Chapter 1: Prompt #42 Standing Still

Life rushed passed you, leaving you in its wake. Your friends prepared for their futures yet you did nothing.

You glanced up from your notebook, watching the wind blow through the tree above you. As your friends chatted away on the wooden bench in front of you as you continued your homework. Sitting outside during lunch was a nice way to avoid a school filled with obnoxious underclassmen and harsh administers.

Your friends were ready for graduation and there you sat in the middle of spring not one application filled out. Something held you back and you weren't sure what that thing was.

Was it fear? Laziness…?

No, it couldn't be. Maybe you were just stuck in your everyday routine. Or could it be that you couldn't decide what you wanted to do with your life.

Sure you thought through many career options and you found that none of them appealed to you.

It would seem to some that fate played mind-games with you since the beginning of your senior year. One day it called you in one direction then shoved you toward something else, until you figured it out.

In the depth of your heart you knew you didn't belong there or anywhere. As if the time you had was up and your death was just around the corner. Your mind and soul wasn't determined to start dreams or goals. It would rather grow old in stillness…the loneliness.

With a hard and hopeless heart you became indifferent around your friends at school. They soon stop inviting you to places and if they did you found yourself as the third-wheel of the group.

Everything became nothing but, surprisingly, you couldn't stop yourself from doing your school work.

Whenever you return home you made dinner, cleaned clothes and the house, showered of course, and did other important chores. You continued to live. Knowing that even though your life was nothing didn't mean you should live like a slob.

You enjoyed the small things: watching T.V., relaxing on your favorite couch, playing video games, writing and reading, etc.

Of course there was the daily shower added in and there was a snack time in between computer and video games. This was the good life of a robot.

There were no parents to nag you at home because they were never there. Not that they were bad people…you believed that something horrible happen to them. They disappeared around your second birthday and you haven't heard or seen from them since. Generously your grandmother adopted you, the only family you had left. And together you lived peacefully until she died about a year ago.

You were barely sixteen years old when you had no choice but to live on your own with the inheritance your sweet grandmother had given you. At seventeen you lived in a nice apartment a short walk away from your school.

Ring….

The school bell rang off in the distance and you slammed your notebook closed. Your thoughts disappeared as you left your friends at that lone tree in front of the school. You headed into the brick building, walking through the many throngs of people.

You were moving, nevertheless, you find yourself standing still amongst the moving crowd.