GC: Correspondence From the Goddess #24: @#$% the Daily Grind

[mrnelson007 at gmail.com]

Welcome back to the unending saga of Lydia Devin.  http://goddesscorrespondence.tumblr.com as always.





Today I decided to do something a little different. I always thought of myself as a writer, as you know. Today, though, I thought I might take up a new hobby. I thought about it for a while and pondered what to try, and I think I will take up sculpting. It is an old interest of mine that I gave up recently, but perhaps it is time to revive it. If breathing life into words is not working, perhaps an alternate medium will help.

- Elana


Music is going pretty good I guess. I’ve got the basics down, after a couple weeks of practicing pretty intently. Still feels a little weird to be trying so much rather than just handwaving through it, but the longer I go with it, the happier I am that I’m not. It just feels satisfying to pluck on those strings and hear something come out that isn’t completely terrible. Even more so since I’m actually earning it. It’s too soon to tell, but maybe this is the sort of thing I’ve been missing all these years. Maybe if I had started working on this instead of sitting around on my ass all day I might have enjoyed my life a lot more instead of just letting it pass me by. Who fucking knows, really? Oh well, I’ve got a whole lot of life left now, that’s for sure. I guess I can just work on it and improve for, I don’t know. The rest of forever.

I’m not really sure how long I ran. It was definitely several hours, though. The sun was coming up before I finally decided to stop. I had been making loops in the forest, sprinting and lifting some trees and whatever other exercise I could think to do. Turns out they’re right, by the way. Working out is a great stress reliever. It certainly took my mind off of my problems, anyway.

Mostly. My thoughts kept wandering back to that mugger. I still felt a buzz hours later. Which I guess meant I had super-adrenaline or something? Fuck if I know. Maybe I was just freaked out. That wasn’t the kind of thing you got over immediately.

When the sun came up, it was starting to get too dangerous to run around like that. My odds of getting caught went up significantly in the daylight hours. Instead, I started to head back, walking along the edge of the highway. Plenty of cars passed by as I walked along, full of commuters heading toward the daily grind. /Ugh, no thanks. Fuck the daily grind./

What I needed to do was head for that lab so they could tell me what I wanted to know. But I was pretty hungry, so the lab could wait for a bit. First it was time for breakfast. There was a cafe a couple blocks from our apartment that I liked. They had these awesome caramel macchiatos where they just add a little touch of some mint or something and it was just fantastic. Plus I loved their breakfast sandwiches.

Unfortunately, acting normal can be really frustrating when you’re extremely impatient. It took me half an hour to get to the cafe when I could have been there in a minute or two. Of course, the fact that I took the long way around to avoid that alley certainly didn’t help any. At any rate, by the time I arrived I was even hungrier, and in a much worse mood.

/Wow, there’s a line? Damn, that never happens. Of course I’m never here when people are actually on their way to work either…/ I waited in the back of the line, feeling for my card in my pockets. /Dammit, did I leave it in the apartment? Don’t have my bag anywhere, son of a bitch./ I glanced toward the counter, smiling when I saw a friendly face. /Sweet, Danny’s working today. He’ll totally cover for me./

Danny started working at the cafe shortly after I started coming to it. We got along pretty well, and occasionally, on the days when I wanted to walk out of the house and be a worthless lazy bum somewhere else instead of doing it on my sofa, we would go see movies or something. We had a mutual love of the action movies, the big explosion-fests. Car chases. Gunfights. All that cool stuff. /Guess this morning is looking up after all./ While I was waiting in line, I looked over at the TV to kill some time. It was, unfortunately, set to news.

"-an alley off of Third Street. The victim has been identified as Andrew Harris. Mr. Harris has a history of robbery and is believed to have ties to the local gang, the Saints. Police currently believe this gang association may have been the cause of this incident. The victim seems to have suffered extreme blunt force trauma and is currently in critical condition at Eastern General Hospital."

There was an interview with the police investigator after that, but I had stopped paying attention. I just stared at the TV, the whole world fading into the background as I processed what had happened. /Oh god. I just killed that guy. He’s going to fucking die because of me…/

"Hey! Hey, Lydia!" Danny was shouting at me, snapping me back to reality. "Geez, what’s with you this morning? Since when do you watch the news? Or even get up before noon?"

"Sorry, I just… that’s… not far from my apartment…" I shook my head. "Geez. Poor guy."

"Nah, screw him. He robbed us once a couple years ago." Danny shrugged. "The usual, right?"

- Lydia