dream | act | succeed

LOCKDOWN

A short story written by Andreas Röding

PART I

PART II

Wednesday, 23th of December 2020

It was their third Christmas together. Well, depending on the interpretation of the word, together. Indeed they started dating two years ago during the Christmas time, but got together only a few weeks later in the new year. Her mother was right, he was the perfect match. Kind of attractive, intelligent and standing with both feet right on the ground. Simply put, a normal guy she hadn’t had in a while. In fact, her past boyfriends were always somehow strange, weird, or extremely out of place in her common life. Michael was different, though. Sure, he was! He was always caring! And thinking about how to make things even better. He had ideas! Would refresh their relationship from time to time and surprised her with his crazy ideas when she was not expecting anything. For example, with the breakfast in bed this morning.

But nevertheless, she was the one in the relationship that somehow started to feel differently about it after all. Was he really the guy she would marry one day? The one she would have kids with? The one she would spend the rest of her life? Sometimes she wondered. It was always he, that actively worked on the relationship! It was he, that would say sorry if an argument went too far. But it was never her! She did not need to fight for anything. Michael was always giving up on his point, making it too easy for her to win the battles. Sure, at the beginning she really liked this! She felt accepted, loved, in fact, she felt like a little queen. He would literally lay down to her feet and do anything for her! She needs to lie, if she says that she hadn’t liked this after all, but nowadays, something started to change in her mind.

As he stepped into the brightness of the garage in front of him, a dark grey C63 AMG coupe, a british racing green Jaguar E-Type and an Aston Martin DB5, covered underneath a silver blanked, winked back at him from their winter sleep. “Hello, hello beauty!”, Eduard smiled back at the Aston, thinking about his secret agent like elevator experience he just had. As he passed by numerous of cars, ranging from sporty to luxurious and back to exotic, he saw numerous of colors and body shapes. Just around the very next corner, a silver shining Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo parked next to a dark blue 911 Turbo S. “It is December, sure, but the winter isn’t really in sight, is it?” Eduard argued heavily with himself. Since the 911 has expanded his fleet, he always struggled to take the right decision! “Ah come on! Just take the 911, then!“, the Panamera seemed to tell him offendedly in his mind. “Are you sure?” He locked back at the Panamera once more! “I will drive you next time, I promise“.

With a shouty roar, the flat six boxer engine sprung into life. “This never gets old!“, Eduard thought and backed out of the parking lot. The wide tires squeaking on the sticky surface as he made the next corner. Just down the hall, to the left and up the ramp. Through the gate of the private parking section and off he goes. The navigation system suggested a decent 3 hour 15 minutes ride, but Eduard new he would be quicker. “Call mum!“, he commanded calmly and let the car dial for him. “Hey mum! I just wanted to tell you that I am on my way!” “Hey Hey! All right! The garage is already empty!” “Oh come on! That wasn’t necessary! It’s just a car!” But his mum knew it better this time. “Just a car!“, she thought with a smile on her face, thinking back at all these years he had been so obsessed with those Porsches already. “The garage is already empty, though!“, she said again with a smile on her face and told him not to drive too fast, even though she already knew that this wouldn’t change anything! “Just keep the distance to the car in front!“, she joked, referring to his little incident he had back in the old days when studying in another town. “Come on, there was a Porsche behind me! What should I have done!?“, he always remarked when showing others the video he got from his lawyer, indicating that the car in front was going to change the lane anyways! He had lost his driver license for a complete month, but didn’t learn anything from it. “All right! See you in 2 hours, then! Bye!“, Eduard ended the call rather abruptly and finally focused on the road in front of him.

She always gets what she wants. And this is in fact the thing that changed the way she looked at relationship recently. She just wanted more! She wanted the need to fight for something! She wanted to have the experience that something would be beyond her reach, just for this one time. But no, no no! Was this really it? Getting married with Michael, having two kids and living the most perfect life in the country side? Sometimes she really wondered. Especially when Christmas knocked at the door. It was always the snow, that seemed to trigger her emotional rollercoaster. Two years ago in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve, she was sitting next to this strange guy in his Porsche. Handsome looking, neatly dressed and those eyes she would never forget. Blue like the ocean on a hot summer day. And this smell of the fresh leather in her nose. It was just so, as if she would sit in the car the very moment. The brushed aluminum, the contrast stitching on the dashboard. It was the first time she was sitting in a car like this.

“What he would do in this very moment?“, she caught herself thinking, leaning back in her livingroom chair. “Properly working the hell out of him! Going through an important document that would close another success story for his company. Yes! That must be it! He must sit there at his desk right now, working as the time flies by! And I, I sit here having dinner and actually nothing else to do. Is my life really so boring? Is this really it? Is this where I am supposed to be?”, she wondered as she watched him eating his sandwich and reading the newspaper section about the people who had died in the area recently. “Is this really how my life is supposed to end? Having the perfect family life? A modest home? Two kids and a dog? Two holidays a year and gossiping with the other mums about the neighbors and unimportant stuff?

She had always dreamed about more! She thought that one day, she would live the most exciting life ever! During her youth, she always had these dreams. She would do her own thing! Standing out from the masses and having success in whatever she was doing. She wanted to have a career! Building luxury homes in the best and exquisite locations on earth, but ended up doing small and simple family homes for the masses. “Traps!“, that’s how she refers to them with her colleagues at work. They do not build homes, they build prisons. Prisons that would lock people away from any opportunity to finally change something in their miserable lives. But instead, she was designing her own nightmare for other people day in and day out. And here she was, sitting in one of those very prisons herself, having dinner with her most perfect boyfriend.

To be continued tomorrow in PART III.

See you next time!