Light a Candle...Lay Flowers at the Door...
"I'm sorry."
He's been hearing that his whole damn life. It builds nothing. It fixes nothing. It creates nothing new. Today, he's delivering it.
The Detroit area has 14.4 percent unemployment rate. It has a 23% rental occupancy rate and every other business in the building where John Stewart has maintained his modest architectural company has moved to some greener pasture somewhere. No one, it seems, believes in the Motor City anymore.
He can't watch his meager staff file out and pack their belongings. They knew it was coming. He gave the "barring a miracle" speech a couple of months ago. He knows damn well most of them have send dozens of resumes out already and stayed because there's no new employment to be had. Maybe if he had been more on the ground here, he could have resuscitated this office - one of his last reasons to come back to Earth regularly.
He flexes his fingers, desperately wanting something simple and direct, like Larfleeze, back. Instead, he leans an arm on the glass he personally installed to make this office safer and looks down on an increasingly dying city. He remembers Katma trying to get him to move and him refusing and that leading to her death. After that, he damn well wasn't budging. He recalls all the begged off dates with Diana to try to control the hemorrhaging around here. As snow begins falling over the once proud city he has an epiphany.
All these years, I've said I wanted to be the guy that stayed with the neighborhood I was raised in. That's a college guy answer though. Deep down, I wanted to be a big guy here, no matter what it took. I need to become someone Rose would have looked up to and forgave without a thought. Even Xanshi, if I were honest, doesn't weigh on me like what happened to Rose; what I did. To Hell with 'fair.' It's how it is.
He crosses over to the stereo like a caged animal. Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" begins playing, but he barely registers it. The familiar music doesn't shift his mind. He throws himself into his office chair and fully into this thought, trying to follow it's breadcrumbs to some nicely made country cottage.
I have to leave my city. He closes his eyes. He lost Katma and Rose here. Leaving the city is fine. It's a city. Leaving them?
He's been hearing that his whole damn life. It builds nothing. It fixes nothing. It creates nothing new. Today, he's delivering it.
The Detroit area has 14.4 percent unemployment rate. It has a 23% rental occupancy rate and every other business in the building where John Stewart has maintained his modest architectural company has moved to some greener pasture somewhere. No one, it seems, believes in the Motor City anymore.
He can't watch his meager staff file out and pack their belongings. They knew it was coming. He gave the "barring a miracle" speech a couple of months ago. He knows damn well most of them have send dozens of resumes out already and stayed because there's no new employment to be had. Maybe if he had been more on the ground here, he could have resuscitated this office - one of his last reasons to come back to Earth regularly.
He flexes his fingers, desperately wanting something simple and direct, like Larfleeze, back. Instead, he leans an arm on the glass he personally installed to make this office safer and looks down on an increasingly dying city. He remembers Katma trying to get him to move and him refusing and that leading to her death. After that, he damn well wasn't budging. He recalls all the begged off dates with Diana to try to control the hemorrhaging around here. As snow begins falling over the once proud city he has an epiphany.
All these years, I've said I wanted to be the guy that stayed with the neighborhood I was raised in. That's a college guy answer though. Deep down, I wanted to be a big guy here, no matter what it took. I need to become someone Rose would have looked up to and forgave without a thought. Even Xanshi, if I were honest, doesn't weigh on me like what happened to Rose; what I did. To Hell with 'fair.' It's how it is.
He crosses over to the stereo like a caged animal. Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" begins playing, but he barely registers it. The familiar music doesn't shift his mind. He throws himself into his office chair and fully into this thought, trying to follow it's breadcrumbs to some nicely made country cottage.
I have to leave my city. He closes his eyes. He lost Katma and Rose here. Leaving the city is fine. It's a city. Leaving them?