LITR 3731 Creative Writing 2006

Theresa Mullins

Fiction Draft

10/16/06

Taking a Chance

            It had been a long time since she felt like she had her life all together.  One dead-end job after another, it seemed to Sarah that after working so hard to pay her own way through college things would change.  She tried to be a person that set goals and worked on them.  The two goals that were at the top of her list was to be able to get into an apartment in a better part of town and to have a stable job that was close to home.  While reading the job adds one day Sarah decided to take a chance on applying for a position with a major business complex, in a favorable part of town.  She knew the competition would be fierce for such a good job, but to her surprise she landed an interview.  After making it through a difficult interview, she found herself in the job of her dreams.  Sarah was on cloud nine; maybe her luck was finally taking a turn for the better.  This new job opportunity would finally allow Sarah to relocate herself to a better apartment because now she could afford it.  Her life now seemed to be settling down and she had even made some new friends.

As she poured herself a cup of morning coffee in her favorite cup, Sarah asked Kathy, one of her new friends at work, about her weekend.  Kathy replied, “I really did not do much, I just cleaned up my apartment and rented a movie.  What did you do this weekend?” said Kathy.  Sarah said, “Well I decided to go shopping for a couple of outfits for work because I really need some new work clothes, the clothes I have are really outdated.”  A couple of minutes later Sarah and Kathy decided to head back to their cubicle to start their day.

Things had been going well at Sarah’s new job and she had recently completed her first year on her job.  Then one day rumors began to surface that alluded to the possibility of her company laying off a couple of people, supposedly to cut spending.  She knew that when a company had to consider doing this unpleasant task it usually involved the last people hired.  This terrified Sarah because she knew she was one of those three people and the prospects of her keeping her job did not look good.  The feelings of such an unpredictable outcome created a tremendous amount of apprehension and stress for Sarah.  At least her friend Kathy’s job was safe because she had been with the company for five years. 

            The effects of this rumor continued to plague Sarah’s mind and the amount of worrying she was doing had caused her to loose a lot of sleep.  When she was at work the obvious tension in the air kept everyone pretty much in an all business mode and the socializing among co-workers had come to an abrupt halt.  Even Kathy, who was normally one of the people who contributed to their vibrant office environment, was acting more subdued. 

Late one evening, Sarah decided to call Kathy at home and asked her opinion on their company’s plans.  “Hi Kathy, this is Sarah.  Are you busy? I won’t keep you but a minute.” Sarah said.     

Kathy said, “Oh hello Sarah, what’s wrong, it sounds like something is really bothering you!” 

            In a worried tone, Sarah says, “Well I’m really concerned about being one of the people that the company lets go.  This is the best job that I’ve ever had and I don’t want to loose it.  I just know that if they give me a chance, I’ll continue to be one of their hardworking and loyal employees!”

            Trying to comfort her friend Kathy says in a reassuring voice, “Sarah, I know you are worried, I have been in your situation before.  Our company thought of doing this about five years ago and their plans did not materialize.  As it turns out they just needed to change some of their corporate procedures and that helped the company to function in a more cohesive manner.  Feeling like she might have soothed her nerves a little, Kathy reminded Sarah about their early morning and told her not to worry.

            Their conversation from the night before seemed to put Sarah’s mind somewhat at ease, but because she was a person who tended to dwell on things, like her mother, she felt she needed to find something to keep her mind busy.  Remembering that the storage closet off of her patio really needed to be straightened out, she made her way outside.  When she opened the doors she saw that it was not as bad as she remembered, but she decided to work on it anyway.  There amongst her large suitcase, the one she used to visit her aunt and uncle in Tyler was her mop, basic toolkit which included a hammer and a screw driver, and other items that she used to keep up her apartment.  However, she did find a couple of things that she had long forgotten about and that was the two fishing poles that use to be her grandparents.  These poles were amongst the many items that Sarah had kept because they reminded her of the great times that her and her sister, Julie had spent with their grandparents.  Their grandparents had passed on, so all of their memories were even more special to them.  One particular fishing trip with her sister and her grandmother stood out in Sarah’s memory because it was not any ordinary fish trip.  They decided to try a different fishing spot one day and go wade fishing.  As she began to smile, her mind wandered to that place in time;

                        There were a lot of good fishing spots in and around the bay where our grandparent’s beach house was located.  However, there was one spot that we had not tried in a long time.  Before we left we made sure that we had all of our fishing gear and we would stop for bait on the way, at the local bait shop.  Even though the water was fairly calm, my sister and I were always a little leery of what lurked below the surface of the water when we went wade fishing.  I guess we were letting our imaginations get the best of us.  Grandmother always did her best to assure us that we were going to be fine.

                        From the shore we started to walk out into the water to a spot that was about waist high and it soon became apparent that it might not be as easy as my grandmother had remembered.  Each time we took a step our sneakers would sink down in the silty sand past our ankles and it seemed that we might not make it out there.  To make matters worse, we all got the giggles.  As we made our way out into the water we realized that we would have to make sure each of us didn’t fall down in the water.  With each step we took, my sister and I just knew we would loose our shoe to the slimy sand monster below.  This went on for about ten minutes as we finally reached our fishing spot.  It was time to put the bait on our hook and catch the “Big One”!  In no time at all, my sister had caught several fish and my grandmother had caught one.  When they caught their fish they would put them on their stringer, which would float a few feet away from them.  It was no surprise that my sister had caught several fish already; she always had better luck at catching fish than I did.

                        It was getting to be late in the afternoon and my grandmother thought we better head in.  We reeled up our lines and started to head back through the silty sand and all of the sudden I felt something lightly bump my leg.  I told them what had just happened and they said it was probably nothing.  Being the worrying type to a certain degree, my imagination got the best of me as I attempted to run out of the water.  I just knew there was a big fish just waiting to take a big bite out of me!  It was like a slow motion movie, I felt like I was running on top of the water, when in fact I was slowly drudging my way back to the bank.  It turned out that the mysterious bump against my leg turned was nothing, but we all laughed about that fishing trip for days!

Realizing that she had been standing their holding one of the fishing poles for about five minutes, she finally put it back in the corner of the closet and closed the door.  The closet was finally cleaned up to Sarah’s satisfaction and she decided to turn in for the evening.  As she drifted off to sleep, she tried to relax and believe that the new work week ahead of her would bring good news.

What started off as a restful night sleep for Sarah, ended up being another restless night because of a bad dream about her work and her feelings of apprehension. She was dreaming about her favorite fishing trip that had come to her mind earlier in the day.  Dwelling on that mysterious bump on her leg, her eyes begin to play tricks on her and she thinks she sees a shark fin swimming in her direction.  She wiped her eyes in disbelieve as it seemed to be getting closer and closer.  Then it was upon her, swimming circles around her as if it was preparing to attack.  Frozen with fear, her mind thought she was running faster than she had ever run in her life, when in fact she could not move an inch.

Suddenly she wakes up in a cold sweat, sitting straight up in her bed, her heart was racing and she realized she had kicked her covers off onto the floor.  “I have got to get a hold of myself, the stress of worrying about my job is out of control,” Sarah says to herself as she took several deep breaths.  She had overcome some hurdles in her past, and she felt that this was the night to take her big leap of faith.  A renewed strength of confidence came over her and it was at that moment she realized everything was going to be alright.   

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