Free at Last

[WARNING: Suicidal & Mature Themes]

-

It was a cool Autumn night. A man sat on the hood of his car, alone in an empty parking lot. Raising a cellphone to his ear, he spoke softly, “Hey, ya… Listen, I’m sorry baby, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it tonight.”

A women on the other end answered, “Wha- what are you talking about? We already made the reservations and got the babysitter and ­—”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. It’s just that Eric didn’t show tonight and they have a heavy workload so they need another hand.”

His wife scoffed. He imagined her shaking her head or rolling her eyes, he felt she was probably doing a little of both.

“This is unbelievable.” she muttered. “We’ve had this night scheduled for almost two weeks and you want to throw it away like that?”

“I know, baby, I do and I’m sorry. Don’t worry about the reservations and Alice, I’ll handle all of that, just —”

“It’s not even about that, Michael!” she took a deep breath. “It’s just that you’ve been working so much — too much — and it’s been so long since we’ve had a nice night together… Michael, this job will kill you.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Michael, I’m serious!” Her voice was getting choppy and higher pitched.

“With Christmas coming up, I wanted to try to do something nice for us — all of us, something the kids can remember. I know it sucks right now, but I promise that this will make up for it, trust me.”

“I don’t care about gifts, Michael! The best thing you can do for us now is just to be here for us, with us… Please. Take the night off... We don’t even need to do anything crazy or go out or anything, we can just stay at home and watch a movie or stare at the wall or something, I don’t care. I just want to be next to you.”

“…”

“And think of the kids… I doubt they could recognize you anymore, Michael; you might as well live in another country, it wouldn’t make any difference to them. It’s like they’re growing up without a father — no, it’s worse than that because they do know their father, he just doesn’t want to see them, is that it?”

“No! Of course not! You know I love you guys.”

“So come home.”

Michael felt thousands of invisible pins pierce his body from head to toe. They must’ve punctured something important because he was unable to move, frozen like a corpse with rigor mortis. He heard his wife crying on the other end.

She pleaded again, “Michael, please… One night, I just want this one night with you.”

His lips made speaking motions but nothing audible was produced. Even with all of the force in his body, he could only utter unintelligible stutters that ended before the second syllable began.

His wife was nearly screaming, “Michael! Please!” Her sobbing was growing more intense and uncontrollable. Their youngest was now awake and also crying in the background.

“I... I’m sorry.”

“No!”

“I’m sorry. I have to go, I’m sorry.”

“MICHAEL PLE—”

He hung up.

---

He sat on his car for a long while. Surprisingly, there were no thoughts going through his head at all. He was calm, relaxed. After some time, he pulled out his phone again and dialed the baby sitter’s number. She answered.

“Hey!” she said, “I was just about to head out.”

“Well don’t.” Michael was leaning forward, resting his forehead on his open palm.

“Excuse me?”

“Something came up, we don’t need you to come over anymore.”

“What happened? Is everything OK?”

“Alice, what I meant to say is that we don’t need you coming over at all anymore.”

“What? Are you firing me?” she gasped then continued in a whisper, “Did she find out?”

“No — well, I don’t think so — but that doesn’t matter. I’m breaking it off with you. I am breaking it off, me.”

“…”

“Do you get that?”

“Michael, what happened?” She was whispering so softly that Michael instinctively turned his volume up.

He replied in a similar whispered tone, but his was more stern, “Nothing happened, I just don’t want to see you anymore, I really don’t. I don’t want you to text me, I don’t want you to call me, I don’t want you to go to my house anymore, I don’t — I just don’t, Alice. We’re done. And don’t talk to my family either, remove all of our numbers and addresses and everything. We’re done.”

There was silence on the other line then she hung up. Michael slowly lowered his phone and glanced at it. There were over 20 messages from his wife (he didn’t read any of them). The next person he called was his boss who answered almost immediately.

“Michael, where are you, man?” he said.

Michael replied calmly, “I’m not coming.”

“What!?”

“I said I’m not coming.”

“Why? Whatever, man, I don’t care why, we just need you here.”

“Hmmm.” Michael had a wide grin on his face like a toddler about to get a present.

“Listen man, I know you’ve been saving up for that trip and I know you’re real close to affording it, so if you show tonight, I’ll give you whatever you need to make up the difference, that’s a promise. (Tell them to wait, I’m busy… I don’t care, just tell them to wait) Michael, we’re dying out here, man, we need you.”

