I turn the page of my book; the next chapter is titled, The Truth We Chase.
The Truth We Chase, what does that mean? Do we chase the truth? I contemplate this for a while. Maybe we do, maybe we only look for, or chase the truth, when we need to prove something is genuine, very much in the same way we look for that little metallic silver thread in a banknote to prove its authenticity. Does that then make truth the silver thread of our thoughts, deeds and actions?
Pondering over that title reminds me of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, the second paragraph of the first article in the Declaration of Independence.
The truth we chase, the pursuit of happiness, they both require an action to achieve an outcome.
But why? Aren’t both truth and happiness, in part, the very things that make us human? Surely it should be natural or do we have to actively pursue them?
As for me, I stopped chasing the truth years ago, instead, I sit here, three thousand four hundred miles away from home, comfortably numb, hiding from my past.
All that is about to change, for in the next hour the past that I have meticulously planned to escape from is about to catch up with me. It will start with an email from a person who had disappeared from my life and who I thought I would never see, or hear from again.
As I tentatively clicked to open the message on that Sunday afternoon, there would be no way of knowing, certainly not at that point, that in exactly one weeks’ time that very same email would have sparked a chain of events that cumulate in a catastrophic, life-changing situation.
Chapter 1
The apartment is quiet. I’ve taken advantage of having it to myself by spending the day on the sofa, reading, whilst avoiding a pile of paperwork that I’ve brought back from the office.
The afternoon sun has finally made its way around to the front of the building and is streaming in through the bay window, the warmth magnified through the glass onto my face reminds me that summer is finally on its way putting paid to the bitterly cold winter months.
My eyes are growing weary so I put the book face down, still open on the unread chapter. I pick up my coffee, make my way across the apartment to the window and take a seat in the chair in front of the computer. Closing my eyes, I tip my head back. Then through my nose suck in as much air as my lungs will hold before slowly exhaling, repeating several times until the feeling of relaxation washes over me.
I open my eyes again and stare down the tree-lined street. Flags, some on poles, some draped out of windows, mainly Portuguese and always alongside the stars and stripes, catch my eye. They flap in the same gentle breeze that also carries the aroma of cooking from the Ecuadorian food van that has recently parked up on the street below my open window. From the side window, a seemingly unending flow of food is served to the congregation leaving the afternoon service from the church opposite. No one seems in a hurry to go home and a party vibe has taken over the quiet corner of our street.
All this is a reminder that I am a long way from home... home is, or should I say was a small suburban town in South Manchester, England which I have exchanged for this life in Newark - New Jersey, more specifically the Ironbound section of Newark in New Jersey.
The work I’ve brought home with me from the office isn’t going to do itself and I need to be getting on with it, but with everything that is going on outside I’m finding it hard to concentrate.
I slide the sash window open, wide enough so I can lean out and shout down to the man in the van, trying my best to make myself heard over Santana’s Maria, Maria that he has on full volume.
‘Why do you do this to me, every Sunday?’
He looks up as he hands a polystyrene tray of salchipapas to a hungry customer
‘Hey, amigo if you’ve got something to say then you need to come down here and say it to my face mano a mano!’
I pause a moment before I make my way across the room, collecting my keys as I head towards the stairs and down to the front door. Out on the