People say that I'm crazy for wanting to leave the small town where I live. They say that I don't know what I'm thinking and that I'm not cut out for being out there. I tell them they're wrong, and that there's so much out there in the world that is left unknown, that I want to find out. They just look at me and say that I'm a crazy freak.
I live in a small town where the only living anyone here gets is to fish. My father fishes and he expects me, his son, to fish like him. He's taken me out fishing, and I can't get it in me to actually want to catch a fish. I don't have the heart or the passion to want to fish. Who could want that? There's so much more that you could do.
One morning I woke up, and realized that today is the day that I am going to leave this town. I am going to leave and never look back. And when I leave, I'm going to do something meaningful in my life; more meaningful that sitting around in a boat and waiting for a stupid fish to bite the end of a hook.
When I get to the road, I get on my bike and I ride far away from the house. When the house becomes a tiny speck, I feel freer than I have before. I keep riding, never looking back, trying to imagine what my life will be once I'm free forever from this awful place.
After 20 minutes, I'm out of the town, and I see this small town in the distance. I get excited, a new town; the first new town that I've ever seen in the 16 years that I have been living. When I get to the town, I notice that it's not a new town: it's my town. The town that I've been living it.
I freak out.
How can this happen? I didn't turn around, I never looked back, I was going forward. I was going forward the whole time I was riding. I wasn't even a mile out of town before I saw the exact same town again.
When I get back to my house, I feel defeated at just ride back up to my house. The sun is just starting to rise, and my father will be up in an hour. I look over and see the row boat that is used on petty fishing trips. A spark of hope starts up in my heart as I head over.
I rush into the boat, untie the rope, and row as hard and as fast as I can. I row until my house becomes nothing but a speck on the orange horizon sky. It feels as if I row forever until I start seeing my house come into view. And it's the very same house that I tried to escape from. What is happening? I know I didn't turn around by accident; I was facing the sun the whole time.
I think I'm going insane.
The pattern continues for 2 months, enough for my birthday coming around declaring that I am now 17. I still hear people saying I'm crazy, and see the worried or pitying glances they give me. I don't need their pity, and I don't want it. I'm not crazy, I know what I'm doing.
That night, I sit on the dock staring up into the starry sky, thinking that me not being able to escape this town is some sort of cruel joke. A joke. That's all my life is: some cruel , sick joke that will never let me get past it.
I sigh and open my eyes, not noticing before that I closed them, and I see a shooting star.
A star so bright that it illuminates the night sky for merely 4 seconds. But something in my sparks. I realize that I can do anything, if I want to. I just need to wait for that star again.
So the waiting begins.
After the first 2 weeks, I start to hear the rumors going around saying that I haven't left this dock. I haven't starved yet because my father keeps bringing me out food, and making sure I eat it. Same with the drinks too. Every week at noon, my father makes me come in to shower, and right after, I go back out to the dock and sit down, and stare at the sky.
Days become weeks, which soon become months, and then years. I spend years out there trying to find that shooting star again, even for the briefest of seconds. It's almost a need to find this star again.
I wait forever, I remember my father dying, and people asking why I was so weird, why I didn't just fish and live a normal life like everyone else. I don't have an answer for them, what can I say? I know I am weird, I know that I'm crazy, but I don't care. I want to find that star if it's the last thing I do.
I sit, and I began the wait for forever.