The Weary Day

This assignment revolved around a list we made in class of several things related to a hospital or doctor’s office.  The goal was then to write a story unrelated to anything medical, and use those words.  Some of them were definitely a challenge.  As for the story, this one is about the weariness of being alone, and the perils of disregarding wisdom, and how with both of these things it is very easy to get lost in a blind mass of people.  To communicate a sense of weariness, I used a very passive, introspective voice with little dialogue.  

Philip walked down the crowded street.  Trudged would have been a more accurate term, but one did not loiter on the streets of Moscow.  The city demanded a certain purpose of direction lest it pull you aside, off of your path.  This day, like almost every other in the Russian winter, was blanketed by a grey veil of clouds, making the sun seem like a distant, almost fairy tale like memory. It was incredible to Philip really, how a city could change so much, from the lighter, populated bustle enjoyed when the city turned green in the spring and summer, to the weary, sterile masses of the winter.  At times like these, when Philip could understand the atmosphere on such a deep personal level, he felt almost as though he was holding a stethoscope to the heartbeat of the city, able to not only exist, but to understand.

Philip mentally scoffed at the vague thought.  If there was one thing he was far from possessing, it was understanding.  He had proven that long ago.

“The fact that I’m even in this city is a standing monument to my lack of wisdom.” He thought to himself.

Continuing down the street, he strode towards the metro terminal entrance, mild frustration showing on his face as he was elbowed aside several times.

“Excuse me” he grunted in Russian, shoving his own way through the rush hour surge.

He noted, probably for the hundredth time, how after just a relatively short time in the city, he was already acting just like the rest of the populace, shoving everyone else aside as if there was some horrible emergency that he was rushing towards.  But that was the way of life in that place, one that he had willingly embraced, proud of the chance to support himself, and confident in his preparation for it.  As Philip made his way up to the desk to replenish the credit on his completely depleted metro pass, he noted that the attendant at the window looked like she had consumed an entire bottle of antiseptic for breakfast that morning.

“Is that what I want to become in the end?” thought Philip to himself.  “A bitter wage slave stuck in the mire of a life I wasted?  Is that even LIVING?”

He looked briefly around before continuing, taking in the massive throng, there was a man carrying a briefcase, obviously an office worker talking on the phone and quickly exiting the station.  There was a mother toting a small child with her scanning her card and going through the entry gate.  There was even a nurse or some sort of medical professional in scrubs sitting on a bench and looking through some charts in the brief waiting period between trains.  And Philip realized for the first time since his arrival and employment in that city, that he looked just like them.  Did he still have dreams?  Or where they gone, a consequence of his rash decision to ignore his parent’s counsel, and take off to the other side of the world?

Philip felt the gusting wind that signified the approach of the next train, and stepped forward so he wouldn’t be forgotten in the rush on and off of the vehicle.  He absentmindedly boarded, vaguely registering what he thought was a defibrillator on the opposite wall, a rather new addition to the public transportation.

“It was a choice.” he mumbled to himself out loud.  “A choice.”

“And now I have the consequences,” his mind replied.
It wasn’t that Philip hated the city, or even his job, but he felt all the weariness and loneliness of an eighteen year old floating in the world of an adult, permeating the very fibers of his bones.

Philip had known for some time what he needed to do.  He had known that to return home before he was lost was the only choice to prevent him from being burned out by the life he had tried to lead, the one that he wasn’t so prepared for after all.  But that was another choice, one he had already made.  And the thought of having to return and face his parents after their less than pleasant parting stabbed into him like a scalpel dipped in alcohol.

“Why spend half of my time anticipating a pain I’m not guaranteed?”  He asked himself.

But he knew the answer.  That pain was the burn of shame.  He had been a fool.  He had gotten lost, wandered from the path of what he knew was right in a city that made wandering easier than staying the course.  And now he knew he would have to face that in a short time.  His bags were packed, the tickets purchased.  He listened for a moment to the vague chatter of the same mother that he had observed in the station reading a children’s book to her small child.

“Doesn’t she ever get weary of it all?” Philip asked himself.

This thought was cleared from his head as the metro screeched to a halt at his stop.  Tomorrow he would turn his back on this place, and return to where he belonged.   And that meant that there was only one more weary day to finish.