The Balance Sheet

Chapter 1: Difficulty Struggling

My name is Marc Barnes. I'm a middle-aged African American man who has seen better days. Beginning a life isn't as hard as keeping stability over a concrete structure. I'd made good choices my whole life and all it took was the word "Yes" and a couple of months to tear down everything that I had never held so near and dear. As to avoid confusion, I'm going to go back to a couple of days before I lost control of my peaceful life.

It was a dark Sunday evening in Lockton County, both literally and figuratively; or at least that's what I was able to tell from when I last looked out of the window. I spent half of my time sitting in my computer chair, working on accounting projects that I set up. All of my equipment was set up in the bedroom. As soon as I entered the room, everything was in plain sight.

A queen sized bed, my computer desk in the left corner. Behind the computer desk was a walk-in closet, a bathroom next to it, and a T.V. stand with a T.V. on the other side. I had my head buried in my hands as usual. Most people called it pathetic but others going through what I was going through, called it frustration.

I had been to college and studied for years to become an accountant. I spent six years at one of the most prestigious universities in the state and worked harder than I ever did in my life. Unfortunately, the downfall of the economy made people smarter in their decisions, forcing the smaller accounting firms to shut down and landing me, jobless again. The bigger companies only employed the best and the brightest. If I had the credentials stating that I'd been to college at least four times, I had a perfect fitting shoe in.

Besides going over my own created works, the other half of my time was spent searching for work with no luck. I had more ads out for employment than a sexual enhancement drug on the internet. My head was still tucked away in the solitude of my hands, when my wife got home.

I heard her in the next room putting her bags down before she'd come in the room with her winning smile. I picked my head up out of my hands to save myself a small shred of dignity. She walked into the room, happy like always. That beautiful smile always made me smile so whenever I had a bad day, I avoided looking at her so I could address my hardship without caving in to her guile.

Samantha happily greeted, "Hey you."

Her voice was already used to the professional dialect she picked up working at the hospital. We'd met at the university during our last year. We'd went to the same college, her longer than I, and had never ran into each other once; not that I was Mr. Popular but focused and determined people like me had a way with faces. I hadn't spoken a word for hours so my voice was very hoarse.

I replied in a deeply sad tone, "Hey."

Her voice turned down low, as she asked, "What's wrong?"

I answered, "I still haven't been contacted by an employer yet. It has been four months now and I've still been posting my ads like every day and nothing."

She walked up to me then sat in my lap and consoled me, "These kinds of things take time baby, something happens for people every day and it will for you too."

She was a fantastic woman. The main thing that I loved about her was her optimism. No matter what I got into or how deep the hole was that I dug, she always brought me back to the light. Her solutions weren't always the greatest but it was better than the nothing I had; my personal issues that I was actually able to control, was the only thing that made her optimism fall head over heels. Seeing as the issue could have been avoided at my whim, there was no need for her to be optimistic about my mistake.

She asked, "What do you want for dinner?"

I suggested, "How about tacos?"

"How about no. We had that two days ago."