The Pursuit of Enlightenment

The Pursuit of Enlightenment

By: Mary J. Scarpelli

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SMASHWORDS EDITION

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Copyright © 2013 Mary Scarpelli

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following people for their support and for sharing their opinions/critiques during this process. Conceptualizing was the easy part – having the resulting text make sense to someone other than myself, was the real challenge. Nelson – for unabashedly sharing your wonderfully quirky creation for the front cover: your keen eye inspires me (http://www.nelsoncondephotography.com); Marlene – for taking time out of your busy life to read the first (and rather painfully unintelligible – apologies!) draft; I thank you for not dissuading me from this pursuit; JuniPer – my friend, you absorbed the material with such intensity and provided valuable feedback with a generosity of spirit. Thank you for being you.

This book is dedicated to Gerasimos Mr. Mike Kekatos, and his sometimes unnerving interventions, without which, achieving clarity of thought might have remained elusive.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; as such, it may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Also by Mary Scarpelli

Competitive Stupid

This book is also available in hardcopy via Amazon’s print-on-demand

Prologue

An unbearable stench saturated the environment, producing disturbingly familiar memories, a collection of historical fragments that had been neatly tucked in reserve for a future date when sense, in the aggregate, could be made of them. The observer held distant recollections of having visited there many times before but regardless of her efforts to focus, the impressions refused to congeal. The landscape was somewhat reminiscent of the hastily constructed set pieces in the original Star Trek series in which every planet's surface appeared to have been fabricated from cardboard and large-scale painted Styrofoam. Haphazardly configured boulders were stacked everywhere creating a seemingly endless series of disjointed crevices in which she nearly became entombed. The unruly outcroppings bounding the interior of the enclosure coupled with a lack of proper tools made even the thought of escape a dismal prospect. The area was barren of vegetation, dimly lit; what was visible shimmered in a reflective silver-gray, which made her skin crawl with dread.

Through narrow fissures in the rock formations, the observer discerned what appeared to be a defunct airfield looming above and in the distance, tauntingly close but the illusion of proximity was just that. And then, in an area in which an earlier scan found nothing but funnels of dead space, a plane materialized, its nose jutting out over the cliff's edge, daring her to climb up the embankment and board it. Neither the purpose nor the destination of the trip were made clear - only the desperate need to escape existed and since an opportunity, albeit treacherous, had presented itself, caution was quickly discarded in favor of impetuous action.

Climbing the irregular and rather steep rock formation was not within her repertoire of abilities, so opting for that particular method of ascent without tools to aid in her quest was quickly relegated as the penultimate option with suicide bringing up the rear. She suddenly realized that her odds for survival could be infinitesimal. The probability that she would be able to devise a feasible exit strategy was damn close to nil and with that awareness, came a rapid heartbeat, weakened legs faltering beneath her and a chest so tight that it felt as if her life force were about to be extricated. It took only a matter of moments for a full-blown panic to start taking root. The only way to thwart its debilitating progress would be to assume control - or at least make an attempt at guiding destiny toward a less destructive conclusion. Unless she was able to discover another way up and out, death in that forsaken cavity would be inevitable. A second deep scan of the area displaced the panic with bemusement as the configuration of the terrain widened, then began repeating itself every hundred feet or so. She felt as if stuck in the loop of a cheaply drawn animation whose creators short-changed the graphics code by looping the same framing sequence ad infinitum; her panic reignited with a fury.

Rather than dwell on the futility of attempting to navigate out of an endlessly circuitous landscape, the observer continued to scout for a secret portal or some climbing tools but found only a few loose, flat stones and a cigarette butt. That last item gave her new hope of finding some salvation - until she looked up. And then there it was, a freakishly bizzaro fairy godmother, spying the scene from an alcove at the southern end of the formation. She was an extraordinarily old black woman with piercing dark green orbs for eyes whose deep folds of skin were clearly visible even from such a great distance. The thrill of not being alone in a heretofore-fruitless quest to gain freedom was quickly usurped by a queasiness that refused to ebb.

