The Meaning of Life

The Meaning of Life

Rudy sat in his grandfather's old pickup truck staring at the dusty clock that read 11:15. Fifteen minutes to go. In one hand he held an envelope with 20,000 dollars. In the other, his sister Yesenia's most prized possession, a black moleskine notebook that he had taken without her permission. In between his legs sat his father's gun.

Now, he had fifteen minutes to decide what he valued most in his life and what type of person he really was. Before this week, these were questions Rudy rarely asked himself. With this decision, it was all connected. His family, their future, his loyalty, his future. His identity.

He could feel the sweat dripping down his head. 89 degrees and it wasn't even midday yet. Idleville had to be God's least favorite place, thought Rudy. He leaned his head out the window to see if he could get some relief but not a single gust of wind greeted him. It was getting ready to be a hot one. Probably just as hot as the day Rudy was thrown into this predicament, five days ago.

It was a July Monday afternoon, temperatures were reaching levels hotter than what he imagined hell's temperature to be, and Rudy had decided to go to the isolated park on the outskirts of town. It was ugly, untended, and pretty dirty to be honest. But apart from your random drug addict, it was generally isolated. Rudy liked to take a towel and lay under the trees, utilizing the shade. He could lay there for hours and not remember a single thought that went through his head. He mostly liked to observe. On a day with good weather, the trees would gently sway. A few clouds would randomly appear. Bugs buzzed and crawled around him. Birds hopped and picked at the ground. That's one of the things that really killed him about Idleville, you almost never saw a bird flying in the air. They always seemed to be on the ground.

That hot day, Rudy was laying in the shade and observing a pair of birds when he heard a man walking up to him. Despite the heat, this man was dressed in all black. He was thin, wore dark sunglasses, and carried a black purse.

"You have something I want," he said in a low, calm voice, looking down at him. Rudy slowly eyed the stranger, trying to make sense of his words.

"Excuse me?" he responded, matching the stranger's calm tone.

"I can give you $50,000 if you provide me with your sister's black notebook." Rudy just scoffed and looked away. Must be another drug addict, he thought. The man opened his black purse and took out a yellow envelope.

"I'm not here to waste anyone's time, " he said in an irritated tone. "Here 's $20,000," he continued, and threw the envelope at Rudy.

"Call it an advance. Five days from now, I'll be parked at the lot of the abandoned hotel on the other edge of town. 11:30 am." And with just that short interaction, he started to walk away. After a few steps he stopped and glanced back.

"Mr. Espinoza," he called out calmly. "I'm not a man you want to play games with."

He turned and walked away, his figure quickly disappearing until there was no sign left of his presence. It was almost as if the interaction hadn't even happened, but in his hand, Rudy held the yellow envelope that proved otherwise. He cautiously opened the envelope to see what it held. Immediately, he saw green bills. He quickly sat up and looked around, suspicious of someone watching him, waiting to catch him with his guard down. The day felt darker now and although no one seemed to be around, not even the birds, he felt observed. He swiftly stood up and grabbed his bicycle before anything else could happen and raced out of the park towards his home.

So this is why Rudy came to be sitting in his grandfather's truck, on the edge of town, $20,000 dollars in one hand, his sisters notebook in the other, and a gun in between his legs.

It hadn't been difficult to swipe his sister's notebook from under her mattress. She had left the house at 7:30 in the morning for a college prep course and wouldn't be back until 6:30. Mind you, this was on a Saturday morning during her summer vacation. That's the kind of person Yesy was. This whole thing was really so crazy. Rudy couldn't understand what was in Yesy's notebook that was worth so much money. She called it her idea book and her ticket out of Idleville. Rudy never asked her what she wrote in it. It's not like he wasn't interested, he just figured that if she wanted to share something with him, she would just tell him. He wasn't one to pressure her to share and he hated the idea of disrespecting someone's privacy. According to Rudy, if the world would finally learn how to mind its own business, it would be a hell of a lot better place.

It had been even easier to take the gun. His father kept it in their kitchen drawer for an emergency that had yet to occur and it just sat collecting dust over the years.

Rudy wiped the beads of sweat at his forehead and sighed. Tentatively, he opened the notebook. In neat handwriting was written, "If found, please return to Yesenia Espinoza." Right below that she had written their address. God that killed him. The fact that Yesenia actually believed that if someone found her notebook, they would take the time to go to their seedy neighborhood and return it to her. On the other side, in Yesy's neat writing, read, "The meaning of life, is to give life meaning." - Victor Frankl.

