{ Who } Chance. { What } Time Spent Alone. { When } Thursday, Late Night. { Where } His Trailer. { Rating } G. { Status } Complete Oneshot.
There were times when Chance had to simply sit down and really, truly, honestly think. If he didn’t, it was incredibly easy for him to get so wrapped up in the day to day affairs that a month would pass before he was even aware of it. Sometimes he was so busy looking at the map, he missed all the scenery between point A and point B.
He brewed his favorite tea, setting out service for one. It was important to make time to slow down, to analyze the days, breaking apart the hours right down to the seconds. When playing chess, one had to be mindful of themselves. The key was building on that opening move, and keeping with an overarching plan. The plan could be changed, adapted, but the end goal was always the same.
Success.
When he’d taken that first step out of college with his degree in hand, success hadn’t meant being the general manager of a carnival. That was just an adaptation of the plan. He could still be successful, just in a different career than the one he would have chosen for himself. He was fairly certain he could be successful in any endeavor he undertook, but there were times when he felt his resolve waver.
There were times when he wondered exactly how far he would go, how much he would sacrifice in the pursuit of success. What personal cost would he suffer just to see himself victorious in the end? The answer wasn’t necessarily easy, but it was clear. Success was something worth any cost. Even if it meant being alone.
That was what had brought him success in the past. He was willing make the choices and take the courses that others wouldn’t, that others couldn’t. He was willing to sacrifice, to nearly bleed in the pursuit of success. He’d strip himself down to his bare bones if it meant he’d be the one that crossed the finish line at the end of the race.
Chance considered it a strength that he was able to overlook the small, worthless things that bogged others down. He didn’t have any family, barely any friends, but he did have a logical, sound mind. He could look at things from a different angle, analyze them free of troubling influences such as emotion and personal or familial interest.
That was why Marjan had promoted him. She was a strong woman, but it hurt her too much to make the tough decisions that needed to be made. The carnival was her family, her life, and it was painful to watch the economic depression eat away at it, diminish it slowly. Chance knew they were fighting a war of attrition, the best he could do was stem the bleeding as much as possible and hopefully manage to keep them afloat.
It wasn’t always easy, with people sneaking around behind his back, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t handled before in the corporate world. Still, he didn’t need to worry receiving an actual knife in the back when he worked in the stock market. Here was a different world.
Perhaps he would appropriate money out of his own salary for the hiring of a bodyguard.
Put that one on the to do list. Right under succeed.
After all, if he didn’t succeed then everything Albert said about him would be true.
"Happy Birthday, Chance. May you have another year of success." He said to himself before he sipped his tea.