, I’ve decided that it’s best to just let her try to convince me not to go because it’s not like I’m actually going to change my mind as I stand here at the security gates, my life packed away into boxes in a van somewhere between here and Ontario, saying farewell to my parents.

 

“Mom, I’ll call you as soon as I get to Toronto.” I give her an encouraging smile in hopes of lightening the mood. It doesn’t seem to work. I turn to my father. He smiles his warm, contagious smile but it’s much sadder than usual. With one swift movement he wraps his arms around me, gives a squeeze and finishes with a hearty pat on the back.

 

“Good luck,” I can’t help but notice the slight glint of a tear in the corner of his eye.

 

“Thanks Dad. I love you guys.”

 

Sitting on the plane, the shapely legs of the hot stewardess stride by my seat; I look up and flash her a confident smile which she energetically returns.  For a moment, my mind is enraptured with various and rather questionable scenarios involving one of those tiny airplane bathrooms, an oxygen mask and the hot stewardess. 

 

 

After a few moments of sheer imagined bliss, I shake myself out of reverie and turn my thoughts back to the pitiful state of my parents. They seriously think their world is coming to an end. Well, my mother, at least. Their only child is moving away to a completely different province, practically across the country. Honestly, I can’t quite figure out what the huge change will be. It’s not like I was living at home. I’ve been on my own for over three years, and even though I was only fifteen minutes away from them, I probably spoke to them one or two times every couple of weeks.  Of course, I would see them on holidays and special occasions but other than that…I was living my own life. Honestly, they don’t realize that hardly anything will change.

 

I, on the other hand, will be a new man. Yes, this is my chance to start completely anew. I’ll have my new apartment, my new job at an up and coming law firm and most importantly of all, there will be plenty of new women.

 

As I stare out at the majestic landscape falling away below me (or, more accurately, the stewardess’ backside as she adjusts a passenger’s seatbelt), I think to myself: ‘Goodbye, Whistler, British Columbia; Hello, Toronto, Ontario’.

Reviews

[No one]

"Most importantly of all, there will be plenty of women."
I'm trying to figure out if you wrote this line to set the protagonist up for future failures or to ready the salivating readers for the following pages of microscopic introspection into the life of a confident, if not arrogant, Canadian male who is ready to conquer the world one woman at a time.

This small excerpt shows wonderful talent. Dialogue is especially realistic.

One sentence that didn't make sense to me was this one:

As I sit on the plane, I try to hide my smile to avoid looking like a lunatic in front of the hot stewardess while thinking about my parents.

Why does a smile in his mind make him look like a lunatic?
No matter how hot the stewardess is she cannot read the young man's mind. And she would probably mistake him for a lunatic were he scowling but not, in my humble opinion, if he were merely smiling.

When my eyes lock with those of a beautiful or exotic woman, I make an effort to smile. That is because I already know I am a lunatic and if I didn't smile at her then she would also know.

[Susan S.]

I'm assuming there will be a point to his leaving his parents and moving to the big city? I love the writing. I think you're an exemplary wordsmith. Of course it's too soon to tell if you have the rest of it, but I'm optimistic.

Good Job.

Susan