He met his wife, who he loves dearly, and she is carrying their first child. A child he is excited to have in his life. The only reason he was out with the boys so late was because she went to go see family for the week. It’s been a long time since he played cards with the old gang.
And now he screwed everything up.
There are no guarantees that things will work out the same as they did the first time around. Life is about decisions. Many based on what is going on at the moment. His wife was quite the catch. This job was a pretty good one. Does he soldier on and take responsibility for his actions. Or does he throw himself off the roof, hope like hell it doesn’t hurt much, and hope he makes all the right decisions to meet the woman of his dreams.
Can he find a good job after getting fired from this one?
Will dying hurt less than his current hangover?
Meeting his lovely wife was the result of a whim. Will he replicate that whim?
Can he tell her he got fired?
These thoughts wheel around in his head as he walks up towards the roof access of the building.
Could you kill yourself knowing that it wasn’t permanent? It was just a chance to return to your last save point.
What kind of world would we live in? Do you discuss your “do overs” with friends at a party?
“Hi, I have killed myself twenty-seven times hoping to one day meet you?” A pimply faced, morbidly obese young man says to a Christy Brinkley look-alike at a party.
Would she be impressed, or is that a whole new level of obsession.
Way more questions than answers.
The other save point is anytime you are about to embark on something risky. Well maybe not anytime. If you are going to learn to fly a helicopter without lessons, well maybe there shouldn’t be a save point. Dumber than dumb, your dead!
But that opens up a whole new can of worms. Who decides if you’re being dumb or careless? A teenager grabbing onto the fender of a car while on his skateboard is definitely being and idiot. But he is a teenager, and they do dumb stuff. If I do the same thing at forty-nine, then maybe the “do over” does not apply.
But let’s say that all gloves are off. You do something stupid or risky, and you get killed. Well, back to the save point, “do over”! No harm no foul. Well except for the part that you might have to suffer a great deal of pain before you actually die.
Are you allowed to kill yourself to escape the pain?
You can tell those that live risky lives because they are all carrying 9MM on their hip to stop the suffering if they break every bone in their body, and live through it. Better hope the trigger finger still works.
I guess what I am getting at is, I would take more chances, try things that I wouldn’t have for the last twenty years, because I was the sole bread-winner for my children. But then again, would my children have been born. There were times in the last twenty years I would have stepped out in front of a train to escape what life was throwing at me. Hell, at times I wanted to do it, even without the thought of a “do over”
That leads me to another question. What if you were happy, up until the next save point? If I was making the rules, you don’t get to pick which save point you return to. You meet him or her, and it’s great. You marry it’s still great. After child one, things are going great, but then just before you learn of the conception of child two, she gets hooked on meth. Your life, and the life of your family spirals into chaos! The unborn child is subjected to poisons ingested by the mother.
According to my theory, the save point was conception. Major life changing event.
The “do over” would take you back to that night. Do you think you can prevent her from making the same decisions? It is impossible to go back to before you met her.
That’s the rules.
I would have had to decide quickly after that night in the Iron Horse for a “do over” because a flurry of life changing events occurred after I met her.
Should save points be divided into categories? Career “do overs”, and personal life “do overs”. Some are closely tied together.
Those of us who would have the courage to step in front of the train, we would be constantly monitoring our lives. Analyzing every decision, taking note of every event. Is this a life changing event?
That kind of thinking would be paralyzing for some.
Others would build their home right next to the train tracks, or on the roof of a high-rise.
Maybe God sat down at a keyboard, and hammered this all out. Weighed the pros and cons, before deciding we get one shot, and one shot only.
I am thinking he made the right decision.
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