Smoking a cigar and holding a saber folded snugly across her chest, the old woman beckoned without uttering a word. The observer obliged, moving several yards closer yet still below and well outside of striking distance. The old woman wore a ragged, multicolored skirt that remained in constant motion as if the wind were blowing in several concurrent directions, yet the air was stiflingly still within the confines of the enclosure. At one point, her skirt lifted far enough from the ground to expose most of her legs and that is when her feet became visible; they were housed in well-worn black leather biker boots but instead of having direct contact with the ground, as would be expected given the existence of gravity, they dangled in mid-air. She seemed to be enjoying that revelation as she clicked her heels together in rapid succession, Dorothy lost to the dark side, while letting out a gritty howl. Although the juxtaposed image of a demented Dorothy coupled with the resonance of her voice combined to an unsettling effect, focusing solely on the woman’s buoyancy, even briefly, helped to replace fear with wonder. The throbbing veins in the old woman’s hands were discernible as they beat in perfect synchronization with the observer’s heart. The two were one in ways that although not clear to the observer, were no mystery to the old woman. She wore two silver hoops in her left ear that grew longer by the second; they would soon be low enough for the observer to grab hold of, and be propelled to safety - right up there beside the saber. Rationalizing that another opportunity for salvation would most likely not present itself, in an act of desperation she took her chances with the old woman and moved close enough to accept the offer of assistance. Her hands moved slightly out of their original position as if she were readying herself for a defensive maneuver, should it be required. Of course, it was possible that the old woman undertook a defensive posture only to ensure her own safety and not, as a swelling apprehension dictated, boost up the observer simply to slide the saber through her heart. Before taking hold of the earring, she asked the old woman if there was a different way out – silly question considering it’s usually imprudent to request strategic assistance from a perceived enemy. The old woman responded by letting loose another deep throated chortle while proudly displaying a wide, toothless grin. Suddenly, her earrings started to recede back to their original size. Jumping up to grab hold of one was a fruitless gesture; it was too late. An opportunity was lost, adding to her historical string of paralytic indecision and fear.

Without warning, the observer’s legs and feet became leaden; while her surroundings continued to change in real-time, she became affixed to the ground, having difficulty making even the smallest movements without exerting a tremendous effort. She caught a glimpse of the old woman flying overhead, shrieking, twirling, and flinging epithets with abandon. The weight of immobility dissipated without warning. Excessive anxiety won out over reason and she tried to withdraw in a direction opposite the newly manifested menace. Believing she could, she once again tried to run away but her legs stubbornly refused to provide any momentum, being held in position by a different albeit equally devastating force.

A chain-link fence suddenly appeared beside the observer; she clutched at its links, employing an inward breaststroke motion with her left hand, while grabbing forward with her right and pulling back, then alternating hands, in a desperate attempt to move forward. All of that exertion amounted to nothing more than lactated muscles and a curse to inertia; she felt desperately immobilized - doomed.

She looked down in time to see that her legs were no longer touching the ground - they had become buoyant and in their upward flight, started to encroach on her diaphragm, threatening suffocation. Yikes! She stopped pushing forward, trying instead to will her head ever higher in a frantic attempt to catch a full breath of air, but despite her efforts, her legs continued to creep farther up, knees encroaching dangerously close to her neck. She freaked out, then, in a moment of inspiration stopped fighting, let go of the fence and floated to the ground as gently as a well-maintained, hydraulic lift. No ground had been gained in that highly energized yet utterly futile exercise, and when looking around, she noticed that the old woman was no longer in pursuit - if she ever had been. She was now alone, left only with a pervasive sense of emptiness and longing. Normal bodily sensation returned almost immediately but her emotional state remained in turmoil with fear presiding.

Billowy clouds claustrophobically formed no farther than twenty feet overhead, damping what little light remained. She once again looked to where the old woman had been floating before disappearing to see if she had perhaps re-emerged for an encore performance, yet couldn't get a fix on where she'd been or where she now was as the landscape was no longer recognizable. The scene then rapidly changed from being moderately threatening to positively menacing. A tunnel replaced the mountain of rocks and a train came barreling through from the far end in a silent hush of pushed air, heading directly toward her. Each time she attempted to maneuver out of the train’s path, it shadowed her - a well-choreographed routine, as though its sole purpose was to extinguish her life. It then vanished as quickly as it had appeared, to be replaced by a barren terrain seemingly without end. Swirls of thick gray smoke rapidly accumulated and then slowly drifted around a solitary beam of light, the origin of which could not be discerned, although under the right circumstances it could have been interpreted as having emanated from a reluctant benevolence. The air became too stagnant to catch more than a gasp of breath; the light quickly lost its ability to offer sanctuary from the threat of asphyxiation. A primal fear of death was logically followed by an act of utter self-preservation as the observer was jolted awake, gasping for air. She sat up in bed and grappled for the light in hopes that illumination would bring with it a symbolic nullification of that god fucking awful nightmare.

