Image by Mirko Sajkov from Pixabay
This is my entry to Finish the Story Week 1, which you can find HERE
to read "The Job" by 
“Sail away, sail away, sail away ...”
I came to myself hearing it, joined with a high repeating note in the exact same key, and a rattling rhythmic section. The rhythm was pleasing and the two matched well, and it seemed to me that I might spend my whole life floating in this rhythm.
At some point I realized that I had already spent my whole life in it.
The beep was the heart monitor beside my bed, and the rattling but steady rhythm was my own breath.
I was too drugged to be shocked or frightened by this outcome … it was more like calmly waking up to the reality I had been fighting all along.
I should have gone off the road to sleep – gotten a hotel, anything, stopped at a rest area, anything – before going off the road, asleep.
Story of my life, repeated again: knowing the truth, and ignoring it, like I had at the red light I had run not too long before going off the road.
I could have stopped there, taken a moment to consider my actions, but that has never been my way – and I always had told myself that was the only way to get ahead.
Oh, my Appelt receipts, the deposit slips and signatures … lost.
I realized I was not going to win the top originator's contest this month.
It was then that I learned what I had been missing.
What about me that could be replaced was easily replaceable. Knowing that to Appelt I was a mere cog to a mighty wheel had lent me that devil-may-care attitude … and, perhaps feeling all along the way in the world that I meant no more than some ball bearing lent to that as well.
Rule breaking. Over-driving – I certainly had taken that to the limit, and beyond, beyond the red light, beyond the guard rail, to the limit of my very life.
I needed some form of rebellion in order to feel human.
To rebel is human. To forgive, divine.
I was alive. The beeping of the heart monitor and the rhythm of my breath continued to make beautiful music. There were many other bodies in that hospital, certainly, but only one of them was mine, and it was beautiful to hear it still at work.
I had been given another chance.
This was more of a shock, actually – the beeping registered my surprise.
I asked for nothing from anyone – friendship, love, care – I didn't expect it in the world, and didn't give it easily.
Once, I had distracted myself, though, but I really was not tied to that … or, so I thought.
“He's coming around, Mrs. Brown.”
I had my routines. I got home when she and my daughter were asleep, and was up again and gone before they woke, most days.
Why they still loved me at that point I will never understand.
But they did.
“No, Amelia, don't – never mind.”
I opened my eyes and my arms worked to embrace my little daughter who knew nothing about not running in hospitals – she skipped over the wires and all the rest to get to me.
“You're a blessed man, Mr. Brown,” the doctor said. “You forgot to lock your door, the impact popped it open, your airbag deployed and pushed you through the door, and you floated to the lake's shore where you were rescued before freezing to death.”
“All that extra pork chop fat you get from being married now,” my wife Amanda said, with a smile.
“Your driving leg is shattered, however,” the doctor said, “and we had a time piecing it back together. But, you are young, and, with a year of physical therapy, we expect that you can make a robust if not perfect recovery.”
No driving for me. No over-driving, either.
A day earlier, the whole thought would have terrified me.
But then I heard it again …
“Sail away, sail away, sail away …” with my breath and the beeping and my daughter kissing me a bit too hard on my cut and bruised face and my wife tearing up from relief.
I had started the maiden voyage of rediscovering the irreplaceable parts of me, and my life. It was not my choice. It would never have been my choice. The rebel in me was angry for a moment, but then I considered: no point in jumping overboard while wearing a cement overshoe on my driving leg.
So, I snuggled my daughter and sailed away back to sleep … we were safely launched, after all.