I need a Holiday

As the cars and bikes jostled for space, the danger became apparent, I knew I had to get the family out of there but there was no time. My loving wife next to me, four kids in the back. A baby screaming at some idiot making looks at him through the window, the first time I experience bedlam. Cut to the part twenty years later where I’m making the same trip, let’s get ready for bedlam.

Work’s driving me mad. Clients’ work piling up on my desk like a vacuum sucking up all my spare time. I enter the work day with three things to do, I focus real hard and I finish at 7pm with like thirty things to do the next day. I need a holiday.

I gotta make the school run in the morning. One kid thirty minutes west, the other half an hour east, the wife takes care of the other two. I wake up in the morning, rush breakfast, put on my suit and go. Tie’s lying on my bed, forgotten, it doesn’t cross my mind till I turn up to the client’s house with words, ‘you’re not ready,’ flooding my thoughts. I need a holiday.

The kids’ grandparents are calling about a dinner Sunday evening, mum’s making a nice roast. ‘Finally, a break,’ I think, but ‘oh,’ I think, ‘I’ve got a meeting that afternoon, damn.’ I get a call from my brother, ‘Oi Bruv, you wanna meet up?’ I’d love to man I really would but… Ring Ring, ‘Yes? Who is it..? Wrong number.’ Yeah bruv, I’ll talk to you later. Ring Ring… I need a holiday.

The next day I share breakfast with my lovely wife, send my kids to school and get a notification on my phone. ‘1 year ago: You visited bedlam, wanna go again?’ Feels like so long ago, a call from my wife comes in. ‘Hi honey, you remember our trip last year..?’ That’s it, we’re going on holiday.

Cut to the part on the following weekend, the cars and bikes jostled for space. As the danger became apparent, I knew I had to get through bedlam again. An empty toll, perfect! I drive, full speed ahead, straight for the booth. We make it through and bedlam’s behind us. Clear skies from here on out; let’s find my holiday!

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