@zeldacroft
@freewritehouse
We-Write #6
The prompt
There was still a coolness in the air as Thomas walked through the park. The warming sun was about to break over the old maples by the playground, a golden gradient emanating from behind the treetops into the azure skies above him. Beautiful, he thought. He strolled on with the energy only a morning person could muster and made his way to the poolside locker rooms.
Once inside, he changed into his usual bathing suit and crammed his gym bag into one of the lockers. They were cramped and who knows how old, the sort designed for longevity over function. But Thomas quickly moved on, shivering slightly from stepping on the cold tile.
Now on the marginally warmer concrete, he examined the area before diving in. You never know with a community pool, he remembered. Pretty soon he’d have fallen leaves to contend with, but for now, the water was actually fairly clean. Past the little fence around the pool deck, Thomas saw someone walking their dog a little farther in the park. Not exactly private, he conceded, but at least it’s quiet.
My continuation
It should do while the pool in his condominium complex was under the renovation. The community pool even had a couple of advantages. For one thing, it was 50 yards while the pool in his condo was only 30.
Besides, the condo pool was 11 feet deep at one end and fell under the city ordinance, requiring having either a full-time guard on duty or a floating guard rope crossing the pool in the middle. That was supposed to prevent children from swimming at the deep end, while in reality only prevented the lappers from normal swimming as they have to change their stroke at this obstacle diving underneath it. The main advantage of the condo pool was, of course, its cleanness and proximity. Every day early in the morning, a security guard scooped leaves or any other unwanted objects. The administration also maintained it at a constant temperature during the cold months and Thomas could swim all the years around. And, of course, it was as close as going down the elevator. With Thomas’s knee that he messed up playing basketball, which made him walk slowly, this offered a huge time-saving.
Thomas put his swimming hat, gargles and the monitoring watch on, made several steps to the pool edge and jumped in. Most of the distance he swam using freestyle and only at the very end of the workout did several loops using fly. First twelve yards Thomas swam under the water using dolphin kick. Then, once floating to the surface, he did long sliding movements with his hands adding four leg kicks with every hand pull. Once approaching the opposing end of the pool he made a flip turn, from which he followed with the dolphin kick again.
Water had a peculiar effect on Thomas’s mental process. He didn’t think about anything in particular and yet all his regular undirected thoughts about his life in general compressed into one flat blob swam along with him hanging slumberously about his mental focal point.
Fifteen years have passed since he left his position in the company. After being there for two years he realized that it will take him years to get to a management position and even then the money he’d make there wouldn’t satisfy him.
So, he left the company and went into business on his own.
This wasn’t easy.
He had to swim in the dirty waters of the Internet trying to make a buck along with the other shoal of minnows. Often he stood at the end of an abyss as the money he accumulated were depleted even to cover his rent and feed. At the same time, during these stressful and desperate moments, especially when he had nothing to eat all day, his mind turned on extra revolutions and a new idea came to him in the flash.
Eventually, he found a niche all of his own. That was a service to minnows like him, especially for those in remote countries. Six long years took him to build this service from scratch. Thomas nurtured the idea, hired high qualification programmers, reliable service techs all around the Globe, and learned the tricks of Google and Yahoo search engine optimizations. Finally, his service worked like a clock without his participation, well almost without.
He still had to deal with returns and unhappy or pretending to be customers. Still, the high quality of his service attracted many clients from all over the World and it wasn’t just minnows, but a few dolphins among them and even a couple of wales. Thomas started to make decent money. It was more than the average high position manager makes in an average company.
Women? He was aware of his worth on the meat market and knew that higher-quality woman cost more. Therefore, he wasn’t stingy but didn’t stretch himself. Once in s while he had affairs, but they didn’t last. Some women annoyed him with their demands; some weren’t satisfied with him working all days long and not allowing them even to redecorate his apartment. At times, he even went for cleaning ladies, those that were decently looking. No matter if, they knew very little English. The conversation was not exactly what he wanted from them. Some people could have considered his financial situation stable enough to settle down. But for Thomas, it wasn’t enough.
He wanted more money and quickly. He took a great chunk of them and invested 300 hundred thousand in shares of the gold producing company.
And… lost it all.
Well, not all of it as he eventually got out. But most of it. That was a very heavy blow. Several days Thomas lay motionless in bed looking at the ceiling and contemplating what has happened. He wanted to scream and break furniture. But he didn’t do any of this. He was the older brother – the quiet leader in his family. Everybody but he struggled financially – his sister, his younger brother and his parents. Thomas understood that he couldn’t just leave them. He wanted to make lots of money that it would be enough for all of them plus the future generations. For that purpose, someone had to sacrifice his life and his happiness. It turned out to be him. Oh well. So be it. He picked himself up and joined a stock trading group, and now put all his determination in learning the secret of the trading game.
It took him long and hard six years to climb back. Six years of constant work and learning, disappointments and additional losses. But he swam and swam, diving under some the obstacles as he did under the floating guard rope while swimming in his condo pool. Eventually, he returned his losses and now could swim without fear, carefully and thoughtfully, first fifteen feet doing dolphin kick, then floating on the surface making long and confident strides that propelled him in the clean water forward.