“Wow, so you really need me there, huh?”

“Yes! Please!”

“Hmm, that’s unfortunate.”

His boss stepped away from the phone and Michael listened to him yelling and running around. It sounded chaotic there.

His boss returned and his voice was clear again, “Michael, you’re really screwin’ us here, man! You’ve been scheduled for this night all week and you flake out on us last minute, that’s not cool, man! (Just a minute!… N— NO! Set it down, down! No not there, damnit!) Michael we need you!”

Michael couldn’t contain his amusement anymore, he was laughing hysterically and right into his phone, too. He wanted them all to hear it.

His boss was fuming, “Oh you think this is funny, huh!? Well get this, man: don’t show your face around here at all because you’re fired! You get that? You’re fired!”

“Haha, oh I ‘get it, man’, haha.”

“… SHIT!” With that, Michael’s phone was silent once more.

---

He was still on the hood of his car but he was now lying down with his head and upper back on the windshield. He watched the night sky above and occasionally chuckled to himself. It was a beautiful night. There were barely any clouds, the air was crisp, and the moon was so full and bright that it illuminated the surroundings just enough to make things visible without a flashlight. “If I paid attention in school,” he thought, “I might’ve been able to recognize which of these stars is the big dipper… Oh well, it doesn’t matter any more. Nothing does.” All of the pressures in his life were lifted off of his shoulders. He felt like he could finally breath for the first time in 10, maybe 15 years.

Michael despised his life. Not life in general or those around him, just his own. He felt like he made so many mistakes through it, accumulated so much guilt and debt and stress, he was just burnt out from it all. This moment of getting to cut it all off pleased him immensely; it made him feel like he was once again a free man without any responsibilities or care in the world.

Cutting away these worries was exhilarating, but he knew it was only temporary. Once the high fades away, he’ll be back where he started but worse than ever before. He knows Alice is probably on her way to his wife right now to tell her everything, and once she finds out, he’s going to be kicked out to the streets and all without a job now. He’s crossed the point of no return.

“That’s fine,” he thought, “I’ll enjoy the high, but I won’t let it evolve into another mistake… I’m a free man. Free at last, free at last.”

---

Him and his wife were highschool sweethearts. They married when he was only 20 and have been together ever since, so he feels like he robbed himself of the bachelor life that all of his friends bragged about. He loves her, sure, but he still wonders what he missed out on. His kids were born when he was 22 and 25, which compelled him to get a larger house which meant that he needed to find a better job to pay for all of it and, before he knew it, he was all grown up.

Once the excitement of ‘new things’ died down, he was struck with immense disappointment and boredom. There was no challenge, nothing new to look forward to or strive for, all he felt he had to do now was exist. Especially now that he had a wife and kids that depended on him, he needed to exist because he wanted them to exist, but existence by itself was a hard motivator. He tried hobbies and learning new skills but he always ended up dropping them because of the effort and time required, resources he felt would be better spent at his job.

The only goal left was the possibility of a life without work (or one with less work), but the only way he felt that he could achieve that in the future was to work twice as hard now. For nearly 10 years, he did work twice as hard, but the harder he worked, the less the dream seemed plausible. The hopes and ideas that fueled this expedited work ethic faded away each time he clocked in. He eventually came to the realization that he no longer worked hard for himself, his family, or his dreams, but just because that was all that he had left and all that he knew.

He never struggled financially (he was able to cover all of the family’s expenses every month, sometimes with some savings left over) but he feared that he dug himself into such a deep rut that if ever did stop working, the deluge of next month’s payments might rush right over him faster than it would take for him to get back on his feet. There was also the possibility of surprise charges like medical bills, car repairs, or house maintenance that could erase huge chunks of his income in one fell swoop, so he never felt comfortable taking too much time off.

Despite this fear, however, he knew he needed to stop, even if it was just for a week. Besides, he missed his family and knew the damage he was causing them by not being there. The largest incentive for a break was when he realized his only recent memories of his children were seeing them sleeping and tucked in bed when he got home, no other memory entered his mind.

