Old Year’s Resolution
Matthew Ryan Fischer
Jason would write out his New Year’s Resolutions and then stick the
paper in an envelope and tear the envelope up and toss in in the trash. It wasn’t
that he hated the game, or doubted he would ever finish. Perhaps there was a
bit of superstition that by ridding himself of the pressure, he might actually make
it possible to complete.
A dozen years ago he and his friend Michael were driving cross
country and they picked up a hitchhiker. Ohio from Ohio was her name. It sounded
made up, but she swore her name was Ohio. She was hitching cross country, which
could be dangerous, but she was brave and had taken self-defense classes and thought
she could handle any trouble that came her way. Plus, she had a hidden knife if
she needed it. Jason and Michael were pretty tame nerds, not that she knew that
when she got in the car.
Ohio taught them to make Old Year’s Resolutions which was sort of
a combination of patting yourself on the back for anything you did last year
while also being a chance to establish any start or end date for said resolution,
thus guaranteeing that you could ignore any actual failings by simply moving
the parameters.
Kind of a cheat. Kind of a good way to let yourself off the hook
and be kind to one’s self. A dozen years later Jason wasn’t enacting the
lessons Ohio had taught him, but he was developing his own methods of incremental
unaccountable betterment.
Jason could still remember watching Ohio on a dance floor. He
wondered if he could fall in love with a dance? A move or gesture? He’d seen
other women dance and it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t in love with Ohio, but
with some correct set of motions. She was dominant. Precise. She was
captivating and he was infatuated.
A dozen years later Michael still believed something happened
between the two of them. No matter how many times Jason protested. A dozen
years later, Jason was still writing himself the same note – find Ohio.
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