Chapter 2: Chapter 2 Choice With Despair

The office worker stood up and began to walk to the branch head’s office with his supervisor. For the past year, the office worker has given his trust to his supervisor as he would always be willing to answer his questions and was forgiving for the small mistakes he would made from time to time. Over time the office worker felt he was close with his supervisor and felt that they would build a long-lasting bond of trust through the future work on more projects. But this was now in contention, as the office worker knew that his instincts were usually right whenever he got that chill down his spine. In the past he would obtain bursts of excitement or energy from this chill, but this time was not one of those times. This chill was similar to the numerous times he witnessed that both his past and current mentors conversing with the supervisor after a round of quizzing with the office worker. He knew that he had made many mistakes and thought that his coworkers were reporting his failures to upper management, but he had believed that his coworkers were not speak ill of him. He assumed that they were just reporting his progress in a professional manner with no bias as they were professionals in their work. The office worker was wrong. 

 

Sitting in the chair across from his branch head, he feared that today would be the last day of his career at this office but hoped that it wasn’t true and yet again he was wrong. Unfortunately, he was given a choice between two options that both had him losing his job in the end.

 

After 17 years of study, self-reflection, trial-n-error, hardship, sleepless nights, and stress he finally obtained the job he wanted. It had everything he needed. A good pay, insurance, and not to mention the fantastical concept of repairing ships of such a variety of sizes and purposes. But this came to an end on that day. The day of November 4th, 2022, at 9:38 AM in Honolulu Hawaii. As he signed his name for resignation rather than termination, which would forever ban him from ever obtaining a similar job, he chose the less damning of the two choices. The reason for his removal from his position was a list of what he knew were nitpicked reasons that were believed to be sufficient proof of his incompetence and lack of ability to keep up. As he was listening to the reasons, he realized that all these reasons were from both his past and current mentors' complaints.

 

But he also noticed that there was no mention of his upward progress after these incidents, so as the reasons continued to pile on each other subsequently an emotion began to stir in the officer worker. The reasons all differed from each other's line of work and were still only small hiccups that were resolved and prevented from occuring in the future as he knew that he was making improvements. Yet his mentors never reported his improvement but rather only emphasized is past mistakes. But this did not matter to the branch head, he looked at the office worker with tired eyes that looked as if he just wanted to get this done quickly and move on to not make this anymore awkward. The supervisor was looking at the office worker with a sorry expression believing that there was nothing he could do and felt that while his decision to remove the office worker from his position was the right one, it was a difficult one. In that moment they both had given up on the office worker, they gave up on the potential they saw in him only a year and a half ago during his internship with them.

 

The office worker understood that there was nothing he could do and there was nothing his branch head or supervisor could do and politely complied. He did his best to hide the disappointment and anger, which were not directed at his colleagues but were directed at himself for failing the people he swore to help as he desired to help them and wanted to help carry the responsibility they bear as soon he could and as much as he could. But this was not to be. As he began to start preparing to leave the office, he called a short meeting with the coworkers of his office to say goodbye. Some of the older coworkers he looked up to and some of the coworkers of similar age to him, he felt a companionship with them. Especially with one that he knew for 17 years prior as they went to the same school and there was another one that graduated at the same time with him in college.

 

But when he saw his current mentor his mind came to an understanding, while he respected her for her skills, he could no longer respect her as a person as after looking at the smile on her face he could no longer feel any emotion towards her. Over 70% of the reasons for why he was being removed was from this short old woman, noted by the gray hairs growing from her head and the need for him to look down to make eye contact with her. A gut churning emotion of conflict began to fester in his mind as he said his goodbye to her with a fake smile to hide the inappropriate facial expression trying to surface. This conflict in his mind was only compounded by the absence of his past mentor who stepped out to do other work and seemed to purposely miss the chance to say what was likely the last conversation he would have with his past mentee.

 

As he shook the hands of his coworkers of similar age, he was emotionally struck again as he felt no reassurance from their grips, they were loose, and their eyes were uncaring of his situation. In this moment, the office worker felt the emotions almost fester out of his outward facade as he felt betrayed. After 17 years, he thought there was a friendship between himself and this coworker, but this was blown away like dust which revealed that there was no friend on the other side of the dust, only a stranger. IT was just an illusion of a one-sided friendship. He continued his goodbyes and felt a slight amount of ease from his other older coworkers whose handshakes were not only firm but warm as their smiles helped to stem the festering in the office worker's mind. After all was said and done, he left the office.

 

As the office worker began his trip home, he drove his car down the highway as quickly as he could. He wanted to just rest and think, but realized that he should at least inform his family of the situation. So, as he began fiddling with his smartphone with one hand while keeping his eye on the road, he attempted to call up his dad as he felt he could trust him the most as he would hear him out as he was so accepting of his hobbies and passions. He felt that if they talked a bit then there could be some relief in his heart and a cure for the festering in his mind. But suddenly a loud crunch was heard, his attention then turned to his left and saw that an enormous figure of what looked like the front of a truck was rushing towards the side of his car. He could not turn fast enough as he only had one hand on the wheel and the resistance of the wheel was too much for just one hand to quickly turn away fast enough. His ability to think decreased as his mind was split between driving and operating his smartphone, but this didn’t matter anymore.

 

The next scene he saw a red and brownish puddle in front of him and a cold sensation in his lower body. He attempted to move his legs but there was no response and suddenly realized that not only could he not move his legs, but he was pinned into the seat of his car as the car’s frame had deform so much that he could see that his legs were crushed from the knee down. His realization was further worsened by the noticeable smell of gasoline mixing with his blood and other unidentified fluids and solids. It filled his nose and out of nowhere he began to retch, but as he was emptying the contents of his stomach a bang deafened him and a momentary burning sensation overcame him. Then there was only black. On November 4th, 2022, at 12:32PM the car of previously known Mechanical Engineer Azi Montagne was caught in an accident with a cargo truck containing liquid and solid fuels required of the ships he previously worked to repair. The very lifeblood of the ships that this young man worked to repair had covered him and in turn took his life as the both the solid and liquid fuel was ignited by a spark. The news would report that there was no body to recover as it was concluded that the explosion had vaporized all traces of him but what got the attention of the viewers was not the death but the mysterious disappearance of the solid fuel which was believed to be durable enough to take on a nuclear strike. While his life had come to an end on that day, in some sick twist of fate, luck, or coincidence this event gave him a new opportunity in his life’s tale.

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