Dogwood

Chapter 1: What Comes Next?

"What do you want to do with your life?" Mrs. Steplon, the school guidance counselor asked. She was a rather stout woman with frizzy blond hair and curious blue eyes. Her lopsided smile was all part of her simple charm. A Midwestern kind of charm. "What is it that calls out to you, Rory?"

In Rory Colin's seven years at the public high school that also served as a middle school due to such a small population, Mrs. Steplon was there to ask two simple questions:

1. How are you today?

2. What do you want to do with your life?

And of course, there were times when she would put a spin on the second question so that it came out as:

What do you want to do after high school?

Most people shrugged and grunted some superficial response about college or construction. Others said they would go into the military because they didn't know what else to do. Options were extremely limited in a small town like Haddonfield. Ditchdigger wasn't just a playful metaphor for back-breaking labor. It was a legitimate job that made just enough money for a person to comfortably drink themselves to death. Rory didn't favor himself much of a drinker though, not like his father.

"I was thinking of doing something with illustrations," he said. "Something where I can draw and animate and make things."

He didn't much like talking to people about his aspirations because it always felt as if they were looking down on him for refusing a normal job. Most people, like Rory's stepfather, called his current career choice a "pipedream." And most days, that's exactly what it felt like.

"So, maybe an architect?" she said, hopeful. "That would be a safe choice."

"Actually, I was thinking of maybe becoming an animator."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, of course. It's what I wanted to do since I was a kid," he explained. "My grandfather taught me how to draw and..."

Her eyes wandered around the room as she mumbled the obligatory "hmm." Gradually, he faded into wordless silence, shrugging as if the story would fill itself in. Not that it needed to.

"Alrighty, let's take a look," Mrs. Steplon said once she realized his story had abruptly concluded.

Her fingers clacked against the keyboard, shuffling across it at a rapid pace. Rory began to wonder what Mrs. Steplon had wanted to do when she was his age. Did she always want to be a guidance counselor to a school of ungrateful teens or was there something else that had called to her? He contemplated asking, but in the end, he decided against it. In eighteen years of life, he found it was rather easy to cause hostility by asking such simple questions. People didn't like to hear honest thoughts, nor did they care about what he had to say. If anything, he found silence to be far less intrusive, and much more pacifying.

"You know, some people wanted to be an astronaut or a cowboy when they were kids." She said this in a way as if it were a trivial thought. One that suddenly popped into her head whilst waiting for the computer to load.

He sighed. "But astronauts work for Nazis, and cowboys don't really exist anymore." He forced a smile that seemed sincere enough, but it radiated a certain smartassery that most people didn't appreciate. "So, I'm good on those careers but thanks. I think I'll stick with my original choice."

"Sure." Her crooked grin seeped with venom. "Let me just take a look at some colleges that might offer you the best education and experience in these areas."

"Oh, you don't need to do that. I've actually been accepted into North Ridge already."

Mrs. Steplon went rigid in her seat with a ramrod spine. "Well then, is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Colin? You seem like you have it all figured out."