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While laying in bed trying to shake off the residual disquiet that was coursing through her body, a phrase, in an all too familiar albeit barely audible voice, kept repeating: 'I’ve been trying to warn you this would happen; if only you hadn’t been too stubborn to hear me'. An urgent message had been doing its best to surface, using REM sleep as its vehicle. Her problems were being ominously manipulated into a continuum of destructive images, which aside from providing interesting material for dream analysis further substantiated her decision, nay her absolute need lest psychic death engulf what little remained of her dignity, to vacate the premises ASAP.

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The first time Toni had a similarly themed dream was the night after celebrating the one year marker of cohabitation with the prematurely professed love of her life. She was so disturbed by it that she immediately roused Trish from her sleep-aid induced slumber and started recounting the details as quickly as she could. Trish’s response consisted of a yawn and a deliberate glance at the alarm clock followed by a declaration that she needed to be well rested for the day’s meetings so if they could discuss it later, that would work better for her. Trish then rolled over, back facing Toni, and was sound asleep in a matter of seconds. Toni interpreted the lukewarm reaction she received to her very obvious angst as an indifference that must have been borne from Trish’s semi-consciousness and certainly not anything more sinister; for that moment, Trish’s disinterest was being given the benefit of the doubt. Toni was hypersensitive and dangerously close to hysteria and needed her girlfriend to be the voice of reason, yet she neglected to say a damn thing – not one reassuring word or physical gesture of comfort. Not one damned thing. Ironically, Trish’s tone and annoyance at being rousted were enough to bring Toni back down to the reality of the corporeal plane – with a hard splat.

Eventually, Toni concluded that the theme being convoluted within each dream sequence was a feeling of intense insecurity - with Trish or within herself or possibly with everything in her stagnated life. She had arrogantly presumed herself to be past the self-doubt stage one supposedly conquers by the time they've wended their way into adulthood, but if it somehow had been inadvertently resolved, lack of effort notwithstanding, then she most assuredly would not continue to be plagued by the symptoms. After the third such dream – a disturbingly similar triumvirate of nightmares differentiated only by minor, insignificant variations, a thought, so fleeting that she almost missed it, whispered that it was time to 'get out!'. After a chin scratch and a soft hmmm, the thought left consciousness, but its trail remained which is what she had unwittingly held on to - the ether upon which her decision to break out would eventually take root. Toni tended to confuse the odd moment of happiness with an enduring love for Trish and although she should have been astute enough to realize that she was free to leave whenever she wanted to, that belief was, ironically, what made her more complacent; it also fostered a deep confusion that her inaction implied love rather than a fear of change and being on her own. Packing up and leaving remained a repressed fantasy that she tucked away in reserve, running through the drill whenever she required comforting. Cowardice had left her paralyzed to act accordingly; until the present, exercising freedom of choice seemed remote.

Continuing to be irresponsible and indecisive was bound to make the nightmares worse and more frequent. The cold sweats they had bestowed upon her thus far had been disturbing enough; she certainly didn't want to be subjected to an increase in their strength or frequency as her unchecked fears could very well feed upon her expanding weakness, getting infinitely more vivid and overwhelming. It was time to acknowledge the inevitable and take action or remain consigned to the depths of isolation and self-pity.

Fearing Trish’s intermittent yet lasting reprisals and listening to her classification of Toni’s character as disintegrating and wretched also helped to move the process along somewhat faster than frozen sludge. Waking up every morning with that living nightmare sleeping next to her was reminiscent of each dream's residue so over time, ignoring it ceased to be an option. Since Trish had already blamed Toni for her more recent bouts of unhappiness, shamelessly having accused her, she was more frequently turning a cold shoulder in retribution. The emptiness created by the loss of her attention was at times unbearably oppressive as it passively festered under her repressed anger at how quickly things could turn so irretrievably ugly. Toni remembered reading in some lovelorn magazine article that the romance aspect of a relationship tended to last an average of two years after which a comfortable friendship was supposed to take over; her union with Trish had a decidedly shorter shelf life as it melted away much more quickly than the average duration.

