Obsolete

Chapter 7

To Jude there was nothing wrong with being alone. To him it was not as though existing in ones own personal bubble while others revolved around him in their own social bubbles ignoring him  effected him in a surreal way. Most of the time he enjoyed being alone. He relished in the quiet presence of four walls that were his only companion. However, as he sat alone, late that Monday night in a fast food joint off the highway, he felt the loneliness become stifling. He sat there searching his mind but he could find nothing wrong in his life; health, prosperity, warmth in his own home. Nothing was wrong but everything was wrong. Jude had never felt so unsatisfied in his life. 

Was it the fact that he was sitting there? He could not think of anything he needed to stand up for and chase after. Was it the waiting part? He knew it was unsettling to sit while his prospects in life were at such an awkward time. He could not expand his career because he had yet to obtain a degree and yet he had achieved as much as he felt was possible to achieve at his university. Maybe it was the fact that he felt he had nothing to live for. He knew his friends were out there having fun driving home to see their families for the weekend, but he could not seem to muster up that same excitement for the crowd of relatives that waited for him at home. His mother a doctor and his father a police man, had never approved of his career choice but the rest of his family was over joyous to have what they called, "such talent in the arts." Especially his grandma, who had to give up playing the trumpet and pursue an accounting career in order to help support the family once his grandpa had been hurt on the job. 

Jude heard the people behind the counter start to clean up and that made him feel even lonelier knowing that they would kick him out soon and he had no place to go except home. 

He shoved the last three fries into his mouth and then crumbled up his wrappers. Unfolding himself from the booth he threw his trash away and walked out the door into the cold night air Cars on the highway barely two hundred feet away made themselves known as late night drivers rushed home to the warmth of their beds. Jude stopped behind his care before looking up at the night sky. There were plenty of stars but no moon and Jude felt immensely sad all of a sudden. The moon was suppose to be around always and yet it too had left Jude alone not knowing how crushing the weight of being alone felt. 

Maybe if  the moon would not abandon him in his time of need he would not be so worried about other real people he actually cared for, abandoning him. What did he need? Why was he so unhappy? Frustrated by the lack of reason he looked away from the empty sky and grabbed his keys out of his back pocket and slipped into his car slamming the door. It was too quiet in the car and it made him more uncomfortable with himself than being outside in the quiet. He started up the car and turned the radio up loud in hopes of blocking out all the unhappy thoughts. 

Another hour of mindless driving on a straight highway and then he could go bury himself in the loudness of his house. In almost no time he would be surrounded by loud, non-stop talking relatives who would take up too much space and also feel the void he himself could not seem to fill. He pulled out of the restaurant parking lot and merged on the highway pushing the gas pedal down watching the street lights blur behind him. As blurry as his own confusion.  

~~~

"Mijo Jude! Esta aqui!"

"Hola Mama." Jude leaned over and kissed his mother on the cheek and pushed the rest of his way into the cramped laundry room with his suit case dragging him down. 

"Dirty clothes. In the hamper." His mom said immediately on his case about cleanliness. To her cleanliness was close to Godliness and there was no other right way to live in life. 

Jude shouldered up onto the hamper before unzipping it and letting all the mess of clothes he had been saving for about a month fall into the almost empty hamper and ruin all the hard work his mom had probably been working on all day. Jude liked to delay house work as long as possible and usually came home on breaks with one suit case dedicated to dirty clothes.