I remem­ber once when I was younger, say about nine or ten, my par­ents took me for a car ride. I had no idea where we were going, because I never ques­tioned them when­ever they told me to get in the car. I’ve always been a vic­tim of hum­ming engines, and even today I find it hard to stay awake while rid­ing in a car. I fell asleep and even­tu­ally woke up in a parked car with my seat­belt still on, uncer­tain of how much time had passed or where my par­ents had gone. The sur­round­ings were unfa­mil­iar, the park­ing lot, half-full, even more so. I sat there, expect­ing my par­ents to come back any second.

Not know­ing how much more time went by, I started to ques­tion whether or not they had pur­posely left me there, some decade-late, do-it-yourself, abor­tion. “No”, I thought, “They wouldn’t just leave the car, it’s too much money”. When I couldn’t fight against my sus­pi­cion any longer, couldn’t con­vince myself that they wouldn’t just leave me in this lot like a baby on a doorstep, I started to cry. I didn’t know what to do. I gath­ered up the courage to leave the saftey of the car, and locked the door, know­ing that in doing so I wouldn’t be able to get back in, but too scared of get­ting in trou­ble if my par­ents were ever to find out.

Wandering around the adja­cent plaza, my face a com­plete sob­bing mess, I looked for them through the store win­dows. Excuses, apolo­gies, promises to be a good kid kept rac­ing through my mind as I won­dered from store to store, being care­ful not to let my eyes off the car. Eventually, I found them in a light fix­ture store, chat­ting with a sales clerk about some wood grain ceil­ing fan. I went in, approached them, and all I could say was, “Where did you go?”. They told me, matter-of-factly, that they went shop­ping and that I should have stayed asleep in the car. After fin­ish­ing their con­ver­sa­tion with the clerk, they left with me, and we all went home. I was shaken, but happy that I wasn’t dis­carded because of poor marks of bad piano form.

And even though I wish that the entire inci­dent didn’t hap­pen in the first place, a part of me won­ders what it would be like if I had never found them. Perhaps a resolution.

An end to the stip­u­la­tions of a con­di­tional life.