Purblind Heart

EIGHT - SECRETS AND LIES

My head had remained in a messy loop, weeks after the last time I had a word with my best friend. I had been thinking of so many things during those days that I neglected most of my usual, personal routine. And being aware that the people in my league as well as those who were out were all busy elsewhere, I had to endure the seclusion. I had assumed that having a great deal of solitary moment for the meantime should suffice as a strife-free support while reassessing my old issue but the consequence had become the opposite. It unpleasantly made me feel remote from the collective as I undulate between my internal values and the intricate exigencies of the chaotic outside world.

Two days ago, I was encoding lists of unfamiliar names and I had a feeling that those were sobriquets. And while I was doing a mandatory content writing so cluelessly, I kept drawing near the edge of attempting to make an in-depth exploration. Although I wasn't certain if diving into it can be profitable to my life but hey I was there; my past was involved and here in my hands were the evidences, hypothetically speaking.

My past had left a significant impact in my life and I can assure that it hadn't shaped my present. To say the worse, it had deformed my credence in so many things making my present a shambolic path. Given my condition, I believed that I had the right to use them to help me track down the root cause of my wound to eventually give it the closure that I need towards the true healing that I deserve. And this claim had nothing to do with paying me back what I owed because no one was indebted of me. All I wanted so far is to be set free from the past-- to become a clean and renewed persona.

"Hey Cedric, what have we got for today?"

I went to distract him in his cubicle. He seemed too immersed in whatever he was doing in his cam.

"Oh! I didn't hear you coming... This is making me crazy. Believe me. From the day I was given the assignment to take some snapshots inside the Lincoln tunnel, I kept wondering what's so interesting about it other than its usefulness for the travellers. I cannot see any artistic spot that catches my attention. Even the slightest connection, I did not feel anything special. Look here."

"I can see you. It's too far from your best subjects of interest and you cannot get to connect with it because it was not your art object.  So, what are you going to do now?"

"Do what I was told to. What else?"

"It's hard, isn't it? You are doing a thing near to your job description but there is no room to access for self-expression."

"Absolutely the worst part of my job lately. But then my concern now is to observe the pictures and hope that maybe there are things somewhere that are eye-catching. I am having a hunch that there are intriguing parts of the tunnel that are under investigation. I was asked to forward them the soonest to this disposable e-mail address."

Cedric showed me the e-mail address in a piece of paper that, I immediately recognized, was not his handwriting. Someone sent it to him.

Someone is a big shot at the back stage.

"Ced, would you mind if I ask for a copy of those?"

"Not at all! Here. I'll forward them to your phone. What concerns you, by the way?"

"I can barely remember the internal part of the tunnel after I had a car accident six year ago. I had an extreme difficulty in getting over the trauma that it has left me so I chose not to pass that way anymore. But lately, I said to myself that it's time to move past the old memory and try now to reassess it in a positive light. Someday, I will have to go westward. I am an explorer, you know."

"That is mostly probable. Speaking of which, Ms. Nichols asked me to accompany her in Weehawken this Friday."

"Oh, that's great! Would you buy me something interesting out there?"