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As Toni lay there, shaking and alone with her self-recriminating thoughts, Trish softly snored beside her, free from conscience or culpability. Toni flirted with the idea of snuffing out her breath, ending that chapter of their lives together with a sack full of feathers pushed firmly against the source of her unrequited love. The permanence of that action brought about a feeling of satisfaction - relief. But that solution was totally pathetic not to mention counterproductive since she knew that her life too would then be over. And anyway, she had already made the decision to forge ahead to whatever may lie in anticipation of her arrival - no need to get crazy at that eleventh-hour. The severity of her last such dream, so disturbing that she was thrust into consciousness in mid scream, was no doubt a defining moment prompted by her imminent departure from Trish, a decision she had secretly kept tucked from view over a period of several weeks.

With the deftness of a cat, Toni slid out of bed, grabbed a heavy robe and went into the kitchen for a drink of water. Trish's plane ticket was on the kitchen table next to which were: an itinerary, her passport, a neatly packed Luis Vuitton bag and the Coach briefcase Toni purchased for her with her remaining stipend money, for Trish’s 22nd birthday. She had a few hours to kill before Trish's alarm would summon her to the shower. Trish could sleep through noise, alarms, sirens blaring from outside, honking horns – just about anything. Toni usually found herself awake during the night, puttering around the house with a lightness of step she never otherwise experienced. She never made the connection that only when Trish was out cold or asleep that she felt such a lightness of being. Toni was too nervous to go back to sleep so decided to lie down on the cold hard marble of the kitchen floor, clasping her hands behind her head and bringing herself back through time to how she had been so easily duped and why she allowed herself to wind up in the arms of such a cold-hearted prima donna.

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Chapter 1 - Two-Year Retrospective

The transition from rampant nihilism toward a reengagement of obligatory, familial subservience started late in senior year when a realization surfaced without much warning that the party was about to come to an abrupt end. After four years of virtual freedom, just the thought of moving back home with mom & dad made Toni cringe. She was powerless against their demands and expectations that she settle-down after graduation and secure a job with a prosperous company so that the caliber of man she would marry would meet with their approval. That course of action held no interest to her as all she wanted to do, was continue having the freedom to explore whatever - an empty canvas upon which to create the perfect masterpiece. A decision had to be made - return to the nest of well intentioned but out-of-touch parents, which was a viable but brutal option, or continue living in ecstatic freedom. It was a no-brainer, right? It should have been, except that Toni, the know-it-all, truth-will-set-you-free freshly educated gal did not have the guts to make the suggestion to Trish that they find a place together, so she waited it out, hoping Trish would broach the topic and pop the question thereby sparing her the indignity of a possible rejection.

Trish and Toni shared the same small space during senior year, over which time they fell deeply in self-reflected love. First time love is flagrantly ostentatious in its presentation to the rest of the world, yet the perpetrators never seem to notice. In retrospect, Toni cringed when recalling specific details about how embarrassingly lustful they behaved when in public, whether on campus, at a party or in the showers, openly fawning over each other, purporting to whoever would listen or watch that they were the only two people on earth who'd had the precious gift of love bestowed upon them. They were too busy being in-love to notice that eyes were rolling back into their sockets to an exaggerated effect – hindering vision a nice plus, no doubt. But even as in-love as they were supposed to be, Toni still didn’t have the confidence that Trish would want to live with her after graduation. She was popular, pretty and feminine whereas Toni was not; furthermore, Toni was never quite certain with whom Trish’s loyalties resided. Being less adept than was Trish in the fine art of networking, Toni found her ease at sociability enviable and a little perplexing, which possibly led her to glom onto that relationship as desperately as she did.

When Trish finally suggested that they find an apartment together, Toni responded with feigned surprise and said, as innocently as she could manage without seeming too obviously insincere, 'Hey, what an excellent idea! Let's do it.' The waiting game had finally paid off.

My parents have agreed to give me the security deposit money so all we’ll have to do is come up with the first month's rent. Trish had said.

That should be easy enough, was Toni’s hopefully nonchalant response.

But you'll have to give me back half of the security. It's a loan, not a gift - well, not for you anyway. Then she quickly added, I am their only daughter; they just can't seem to do enough for me. Who am I to argue? Trish smiled as though that explained everything.

Don't worry. As soon as I get a job I'll take care of my half. As an afterthought, she added, Hey, I didn't know your parents had money. To Toni, offering your kid a security deposit after having paid her college tuition in addition to providing a monthly replenishment of funds into her checking account, seemed above and beyond generous - cherished daughter or not. Trish's smile dissipated like a vapor in a gust of wind.

My parents' money is their business, not mine - or yours. So don't bring it up again, alright? Trish tersely replied.

