Disclaimer: I do not own Recess or any of its characters.
Author's Note: Okay, so pretty much every story I write is a Recess fic, but its okay, because I love Recess and I love writing about it. So, here's my fourth Recess chapter story. And since the other story that I'm starting doesn't really deal with the Recess gang this one does. And its set up a little different than most stories, but I'll explain that better in the second chapter that actually starts the weird setting up.
Prologue
"One moment can change everything," my grandpa used to tell me in an old, shaky voice as he rocked back in forth in his rocking chair. Sounds like something out of a TV show or film, doesn't it? I never believed him though. Because, honestly, how could one moment change everything? So many moments happened in one day that it seemed impossible for it to happen.
I mean, could something as simple as tripping on the sidewalk change the entire course of destiny? No, I didn't believe it, but my grandpa sure did. He used to tell me stories about how he just knew that one moment changed the entire course of his life. Such as, when he was bending over to pick up his pen he had dropped, he looked up and saw my grandma for the first time walking by in the opposite direction. If he hadn't have dropped his pen, he would have been looking straightforward and never seen the girl. Or, how he took a different route home from school one day on a whim, and found the career that he was going to engage in the rest of his life when he saw some lawyers leaving their offices, with fancy suits and such. He would become a great lawyer many years later, unbeknownst to the men who inspired him as they walked out of their office to head home.
Even with all these personal accounts, I still believed by grandpa was off his rocker, I mean, one moment changing everything? One moment could make me famous, or make me homeless? One moment could make me find love, or be lonely forever? One moment could make me live a happy life, or make me miserable for the rest of it? Still seemed a little farfetched to me.
My grade school friends loved to go with me to visit my grandpa. He would tell them the exact same thing he told me. One of my friends thought it was the wisest thing she had ever heard, while another just scoffed at it, in a respectful way though because she loved my grandpa. The others looked at him skeptically, but never said anything for or against it.
The day we buried my grandpa was one I will never forget. As I sat there silently at the funeral, a few tears streaming down my face, I asked, in my head, my dead grandpa what one moment could have possibly been the reason for his death? His reason would have been something obscure and meaningless, like because he forgot to turn the water faucet off upstairs, this made him forget to take his pill that led to his heart attack. I assumed that it was something as simple as, he did forgot to take his pill. But, I guess I would never know. I would never get to have the conversation with him again about one moment changing everything.
But, after his death, I started to look back on my life and those around me. Kind of weird for an eighteen year old senior in high school to do, I know. But, for some reason, I couldn't get out of my head that one phrase my grandpa always told me. Besides this phrase, he wasn't particularly philosophical, in fact he was very comedic. He lived to tell jokes and make people laugh. He could have an entire court room rolling on the ground laughing when it got too intense. Judges loved him because he took a totally different approach to being a lawyer, not an unprofessional stand point, just a different one.
So, I assumed that if that was the only piece of real advice he gave me, maybe there was something to it. I started to trace back my life's steps to see if any of them popped out of me as something that could be considered significant.
As soon as I started to hit rewind on the button of my life, I realized that my grandpa was right. One moment could change everything in a person's entire life. Sounds weird, right? But, I definitely believe it now. One pen dropped really could lead you the woman you were going to marry and love for the rest of your life, one different route home really could show you what your profession would be and make you very successful. Forgetting to turn off the upstair's faucet and having to run back up stairs and forgetting to take your pill in the process can lead to a heart attack.
And something as simple as tripping on a sidewalk could change the entire course of your life, but, as I also discovered, not only yours, but everybody who is around you.