This One Makes Perfect Sense

One day, I woke up and everything made sense.

It started when I stepped out of my room and had a little chat with my friend next door. I was going to the office much earlier than usual and he asked me why, what’s the reason for being up so early. I said jokingly, “Well, what else? So I could see my soulmate in the office and finally confess to her that I love her.” He looked at me as if he really believed what I said, so I told him, “The heck? Of course, I’m kidding!”

He said, “You shouldn’t. You should tell her for real.”

I said, “Hell, no. I mean, not now anyway.”

He shrugged his shoulders and said, “If not now, when?”

He sounded so out-of-character and made so much sense that I went out kind of bewildered. I checked my phone and saw that I received a text message from an unknown number. I didn’t want to open it because the phone had little power left. Problem is, I left my phone charger. Good thing there was this store that sold all sorts of chargers, so I bought one. The vendor recognized my face and said, “Sir, that’s the third charger you bought from me within two months.”

I said, “Yeah, I keep losing them or forgetting to bring them. But they’re cheap, so I just buy new ones for replacement.”

“That’s a bad habit to keep,” he said.

“Don’t worry. It’s 2015. Maybe something will change,” I said jokingly.

“2015 won’t change anything unless you do,” he said.

I was dumbfounded. That was the second time somebody made so much sense that day. But anyway, I got to the office and started doing my daily tasks. There was such a lot of work to do that day that my boss noticed that I had a hard time keeping up. He asked me, “Why do you do all this? Why don’t you delegate some to your team?”

I said jokingly–again–“Well, it’s the start of the year. I want to be extra good to people.” Then I winked.

He told me with a cold stare, “Don’t just be good to others. Be good to yourself, too.”

And that right there absolutely blew my mind for it was the third time that day that somebody made total sense. But it didn’t stop with my boss. I went to the cafeteria for lunch and ordered a lot of fatty stuff and sweets.

The cafeteria woman offered an advice, “Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most.”

At the meeting with my team someone threw a one-liner, “The struggle is part of the story.”

I passed by one of my officemate’s monitor and his wallpaper read, “Work hard in silence. Let success make the noise!”

Then I overheard a whispered conversation between my crush and her friend. She was sobbing while telling her, “What’s meant to be will always find a way.”

Sitting down at my desk again, confused beyond my wits at what’s happening and not knowing how to get back to work, the guy behind me poked my back and said, “Start by starting.”

I went on Facebook where somebody posted this quote: “Music makes the pain fade.”

So I scrambled for my earphones and fired up my playlist. Bob Dylan was singing, “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.” He was singing about more things that made an awful lot of sense, so I just had to quickly put my earphones down.

Just then, an email came in from this girl from another team. She was enraged at everyone for failing to do some project. She was quite scary. On her signature it was written, “Sometimes, it takes balls to be a woman.”

My boss noticed that I was looking quite pale by then, so he smiled and said, “Why wake up stressing when waking up is a blessing?”

I ran.

I dashed out of the office, trying not to scream, and ran into the guard. He looked at my face and chuckling he said, “Life is better when you’re laughing.”

His hysterical laughter echoed around the hallway as I barely made it into the elevator going down.

Finally there was silence.

I was wiping the sweat off my forehead when the girl next to me joked with her pal about the elevator crashing.

Her friend blurted out, “Well, a hard fall means a high bounce!”

Ding! The elevator reached ground floor and I sprinted across the hall where overhead, a new sign had just been put up: “There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps.”

I ran and ran past strange signs that read, “Never look back. You’re not going that way.”

And “Always focus on how far you’ve come rather than how far you have left to go.”

And “Sometimes, following your heart means losing your mind.”

And “Deep down, you already know the truth.”

At the end of the lane, I almost crashed into this fountain. Panting, clutching my chest, I looked wildly around me and I was alone. I didn’t know why I had to run like a fool. “My boss must think I’m crazy,” I told myself. I slipped my phone out of my pocket to tell my boss that I’m all right—I just had a sudden tummy ache.

I opened the text message I received that morning from an unknown number.

It said, “If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.”