Killing Destiny

Running has always made me tired. I really really hate being tired. There is no worse feeling in the whole world than being out of breath. Your legs get all rubbery and you start to get lightheaded.

That was all I could think about as I ran for my life. How many times do you really get to run for your life? Not very many, that's for sure. Some more than others maybe, but not me. I ran for all I was worth, but still I could feel my legs giving out. I was out of shape, out of breath, and quickly running out of will to live. They were
catching up to me.

What would they do to me, I wondered. Kill me, make me suffer, make me wish I was dead. What had I done that deserved death? The running was more painful than the punishment. When they caught me I'd tell them I already went through enough punishment by putting off the inevitable. Maybe they'd let me go. No...evil men show no mercy.

Okay, let's rewind a few years.

I'm twenty-three. I'm living alone. I have no job. I have no money. What's a guy like me supposed to do? There comes a time in every man's life when he questions his existence. Well, I'd been questioning mine for a long time. I'd finally decided that I'd try to get through life as easily and painlessly as possible. So...I began robbing convenience stores. Not very many, just one or two a month. Just to pay the bills and buy food. I guess I've never been a fan of money. To tell you the truth, I detest rich people. Rich sophisticated slobs that live in fancy houses and eat fancy meals and drink fancy wine. Rich men that work in fancy offices while their wives take their rich kids to soccer practice at the rich private schools in their fancy minivans. I couldn't stand the type.

I robbed convenience stores. I robbed from the middle class and gave to myself. Just enough to survive. I guess I felt bad once in awhile. I mean, some poor college kid might lose his pathetic job because of what I did, but who knows? Someday he might be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He'd learn a valuable lesson from our little encounter.

I had no hopes, no dreams, no future. I'd found my calling, and I'd carry it out to the least of my abilities. Then one day, I screwed up. I robbed the wrong place in the wrong frame of time. You see, the Handi-Gas on the corner of 45th and Perkins Street was a bad place to be at 11:57 p.m. on October 24, 2004. Not because of the owner, or the cashier, or the location of the station (how'd you like that rhyme?). There was a man. Standing toward the back. Looking at the magazine rack (I rhyme all the time).

I suppose it was my destiny to meet the man in the yellow raincoat. That sad waterproof man with the bowler hat changed my life forever. He may even be responsible for my eventual demise. I walked in and went through my usual "open the register and put the money in a bag" routine. But something drew me to that man. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It was as if he was calling out for my attention.

I'm a quiet man during my robberies. I don't scream and wave my gun around like a madman-that tends to attract attention. I like to be discreet, and I can usually pull off a robbery without attracting the looks of customers. But that night, it was different. The man seemed to be paying no attention to me, and I wanted his attention for some reason. After I collected my money I made my way to the raincoat man.

"What's your name, Sir?" I asked him. Sir. Always so polite. He turned and slowly directed his gaze at me.

"Destiny." That's all he said. That's all he ever said. And the next few years would be littered by my encounters with the strange man, who always wore his raincoat and bowler hat. Every single time I would rob a convenience store from that night on, he'd be there, reading the magazines or making himself a cup of steamy hot cappuccino. Every time I walked up to him and asked him his name, he'd give me the same one word answer: Destiny. Was that really his name? It seemed like an odd name for a mother to give her child. And what would his nickname be? Desi? The man intrigued me, and I learned to expect him. Everywhere I went, he was. I began to increase my robberies to one a week, then two, then three. Soon I was robbing a gas station every night. He was always there, and I could never get a different word out of him.

Fast forward two years. I finally get a job, putting motors into electric fans. It was your typical factory job: seven to four, an hour for lunch, smelly men with safety goggles and lunch pails. I hated everyone, including myself for working such a job. Every day was a struggle, yet I was somehow determined to make something of myself. I bought a car. It was a 1986 Honda Civic hatchback. One of the last of its kind probably. The light-brown monster had no muffler, more than enough miles, and a tremendous will to live. I was driving it home from work in the rain after a night at a run-down tavern when I saw the man. My destiny. He was standing in the middle of the road. Unfortunately, he was standing right in my path, and pretty soon he was laying silent on the wet pavement and bleeding.

I turned around and got out of my car. He was shaking like an epileptic in the thoes of a massive grand mol seizure. I bent over and asked him his name. "Dessssst....i.......n......yyyyyy....."

And then he died.

How do you kill your destiny? What happens to your life when all you have to live for is gone, wet and stiff on the cold pavement with a bowler hat laying nearby? I'd never noticed that he was nearly bald. Little things like that seem to matter alot after they're gone. And I'd never noticed how old he was. Destiny. Old and dead and wearing a yellow raincoat.

I heard a sound. The sound of many feet hitting pavement and splashing through the occasional puddle. I turned and saw them: a swarming mass of yellow, coming closer, closer, closer. I ran. What can you do but run? It's the best and easiest thing to do when you feel threatened. I felt very threatened. I retreated, leaving my Civic and my destiny in the middle of the dimly-lit road. I ran away from the yellow, away from my life, away from danger and into emptiness.

I have never stopped running. And they have never stopped chasing me.

The end?