“follow your dreams my boy”

Tom was at a loss.  He had absolutely no idea what to do: he had lost his job just two hours before someone had told him Kathy was having an affair.  That someone was, without doubt, a credible source – they had zero reason to lie. 

He could get another job, that wasn’t a problem.  Even in this climate, lawyers were always needed.  Well, especially in this climate!  But another Kathy?  No way – Kathy was special, Kathy was unique, Kathy was h… no longer his.

“What would Grampa George say?” Tom thought, with a hint of a smile touching his lips as he imagined Grampa on the porch with his shot-gun, waiting for foxes.

Tom was, of course, sitting in his favourite oak tree.  Even at age 29, he still climbed to the top when things weren’t right – Just as he’d done as a boy.  From here, he could smell all the scents of the forest, he could hear the stream slinking past and he could just about see the mountains through the trees, in the distance.

Perfect as his setting may be, this is not solving my problems thought Tom, climbing down. It was time; he had been up there for four hours!  He knew what Grampa would say: “follow your dreams my boy”.

He’d be right. Kathy was only one of his dreams.  Tom always wanted to travel, landing his dream job in London, England.  If hearsay was true, that was what he would do. No more waiting, no more satisfying others, if Kathy wasn’t his then the job in London would be.

Six hours later, Tom had cried all his tears, displayed all his anger, and said all his goodbyes.  After 29 years in the same sleepy town of Polebridge, Montana, he was London bound with no regrets


Exactly 300 words