He decided to take the family on a vacation this year and he wanted to keep it all a secret to make it an even bigger surprise. At first, he was excited about the idea of the time off with them, but the more he thought about it, the more anxious and stressed it made him: 7 days was a long time. Would they even appreciate it? How was he to relax when he knew that, in a matter of a few days, he would be right back in the same cycle again but this time working harder than ever to make up the cost of being away?

He then debated if he should tell them, or at least his wife, but he ultimately decided to keep it a secret. Life was unpredictable and he didn’t want to hype them up just to have to cancel the trip due to weather or, more likely, money. He’d rather wait until it was a certainty that they could go.

To save up for the trip and make the monthly expenditures, he had to keep up his increased work schedule then work just a little bit more. Now that he was working for something, he started to take a new outlook on things. No longer was he a robot just doing what he was told, he was now a human being with a real goal — the work wasn’t the primary activity, it was now an obstacle he needed to overcome.

He felt like he just woke up from a deep sleep. He was sentient again and he was finally noticing all of the little annoyances and setbacks he grew accustomed to in his previous automated life. His coworkers, their habits, jokes, and comments irritated him. His commute was slow and boring. The food he worked so hard to afford was over-processed imitations of the real thing, just without all of the nutrients and taste. His rent was extremely high for what it was, and why was he paying a water bill and a sewage bill, aren’t those the same thing just going in different directions? And the most crucial question he had was, “why am I working so hard for this?”

‘The Cycle’ he called it, was not for him anymore. His wife was right, it was going to kill him and it seemed like a horrible way to go, one which he didn’t want to succumb to. He endured it for a few weeks longer, but now that the faults were out in the open and constantly at the front of his mind, he knew the only way for peace again was to escape the Cycle. He couldn’t take it anymore, he had to take action.

He stood up, unlocked his car, walked out of the parking lot and headed for the single-lane bridge he entered from.

---

Approaching the edge of the bridge, he looked down at the rushing river below. He thought it must’ve been a 200 foot drop (Michael was never good at figuring distances). It was flowing strong and it looked freezing. The river’s aggressive state concerned him quite a bit, but he persuaded himself that it should make everything easier. Although this assertion calmed his nerves somewhat, it didn’t raise his confidence in the slightest. He stepped back and turned away from the railing.

“This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid, just go home… to what though? I have nothing, I’ve destroyed my life yet again, you idiot! … No! This is right. You need to do it, just go fast and don’t think about it.” He returned to the railing. “Do it!” he said, “Just do it, do it, do it! Ah, you idiot, just do it!!”

Despite being around 40 degrees (F), he was sweating profusely. He clenched the railing and imagined the actions he needed to do. None of them challenging, but they seemed like an impossible task to him at the time. He subconsciously said “I don’t want to do this” but he was quick to correct himself. He flooded his mind with all sorts of distractions: puppies, trains, trees, doorknobs, bears, noses, and anything else that came to mind. With his brain preoccupied, he quickly swung his leg over the railing, but his other leg failed to follow so he was slammed against the railing which prompted his mind to take a sort of reset. By the time he regained focus, he found himself straddling the railing like a horse with his feet dangling in the air — he was neither falling or physically grounded.

He looked down at the river again. The water no longer frightened him, instead, it came off as unsettling more than anything else. It was his killer, yet it took no notice of him, and whether he fell in or not would make no difference to it; it would continue flowing regardless. He couldn’t say why, but this disturbed and even irritated him. Was he not special? Did Mother Nature not find his intentions noteworthy? But what does he expect the river to do, hold out its arms and say, ‘jump in, boy, the water’s cold!’? Michael sat on the railing and pondered.

It was the dead of night and he was as still as the railing he sat on. He watched the river. It rushed with the same extremity, but now that he had had a few minutes to observe it, he noticed how mesmerizing and calming it was. It started to lull him until a distant light caught his attention, flashing off and on through the trees. He watched as it traveled perpendicular to him, then it slowed down and turned to face him head on. The light was bright, there were two of them, and they were getting closer. It was a car. Someone was coming.

---------------

!!! IMPORTANT !!!

- This is Part 1 of ‘Free at Last’. The rest of the story exceeds the word count and cannot be posted here.

- If you’d like to read the rest of this story and/or are interested in seeing more from me, please check out and subscribe to my Substack to read and get notified of my future work:

https://camdencleveland.substack.com/