The Choice

Pain, regret, disappointment, depression. These were his only companions. His wife left him two years earlier, looking for greener pastures. He knew when he married her, she was a gold digger, he just thought he would always have gold.

“That’s what I was” he thought bitterly, “I was golden! I couldn’t lose. Every outing I finished high in the field and often took the whole enchilada”.

He padded around his small studio apartment. A broken man. His companions following along in miserable parade. He lingered then, before the wall sized trophy case. All that was left. “What memories! What glory! What respect I enjoyed! Where had it all gone bad?

In his mind he began to relive it again. That day his confidence deserted him. He saw it so clearly. He could almost go there. He wished he could go there, and do it over again. “He would do it differently. He would choose more wisely this time.” The images came.

There he was standing with an almost insolent air. Nattily dressed in the latest fashion of the sport. Sponsors logos, discreetly on display for cameras, and spectators.

What was supposed to be yet another victory, another feather in his cap, instead became cruel defeat.

When it was his turn, supreme in his prowess, he walked slowly over to his assistant and chose. “No! not that he screamed to the image of himself, it’s wrong, it won’t work, don’t do it, you will destroy us”. But as he watched, the image of himself, swaggered up, took his stance, and ruined their life.

The ball went too high, caught too much wind, and fell short of the green, dropping squarely in the sand of the bunker. All, because he chose a nine iron, instead of a seven.