FIGHT OR FLIGHT

By Eliška-Anna Schneider

When life gets too overwhelming, our instincts make us react. They give us two options: it's either fight or flight. Henry always chose the latter.

As of today, Henry was fifty-seven. Wow, he thought, fifty-seven years of boredom and insignificance. His whole family was stood around the kitchen table, clapping hysterically. They had sung a slightly off-key Happy Birthday, and watched Henry blow out the few candles that had been messily stuck into a premade cake, with a big, wonky Congratulations! on it. No one commented on the fact that those few candles seemed to knock all air out of Henry's lungs. He was getting old, everyone could see, but no one dared to say anything about it.

What exactly the cake was congratulating him for, Henry didn't know. Congratulations for not forgetting to feed the cat this morning? Congratulations for successfully completing another boring year of your life? Congratulations for being one year closer to death? He came to the conclusion that it had probably been the last cake available at the nearby gas station, and therefore Brenda, Henry's wife, had been forced to buy it. It held no deeper meaning. Hardly anything Brenda did ever had any meaning to it whatsoever. She was just simple-minded like that.

Henry and Brenda had been together for thirty-two years. Neither of them had ever been particularly happy together, but when twenty-four-year-old Brenda told her parents she was pregnant, they had practically forced marriage onto the young pair. Now, getting a divorce just seemed like way too much paperwork, and the two of them had gotten used to the other person always being there. That's what it was and always had been. A fake sense of security. Having someone to come home to.

Henry often found himself considering running away. Getting away from his boring job, obnoxious children, shallow wife, curious friends. Henry had never been one to fight for anything. He had been running away from his problems his entire life, quietly hoping they would solve themselves over time. They never did. Ever. But why not try running away one final time, what harm could that do? Who would care?

But as much as he wanted to, he couldn't just up and leave. There had always been something holding him back.

Whether that something was his newborn daugter, Brenda being pregnant for the second time, having to help his two children with schoolwork, a leaking tap, the cat throwing up on the living room carpet, he just couldn't leave.

And just as Kate and Mike were leaving, going back to their respective partners, something struck Henry. And no, it was not a heart attack. He had finally come to realize that none of those things that had previously been holding him back were valid anymore. Both of his children were adult, livig their own lives, and his wife was content with spending her days with their cat.

And so, when Henry's clothes disappeared, along with Henry himself, no one really mentioned it. The last thing anyone ever heard from henry, was a single sentence written on a postcard with an image of one of the Caribbean islands: Fight or flight.