Moving to Orlando: Personal Moment of Fear

Fright

J. Y. Calcano

I’m 39 years old and have abandoned a career in Electrical Engineering for a dubious vocation in Creative Writing. I’ve pushed aside my first degree, a Masters in Business Administration, and sixteen years of work to pursue this love. Sixteen years of dull, soul crushing effort, but effort and experience non-the-less.

It’s four in the morning. May rains fall on the Orlando house where I’ve rented a pigmy sized room at a premium price. Thousands of droplets pinprick the wood in a multitude of leaky faucets. The night brightens in a strobe of lightning. An infinity of three seconds pass before thunder stampedes over the house.

I’m scared. It’s the sort of fear that heaves in every breath like a tight shirt or a belt cinched one hole too many. Shadows prevent scrutiny of the walls, the bed sheets, and roof. Brooding is best done in the monochromatic.

Doubts plague waking moments with questions. Will I make it? Am I doing the right thing? Can I handle it? What else can I do to succeed? Will I do well in my classes? Will all this effort help me find a job where I can write, compose, and follow the path I am besotted with?
Still images of Mom’s sun-baked, experienced face frown through my psyche. Dad’s quiet, stone gaze judges in sepulchral tones like a bass chime more heard than witnessed. Family acquaintances hear the strange path of my ambition, smile below the eyes and say, “You’ll  make it. God’s will. God be with you.”

The words are empty. They are a casual brush-off of association and a testament to the words they do not say: Only the divine can help you now.  God’s will. Not your will. Sure as fuck not my will. Man, what a loser. Good luck, ‘cause you’ll need it.

They know I’m an atheist but forgive my straying from Truth in their condescension. God’s will.

Almost unanimously, the words are accompanied by turning their body and presenting their shoulder or back. Conversation over. Go away.

Almost unanimously, they turn to comfort my Mom and Dad. Lawyer and Doctor. Tangible success. We’re so sorry you have a writer in the family. What can you do? There is always one of those.

God’s will.

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