The shop owner, an old man with a grey beard reaching his chest, stepped outside.
Three weeks later, the grey suits were gone. Arthur stood in his driveway wearing a thick, worn-in leather jacket and a pair of sturdy boots. He straddled the heavy machine, turned the key, and kicked the starter.
An older woman at the counter looked at his jacket, then out the window at his rugged, roaring bike. She smiled knowingly. "Decided to get out on the highway and look for adventure, huh?" born_to_be_wild
Arthur took a sip of his coffee, feeling the warm fire of freedom settling deep into his chest. He looked back at her and smiled the biggest, most genuine smile he had shared in forty years.
"She's a beast," the owner said. "Hard to control if you don't know what you're doing." The shop owner, an old man with a
On the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday, Arthur officially retired. His colleagues gifted him a silver watch and a polite applause. As he walked out of the glass building for the very last time, the watch felt heavy on his wrist. It was a countdown to a quiet, stationary life.
For the first time in his entire life, Arthur wasn't following a schedule, a GPS, or a set of rules. He was chasing the horizon. He straddled the heavy machine, turned the key,
Arthur spent forty years precisely where society expected him to be. He sat in a climate-controlled office, filed tax audits, and organized his colored pencils by length every morning at 8:00 AM sharp. He wore pressed grey suits, ate turkey sandwiches on wheat bread, and took the same bus route home every single day.