He shut the notebook, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Typical Yesy. He on the other hand, felt as if he had lived his whole life without meaning. He couldn't even figure out the meaning of this strange predicament he was in.

Before today, Rudy was no thief. He had been in several predicaments, but he was no thief. And for the most part, these predicaments that he happened to be in resulted in benefits for everyone, not just himself. For example, about a year and a half ago, he was walking out of the school parking lot when he saw a shiny pink case glittering on the floor. It was a brand new Iphone. The case had the initials "M. D." Madelyn Duarte was the richest girl in school, one of the few students whose family could give her such a phone, and notoriously careless with her possessions. Before he could think twice, he tossed the case, shut the phone off, and walked over to Ray's Pawn Shop. The shop's famous policy was "We'll take everything, no questions asked." It was even written on their wall.

He didn't steal the phone. He just didn't return it. Besides, without the money he was given in exchange, he wouldn't have been able to give Yesy that same black notebook for her birthday that year. Yesy hadn't asked for it, but Rudy caught her staring dreamily at the notebook when they went shopping for her school supplies.

That decision he took in the school parking lot had ultimately led to where he was now; sitting in his grandfather's truck awaiting a mysterious stranger and about to make an even bigger decision. Funny how life worked out that way.

11:25

Five minutes to decide.

Rudy generally wasn't one to stay stuck contemplating over a decision and usually, he was able to make quick decisions without looking back, just like with Madelyn's phone. Lately, however, his life seemed to be one difficult decision after another. Just one month ago, he was sitting in a classroom filled with 30 sweaty students, raising his hand for permission to speak. Yesterday, his father had told him he needed to decide whether he was going to start working the fields with him or join the army. He didn't even offer college as an option, but knowing Rudy, he wouldn't have taken it. Yesy was the smart one in the family. Rudy couldn't bear the idea of being stuck in another classroom with a teacher who didn't want to be there just as much as him.

That's why he was having such a hard time with this latest decision. With the money, he could make sure Yesy went to a good college, give some money to his father so he could stop working 12 hours in the fields, and he could use it to figure out what kind of meaning his life held. It was a question he had never directly forced himself to answer. He had always just floated by in life, never fully trying at anything. He had had limited options based on his background, but that was never really an excuse when you compared how much Yesy had accomplished. At times he felt as if he was living in a dream and that Idleville was a suffocating bubble where people got stuck and never fully moved on to the better part of their lives. And if Rudy didn't start to make his new decisions quickly, he knew he'd also become another addition to Idleville's population of trapped bodies. On the other hand, what kind of person was he if he could steal from his own family? Something in this notebook that Yesy had written or discovered held her ticket out of Idleville. He always knew she'd get out, but he never realized until this moment how much the thought of losing her scared him. It produced a new feeling inside him, stronger than anything he had he had ever felt.

Flies started to buzz around his head to which he began to aggressively swat. Next to the truck, a family of birds pecked at the ground. Not another soul seemed to exist except for Rudy, the birds, and the flies. The hot, heavy air surrounded him and filled every corner of the truck. It really was starting to annoy him how slow and unbothered the world outside of the truck remained; while he was minutes away from making the biggest decision of his 18 year old life.

He slammed his hand on the outside of the door in frustration. The birds jumped at the noise and flew away. He felt a bubble burst inside him and with it came a manic urge to laugh. But instead of a laugh, the sound that came out sounded more as if it were a cry. Fly, he thought. Fly as far as you can.

A nearing car engine interrupted his thoughts. A black car with tinted windows was pulling into the lot. It wasn't the most ostentatious car, but modern enough to stick out in Idleville. That and the fact that there wasn't any dust on it. Everything was always covered in dust in Idleville.

Rudy quickly threw both the notebook and the money under his seat. He sat up straight and took a deep breath. The gun felt like a heavy weight between his legs. A car door opened and he heard steps walking up to the truck. In the distance, he could still see the birds flying. He felt the truck's door open and someone slide into the car next to him, slamming the heavy door. As they sat in a brief silence, Rudy kept his gaze on the birds. Watching their figures soaring in the distance, he felt a new calmness begin to creep over his body and he knew that he had made up his mind. And just as he had always done, before he could have any second thoughts, he prepared to carry out his decision, knowing that there was no looking back.