The System

Chapter One

                As I left the house, on a cold wet Thursday morning, I couldn’t help but feel slightly dejected. After years of anticipating this very day, it welcomed me with cold showers and maybe a person of weaker substance would delay the trip, or think it a sign that Fate was not in agreement with their decision. Luckily, I was made of much sturdier stuff than to hesitate because of something so little as rain. No matter what came, I would not change my mind about the matter, or alter my plans in the slightest.

 

                From the age of fifteen, my plan had been to leave the system exactly one week after my eighteenth birthday, and so I would leave exactly one week after my eighteenth birthday. As for my parents, they had not been particularly pleased with their daughter’s plans, and that was putting it mildly. However, after much screaming, shouting and crying...they still hadn’t agreed.

 

I’d told them that I would be going whether they liked it or not, and as I was of age, there was nothing they could do about it. Of course, I would have much preferred that I left on better terms, which is why they (grudgingly) accepted that I was going to leave.

               

After tearful goodbyes and useless last attempts of changing my mind were said and done, I had stomped to the train station with only my guitar, art stuff and suitcase filled with essentials and a wad of money stashed away in m y purse.

               

The one major flaw in my plan was that it ended there. I only knew that I was going to London, the capital city, where there was more going on. Because of my hatred of ‘the system’, I had refused to get a job, as I would be conforming if I did so. Many thought that was a complete waste of brains and success, but nothing would change my mind.  I was determined to live outside the system, however that may be.

 

You might be wondering whether I was worried about what would come, and how I would get by, but I wasn’t the least bit worried. I relished in the challenge, eagerly anticipating my new life.

 

As I boarded the train, I received a few strange looks. It was a small town, and many wondered what ‘the young Wood girl’ was doing venturing off to the big city by herself. No doubt a few had heard about the “strange ideas” I had and shared a few disapproving conversations. But after having these so called “strange ideas” for three years, I had full confidence in them. A few glances weren’t going to change my mind.

               

This was a whole new experience for me, and as I sat on the rather uncomfortable train seat, I couldn’t help but grin to myself. I was in one of those brilliant moments that everyone experiences: when you’re pumped with energy and the blood runs through you so fast it becomes hard to sit still. How could I not feel this way? This was it for me.