Life-Positioning-System

Vanessa Smiatek

by Vanessa Smiatek

Story
Stuck in the city

Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. Isn’t that what they say? But what if right now my only plan is to get my life on a safe, comfortable track? Then I can do what I want, learn what I want, and create what I want. It must be great to be able to get where you want, how you want and whenever you want. But how much freedom does this leave you with? Being chauffeured through life or driving in a car somebody else paid for. How can you be sure that you are on the road that is meant for you? And that getting ahead doesn’t keep you from where you should be.

It brings back the school bus days when you got no say in where to go but just went along because that’s what you do. And then the school bus drops you off and leaves you to your own devices. You can take the train to university with friends, strangers, or both, but trains are also glued to their tracks. So why not take a road trip with your friends instead? You make a vague plan and nobody has to decide on their own where to stop or take a detour. I miss those days, especially knowing now that it went down a one-way road that would inevitably part.

I feel like I ended up in this city by hitchhiking just jumping from one conversation to the next and hopping on an opportunity when a door opened.

These were the thoughts going through David’s head as he stared at the white ceiling of his shoebox apartment. His drawing utensils were scattered around the table. He had to get up sooner or later but, since it had already been sooner, about two hours ago, that meant that later was now. He reached for his phone and saw a message from a group chat from work suggesting they use the long weekend two months from now to plan a little getaway. Two months… what if he wasn’t even living there anymore? His moves between cities had been swift, and he rarely took more than a suitcase, so this wasn’t a strange thing for him to consider. He would happily jump on a running train if this meant he’d move closer to the kind of freedom he desired. But this also made committing a lot harder, if not even impossible. Another notification popped up: “Life Positioning System Activated”.

When he tapped it, a map appeared on his screen. He saw himself in the city. But the city was drawn out, and he was not where his apartment was. There was a line on both sides. The one behind him was blue while the one ahead was light gray. Like the GPS route, you have yet to take. He saw the places he had lived in, stretched out in accordance to how long he had lived there, and mountains and valleys reflecting how he had been feeling during those times. He saw the highs of the road trip and the abyss-like valley from when he had arrived in the city and how he had slowly moved out of it. He saw some hills around the time he started getting commissions for his art and some more like that ahead. However, he also saw that his time in the city wasn’t exactly coming to an end soon, but would come eventually, and that things were looking up. He pondered whether he should look a bit further ahead, but before he did, he switched back to the group chat and typed “I’m in.”.

© Vanessa Smiatek 2024-06-04

Genres
Travel, Self-help & Life support
Moods
Herausfordernd, Hoffnungsvoll, Inspiring, Challenging