The Step

The candlelight laid flat on the silverware. He just sat there. “Tomorrow” he thought. “Tomorrow.” This was a very important night in his life. Or so he hoped. Tonight should represent the end of something. The end of nothing at all.
Everyone always said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. That might be true, but that step sometimes had to be much bigger than just any old step. There’s a difference between a step onto the sidewalk and a step onto a bus or plane or boat. Some steps are larger than others. He had tried little steps. Nothing happened. Ever. Never ever. He tried everything he could think of, but still, nothing. Ever. Then, he thought that the first step might be bigger than people always made it out to be. He thought of a big step. He thought and thought and eventually decided that he would not be able to make a very big step at all by himself. So he found someone to help him. Help in a passive sense. Someone to help him take the step, not in the way a person helps another person take a step, but in the way a shoe helps a person take a step.
He found his shoe. His tool that would help him build a bridge to another place. What had his name been? Roy? Ron? John? Maybe John. He wished, distantly, that there had been some other way, but he couldn’t focus on that at this particular moment. He was too excited. Excited for tomorrow. His stomach was tangled up in knots at the prospect. Was that a siren? He hoped so. “Here come the Change Police. The Agents of Change.” He grinned at his pun. He had never been so nervous! “Tomorrow” he thought again, chanting it in his mind like a mantra. “Tomorrow, tomorrow.” He glanced again at the scene. Making sure everything was clear. It was a bit dark in the room, but the candles were enough. One man sitting at one end of the dinner table, thinking, glancing, hoping; the other (yes, John, not Ron, but John) with his head resting on the placemat, his body cooling. Everything was ready. He was nervous, but he was smiling. Tomorrow would be an end to a routine. An end to the monotony. Tomorrow would not be the same. Tomorrow…would be…different.