“I feel like you only have a negative impression of this place.”
“Shut it.”
And you can’t reach this place unless you ride a boat.
“Your completely focusing on the bad, aren’t you enjoyin lil ol’ Alaska at all.”
“I want out… I miss the daily pleasures, and the internet. Ah New York, I miss you New York!” He exclaimed wriggling the line of his fishing rod.
Gregory, a standard accountant at 25 that’d taken an extended trip from the city too Alaska Juneau, a fond place he once saw with relatives as a kid. Though when recalling why, it evaded him.
“Maybe you can still find it.” A mans voice said beside him. He was also fishing.
“You don’t have to leave just yet.”
“No I can hear the sweet calls of Broadway, and the thousands of advertisements glowing the street. God they were annoying, but I miss them.” He complained.
Beside him two other people were fishing. Quin, a man similar in age to him he was a semi-tourist coming back to visit family, and help them out with business. To his right Quinn’s younger sister Viola, 21, a beautiful woman still in college. She helped run her families Storefront in the city, selling products from their farm.
“I still remember how you were kicked by one of are caribou, and sent flying. It was a wonderful arc. A part of me is going to miss you.” Quin said reeling in one last catch for the day.
“That bastard fractured my arm, I swear I’ll eat him one day.”
“Ya can’t hurt’im, he was just spooked by your new arrival.” Viola stated.
“He woke up and chose violence, it’s further proof I need to get outta here.”
Gazing across the watery edge of Juneau, the sun was slipping behind the horizon shining it’s final rays on snow-peaked mountains and seas of pine trees. It was astonishing, not like the pictures he had on his desktop back in the office of New York, it was real. From the refreshing sweet conifers, too the occasional encounter with wildlife.
He exhaled another breath from this encompassing landscape.
“It’s beautiful, but I don’t think it’s for me.” He mumbled rubbing his fish oiled hands through his shaggy hair. “Geh, I gotta stop doing that.”
“You really are impulsive, Gregory.” Viola chuckled.
Packing up for the day, they’d caught a total of seven fish. Three trout, four salmon mostly caught by Viola.
“When she first asked me for a tutor, and we hired you, I honestly didn’t think the two of you would get along,” Quin recollected. “You both were really awkward, but turned out just fine. It’s nice.”
“Stop being cringe, your embarrassing me.” She kicked at her brothers shins, but he dodged.
“Yeah, just the passage of time.” He made excuses.
Parting ways from her brother, she carried the ice box full of fish, and he carried the equipment. The fishing trip more for fun then anything else, they’d been two of several people he bonded with over his trip.
“You know you can use those muscles of yours to help me carry these fish.” She moaned.
“Do it yourself, you invited me, take responsibility.” He retorted.
“Ehhhh!”
A college student and accountant walking together, his eyes traced her up and down. Young, a bit meaty but in the right places, free raven black hair with a looping braid, and the face of someone that belonged in the library. Aside from that small adventurous look on her face, at times she was intrusive.
Crossing arms below her chest, he turned away from him.
“You should get yer mind outta the gutter.” She said flustered.
“Relax… it’s just your nipples are poking out from your overalls.” Looking down she quickly covered them.
“Perv.”
Saving himself, sorta, he like her remembered that one tutoring session back at his apartment, when he had a fractured arm.
They had sex, for him it was nothing more than a few sweet words and week of slipping through her defenses. He thought it’d cheer him up after the depressing scene of New York, and for a time it did. But she thought it was something more, and he didn’t.
“You know I don’t have to go home yet.”
“Go home, I have a scheduled program.”
“We can watch it together.”
“I prefer watching it alone.”
“Isn’t the more the merrier.”
“Not when it comes to pork chops, I only have enough for one.”
Bland and unassuming in voice, frustration grew in hers till she gave up. “Fine have it your way, have fun alone in your apartment.”
Storming off into the street, he thought for awhile it was better this way. Not to get attached, so he can leave when December ends.
Lying in his apartment building watching the news, a storm was forecasted to pass over the area in the middle of the night. Nights like those he spent with someone, arm in arm, in lovers embrace, enjoying whatever was on. Turning to some dry entertainment, his ex-fiancé enjoyed this kinda stuff. Not him.
“How dry and boring.”
—-
It was another day in New York one year ago, the flashing coloured lights of ads on Times Square, rush of cars at every section, and the tight walking spaces crammed with people. A suffocating amount of people. Though he got used to it, like someone got use to drinking poison. He built a tolerance.
His life was normal, fresh out of college he got a job at an accounting firm making good money. The hours were gruelling, leaving little time to himself, and it was hard. Sleepiness usually weighed down on him, but his fiancé since senior year of college was there for him.
“I’m leaving you.” Those were the words she said one evening over dinner.
Disbelief, his hand dropped the fork to the plate below. “Why?” He asked.
“You’ve become boring.”
“But that’s…”
“The thrills gone from college.”
And like that the relationship was over, he replayed the moments in his head. It all unraveled in a few brief words. Though he picked up and tried not to let it bother him, life just kept going.
For four months, letting it consume him, ravage inside, and change him. Alcohol, woman, and food were his medicine. From the confined office space doing work that didn’t matter, for a company that didn’t care.
The sweet scent of gasoline became toxic, and he became claustrophobic everywhere he went in that concrete jungle.
Till one day mindlessly scrolling through the internet, he encountered an ad for Alaska, with seas of trees as far as one could sea, and fields of lush grass waving in the wind. A place he visited before.
—-
“Boring? Who’s boring? I’m the most exciting man alive, a city slicker at heart.” He said face glued to the seat of his couch, letting it bother him.
The wind and snow pounding at the glass of his apartment, he sipped his mostly milk coffee and watched Die Hard. A Christmas movie.
“Oh yeah the holidays are coming up, I gotta tree but haven’t set it up yet.”
“I wonder if I can invite a hot lady over.” He chuckled going over some of the woman he met in this city, it wasn’t a lot. From tall shopkeepers, to sassy bartenders, his mind eventually travelled back to that one farm girl.
“When I got here I used her to vent my frustrations, I seduced her and she got attached, I should at least get her a present to cope with me leaving.”