Dan watched the clock countdown to lunch, he loves his lunch breaks. He got into his beat up second hand Camry and drove down to his favorite sandwich shop; the sandwiches were okay the view for him is why he went. It was right across from a middle school and he had the lunches timed perfectly. He was like an alcoholic; if you asked him why he went to that sandwich shop he would tell you he liked the service and the food. And he probably could have passed a lie detector test with that answer. It is strange how our minds can hide what is obvious to others from ourselves so that we do not feel ashamed. For Dan it was his attraction towards the younger generations. He had talked with a friend of his about this once, they had been at this exact sandwich shop that he was now headed to, and his friend had noticed that Dan’s eyes kept straying. So he had asked him point blank “Are you a pervert?” Dan had met his friend’s eyes with a quizzical look and answered “No, that’s an awkward thing to ask.” And his buddy had dropped the conversation there. Dan had never met anyone for lunch there again. It was not too hard because he did not have many friends to start with, and most of his few friends were more of acquaintances that had known him for many years and they did not mind grabbing a bite to eat or a beer with him every now and again. They were not the kind of friends who would help you out of a sticky situation. So now Dan went by himself to his sandwich shop and he liked it this way.
He pulled up to a stoplight, and his eyes strayed across the street to a college age girl in a short skirt walking up the road. Dan seldom reflected on his life, it was not a happy life. It had been a fairly good life with some potential when he graduated college, sure he was a business major and caught plenty of flack for that but he had married a doctor and it seemed things may go in a happily ever after sort of way. Then the doctor filed a divorce 2 years later and his job fired him and life began its downward spiral. It’s funny how we can try to blame things on others actions, even reading this you may think “What a bummer, poor guy”, but in reality we should look and see a character flaw. So Dan even looked at his life, he saw a poor guy who had never got a chance. And now at 43 years old and overweight he blamed society for what had taken his prime.
The light turned green and Dan pulled out.
Billy was Dan 20 years ago, he was just starting to look at life as a adult and he could see his life going amazing places. He had an old ’63 Chevy that he had restored himself and he was tooling along at a good speed thinking about all the women that he would seduce when he started college. “Boy I bet they have never seen a real country boy” he thought as Hank Williams Jr. blared out of his speakers.
The light turned yellow and he thought about breaking but nailed the gas instead. “Yeehaww!!!” he screamed as he flew into a red light at 65mph.
Dan’s Camry was just a cardboard box from the way it crumpled under that Chevy’s bumper. Dan never saw Billy’s truck and his last thought was “How life changes…”
Billy woke up in a hospital room a couple days later, he would not have a fun recovery and that limp would lead to him being overweight, the pain meds he would be addicted to would lead to his first and second divorces.