Welcome to the next post in The Adventures of Roland! You can find all the previous posts in Roland’s escapades here. Each installment typically comes out around once a month or so – although admittedly that has not been the case as of late. Also in case you aren’t aware, we are now in the portion of our adventure where even I, yours truly, doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. I’m not trying to plan out this story, I have no idea where it will go (if anywhere at all mind you!), I have no destination or particular transformation in mind for the characters. I am simply writing all that I wish to write about my dear friend Roland here – and I have chosen to take you all along for the ride. My willing (or perhaps not) prisoners you might say. Here we go! I hope you enjoy!
—-THE ADVENTURES OF ROLAND—-
Roland’s morning started off as good as any. He sat up in bed, stretched his toes and fingers as far as they could go, reach for the sun his mother would always say – he could hear her bright, chirpy voice even now so many years later. As a kid he would have to drag himself out of bed, brush his teeth, get dressed, and run down the driveway hard, just in time to catch the bus for school. His mother was so patient and kind with him, and for whatever reason today, as a grown man, her voice chimed in his head, helping him get up just as it did when he was a little boy.
Whipping his feet out from under the toasty covers, Roland planted them flat on the ground. He then paused and curled his toes back and forth into the fuzzy carpet before grabbing his glasses on the dresser nearby. Walking down the hall and into the kitchen he opened the refrigerator door. Without a second glance he grabbed the milk then pivoted left, opened a drawer, took out a spoon, reached up for a bowl, poured his Frosted Flakes cereal with the milk to follow, and finally shuffled off and sat at the table overlooking the living room and the kitchen in equal measure. He was next to the window and peered down upon the street below.
Stupid people Roland thought to himself. So vain and petty they all are. He crunched on his Frosted Flakes with unconscious satisfaction. He considered the matrix of people below him, where they were going, where they were coming from, what they were hoping to find within the large, glass office buildings from which they scurried back and forth. Today Roland took particular notice to the streets themselves. They seemed more interesting to him. They seemed to harbor deep secrets, trivial truths easy to understand yet still difficult to perceive. Yes the streets held something mystical, something classified, something covert and camouflaged over by cement, buried over with tar and asphalt. Feet scuffle a million times between this point and that, cars screech by and rumble around without a second consideration, let alone gratitude, for all these streets that always lie below us. The streets are all for me now, thought Roland as he swallowed another bite.
The sun continued to rise until it broke through the curtains above his head and cast faint lights and shadows down onto the carpet in front of the television. So what now? There was nothing else to do. Time was finally all his own. He could literally do anything he wanted. Walk around naked all day, take a drive down random streets if felt like it, fiddle with a guitar maybe, travel to Rome! He wasn’t going to work today. Heck he didn’t even have a job, and the more precarious details to that fact were decidedly not going to be a part of Roland’s attention today. That wasn’t what this day was all about. No this morning wasn’t as good as any; it was better than any morning ever before. Grinning ear to ear, Roland finished his bowl of Frosted Flakes. Like a priest before the sacred altar with his eyes gazing downward, he cupped the bowl with both hands, lifted it to his mouth in reverential deference and then slurped. Yes this day was finally truly all his.
When and what follows next?