**CONTEXT**
Okay so I'm in a creative writing class at my school, and our last assignment was to write GPS Directions for some path we've followed in our own life. Our directions can be for a literal trip, or for a more figurative journey. The only requirement was when we were writing, our directions had to be in italics. So this is what I came up with. It's not exactly about me, but rather all of us. Hope you like it -TJ
**CONTEXT OVER**
Begin here. Right here. Right at the corner you've always loved, but never actually walked on. Right here. Right where your desire to move further overtakes you. Turn right.
There's a slope in the path. It's small, so you start climbing it. Continue on the sidewalk, avoiding leaves and lizards and the different elevations of the concrete slabs that have been raised due to the growing eucalyptus trees beside the pathway. You know you want something. Something more than what you had. That street corner didn't need you, and you didn't need it. It's time you leave it behind, as it has done to you many times.
Up ahead you see a small dog. It seems friendly, but you hate dogs. Cross the street to avoid the footlong demon and continue on the designated road. There are less leaves over here; you miss them. The leaves made you feel guided down this path of unknown. The leaves reminded you that no matter where you started, you'll always end where you're supposed to. The leaves knew your path more than you did. You feel lonely.
There's a sound ahead. You clench your jaw realizing it's a man with a leaf blower. He's ruining your path! What are you going to do? You feel you need to tell him that he can't do that. That he can't just remove things with the controlled tornado that torpedos from his machine. He can't ruin a perfectly good pathway without a second thought. He can't be human, you must stop him.
"Good morning," you say politely. He shuts off his leaf blower and lets you pass. He gives you a kind smile, you return it. You pass without a second of hesitation, then continue on with your journey. You don't look back at him. Even when he returns to his destructive ignorance.
You decide to turn left at the next corner. Lefts always bothered you. It must be something about leaving the comfort of the corner that made you feel unsafe. This corner is safe, but you're turning left. Maybe lefts aren't so bad after all-
It's a cul-de-sac.
Dang it.
Recaluating...
You decide that your right turns are the truest and best turns to do. Make a U-Turn, and since the demon dog is behind you, cross the street. You leave the sidewalk, feet touching the asphalt of the street. It feels different. It's not unsafe because you're crossing at a crosswalk, but the idea of a human in a road makes you feel odd. Only, you're that human, therefore you are odd. You reach the safety of the other side of the street without seeing any cars, yet you still feel like you've done something wrong.
You think someone would think you're weird for thinking that idea. "People out of place on a street? Why? It's totally fine. I walk in the street all the time near the houses where I live. You just need to lighten up."
You must now defend your idea against your theoretical argumentor.
You think you would say, "Well you never know, cars could sneak up on you."
The argumentor would then reply, "As long as you're paying attention, you don't need to worry. Cars can't surprise you if you're watching."
"They can be 5 times faster than a human. Me against a car, I would die," you reply. "I'm not going to try and share a domain with something that could kill me."
The argumentor laughs, "Something that could kill you? You might as well never leave your home then, but even that could kill you. Your theory is faulty."
"No your theory is faulty!"
You chuckle. You stop yourself from mentally arguing with yourself, then arrive at the realization you are at another corner. You could turn left...no. You could cross the street diagonally like the argumentor would do...nah. You could go straight ahead...nope. You decide to turn right. Trusty right.
You frown. Where are you even going? You take a moment to think but find there's no real answer to answer your thoughts. This trip might as well be unfulfilled if you can't find a place to justify this route. You think about what you've found so far. You've found you don't like turning left. You've found that dogs do indeed roam outside. This route has shown you that-that...that you aren't so good at adventuring.
Continuing on you see a lizard in the pathway. He's big, but he quickly runs away as your feet crunch at the small pines that litter the path between you two. He's so fleeting. How could something so relatively big be so incredibly scared? The answer is because the relatively small thing is deceivingly scary. You realize you're the small thing, not him.
The more you walk, the more you feel you've gone too far. Where was that first street corner you began at? You begin to miss it, even though you know it doesn't miss you. It can't miss you, yet you feel sadness erupt inside you at the thought that you left and it didn't care. Your absence is only felt by you and you alone; it doesn't matter to the corner. Nothing matters to the corner.
Arriving at the next corner, you can't help but feel some pent up anger towards it. You kick a rock, watching it glide across the concrete and scrape at the corners surface. Suddenly you feel guilty. Why do you feel guilt? You decide it's because you took your unnecessary anger out on a corner that didn't hurt you. Why did you do that? You turn right without looking down to the unbeing being below you.
You attempt to shake off the guilt but it only gets worse. You start to feel guilty about everything. Why do you hate dogs to much? Why did you hate that kind, leaf blowing man? Why do you not trust left-hand turns? Surely they can't all be bad, why do you think you can generalize them like that? That argumentor, he had some good points. Risk takers are people who push society to be different, to be active, to question things that need questioning. Why would you argue with him when you know he's stronger than you? And that lizard. You scared him, just like a bully. He was calmly relaxing on the sidewalk, and you made him flee with fright. That was wrong, wasn't it? The corner you were mean to, you kicked a rock at it. Did you even take the time to think about how that rock felt? It was peacefully sitting, avoiding all aspects of life yet you disturbed it. You're disturbing.
Stop. Your last corner is ahead, but it's different. Why does it look so familiar? You realize that you are exactly where you started. This is the corner you left, placed right in front of you. You stare at it, like you've somehow wronged it. You feel you should apologize, yet you know it doesn't care. You know it's never cared, that's what made you feel so lonely in the first place. That's why you wanted to leave, that's why you so cherished those leaves. This corner made you crave human interaction, yet it's made you foreign to it. That's why you couldn't tell that man how you felt. How you believe that even the small things matter.
You realize that you are nothing but a weak being. Doomed to walk around the same block over and over again because you are afraid of knowing anything else. You were scared of a small dog for God's sake; is there anything you can even try and offer to the world?
The answer is no.
The answer is honestly that this is right where you've always needed to be. You never had to move in the first place. You literally could have stayed in the same exact stop and nothing would have change. These directions have now become meaningless.
Recalculating. . .
