Clouds slowly roll over the city in the afternoon, enclosing around like a grey bag suffocating it. The permeating smell of a storm coming mixes with the pollution from the factories and speeding vehicles, creating a sickly smell. The threat of rain pouring down on Jamie’s head is ignored as he walks even slower and shortens his stride. School was uneventful today, poetry reading in English and a minor homework assignment in Law started the morning half. His lunch time stolen away by a mandatory meeting for all of the graduating students for a party that Jamie wasn’t planning on attending. The school day ended with cleaning in the cafeteria and an interesting lesson in Psych. Quite dull.

Jamie continues to walk, now halfway to his home. Thoughts fly in and out of his head, each one randomly chewed from a few seconds to a whole minute before being thrown away like the toy of a bored child. He enters the same park he walks through every afternoon, his eyes glancing over the kids and parents preparing to home with a touch of envy.  An empty swing catches his eye enticing him to relax for a bit. Jamie checks his phone to see if he has enough time, not wanting to be early and get an extra earful from his mom or to be too late and get an extra punishment from the usual.

Jamie sighs and takes off his backpack before sitting down on the swing and kicks his legs off the ground, setting the swing in motion. The wind has quickly turned cold biting at Jamie’s face as he moves back and forth. The repetitive motion creates a surreal environment as if time slowed down to an almost complete stop. Jamie’s eyes glaze over as his mind wanders to his eighteenth birth day, barely remembering the details. His parents took him out to dinner - nothing fancy, which was fine. Jamie didn’t like extravagance and saved most of the money he gets, content with having the same shoes and jeans for a year.

While the dinner was nice, the conversation that accompanied it was not. Jamie’s father with his dark hair and full beard cleared his throat, getting Jamie’s and his wife’s attention. “Now that you’re eighteen,” the voice gruff and strong yet assuring. “Have you decided on which college or university you’ll attend?”

“A few.” None.

“What course are you taking?”

“Maybe biology or chemistry.” I’m not interested in anything.

“Well, at least you’re finally listening to us and decided to go to a university. I saw an ad on a marine biology course, might interest ya. You always wanted to swim in the ocean didn’t ya?” Jamie’s dad laughs with a deep rumble while he himself chuckles as he looks down on his food, his growing bangs covering his eyes.

“Oh I just can’t believe it,” Jamie’s mother cheerfully says. “My little boy is a grown man now.” Jamie’s mother was beautiful with long dark hair and with a face that suggests to be younger than her actual age.

“Soon he’ll have a wife and family of his own eh?” The parents share a laugh together while Jamie continues to pick his food.

A flash of lightning followed by thunder snaps Jamie out of his mental stupor. He had stopped swinging halfway through and now is lazily letting gravity and motion do its work. The sky has turned a darker shade of grey that erases any doubt of a coming storm, while the wind blows strongly around him. It rattles the chains of empty swings and tosses his long hair and scattered leaves to and fro. Another flash and another thunder just as loud as a baby’s tantrums. Time to go.

Out of the park and onto the familiar yet unfamiliar streets. Two years of living in the city and wasting each one day after day. Jamie tried to talk and befriend his peers, even through his shy demeanour. However, most of them have formed their little cliques, and forcing himself to join one of them felt rude to Jamie. He would still talk online with his friends from his home city, and even found the time here and there to watch movies or eat dinner with them.

Jamie would spend hours and hours just talking with them about mundane things, throwing inside jokes here and there, laughing hard at each others shenanigans. But it was a poor bridge that connects him over the ever growing gorge between him and his friends. The bridge slowly became floating boulders for him to jump across with awkward small talks of everyone’s plans after high school. All of them pursuing a career in some respected field while Jamie can only lie through his smiling teeth.

Without ambition or desire what is a person? Jamie’s motivation in school is just to please his parents, to not anger or disappoint them. For his own desires, he had none. A husk, a robot, a hollow shell, with actions that are not his own. What will he do once his parents are gone? Jamie doubts he’ll find someone who will like him as he does not find any redeeming qualities in himself. His life would then quickly be without purpose which creates a strange emotion of apathy in him.

Would it be better if I committed suicide after? No one would miss him, and he won’t have to struggle and bother anyone. A drop of rain hits Jamie’s head, announcing the entrance of the storms deluge together with the thunderous rhythmic pitter-patter of the rain. Jamie stares up into the sky, each drop like needles against his face. Memories of his carefree childhood coalesce like a puddle, reminding him of when he loved playing in the rain. How it washed away the dirt and sweat of the day, and the sweetness of the liquid when he stuck his tongue out.

As he played in the rain, he was happy while dancing to the non existent music created by his splashing, the tune he waltzed in would die if he stopped. So he danced, slowly at first, then hurrying. Jumping, tip-toeing, skipping, however he had to, he created the nonsensical melody coming from his heart. It drowned out everything - his problems, his worries, his future. In that moment it was just him and his dance, the now rather than the eventual.