Hey, I didn't mean to pry, it's not like I care... Toni was cut short before she could continue tripping over her apologetic self.

Good. Oh, by the way - I think three months should be enough time for you to scrape up the cash. I don't want either of us taking undue advantage. Nothing personal, okay, love?

She then gave Toni a quick peck, squeezed her ass, and smiled as she explained that she'd be back after taking a final in, of all things, Applied Economics. There were no discernable signs of test anxiety in her demeanor. To its antithesis, she actually lit up when exam time came around whereas Toni tended to panic. She struggled to maintain a low B average in a moronic major whereas Trish breezed through the most complex subjects while maintaining straight A's – perhaps a consequence of good breeding, Toni mused – something about which she was sorely ignorant.

It should have been apparent to Toni right from the start that the sum of their differences was greater than the historical recollections that bound them together. She felt as if she had agreed to run headlong toward disaster while looking in the opposite direction. But once the wheels of independence, fueled by love's first bite, are set in motion, pride and excitement are certain to keep them from screeching to a prudent halt. Both were too busy playing off their unresolved issues in flailingly desperate attempts toward self validation to see the disaster toward which they were blindly running. Ignorance, for them both, was the only thing keeping them from acting upon a dismantling of their fully expired bond.

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Trish and Toni relocated their belongings to the new apartment shortly after graduation day. The domicile consisted of three rooms, each of which was substantially larger than the dorm room they'd been occupying, bathroom included. The neighborhood was an odd mixture of old world European meets the American yuppie. Not quite the shining symbol of success that was Manhattan, but affordable nonetheless, and required fewer references, no onerous fees and no bank balance requirements, so it would have to do. The building, a four story walkup, was a bit shabby but certainly not filthy. The superintendent ministered to their building in addition to the one next door so they didn’t bother asking about garbage pickup days, nor did they worry themselves about shoveling snow or sweeping away debris from the building’s frontage. From their rooftop, which they had access to from an external, shared stairwell, they had a brilliant, relatively unobstructed view of Manhattan, something they looked forward to enjoying on the forth of July.

While Trish was off diligently planning her future, Toni floated around idealizing the notion of marital bliss and initiated next to nothing for herself, partly out of fear, the other reason being a strong argument for dismantling the veil of passive-aggressive inertia. She envisioned herself as possessing a variant on the new age philosophy that anything could happen if you were just able to visualize it with sufficient specificity. She felt it wrong to try and make things happen - too manipulative. Bad karma. Trish, on the other hand, knew exactly what she wanted and had no problem going about procuring the tools that would get her one-step closer to her version of utopia. She displayed a single-minded determination that Toni found equally fascinating, enviable and just a bit repellent. Rather than emulate Trish’s behavior as Trish had advised her to do lest she once again fall prey to her periodic bouts with depression, Toni ignored the advice, choosing instead to classify it as nothing more than judgmental nagging. Toni was getting nowhere fast. Trish’s refusal to validate and support her method of growing up only served to obstruct any initiative she may have had to change. She was then, and remained to some degree, a classic underachiever. ‘We all can’t be Type A personalities, can we?’ Toni decried in anguish on many an occasion. It wasn't until she was forcibly reflected from Trish's unyielding eyes that she even noticed how far behind the pack she was lagging. Being young and irresponsible held an allure from which it was difficult to break free. And although not consciously aware, Toni was holding on for dear life. It gradually became impossible for Toni to ignore Trish’s disdain for her seeming disinterest in almost every activity and her utter lack of professional ambition. Maybe Liberal Arts wasn't the most intelligent choice for a major but Toni rightly believed it would be easy enough to graduate in eight semesters and also sufficiently low-key to save her gut from the experience of irreversible, gastrointestinal distress.

The first crucial detail that Trish addressed was employment. Through her father’s contacts, she quickly secured a job at one of the major investment banks in Manhattan; she was well on her way to a bright and lucrative future - little Miss Power Suit. After a few weeks of idling about the apartment in faux silk pajamas and a thong, Toni was shaken out of her reverie when Trish took hold of her shoulders and strongly suggested that rather than sit around waiting for the job fairy to come knocking on their door, that she contact an agency and request their assistance in determining her career path. Trish also managed to squeak-in yet another not-so-subtle reminder that there was still the matter of an outstanding loan repayment and that Toni hadn’t made even two-cents worth of a contribution toward that objective. Trish’s advice was prudent of course, and since Toni’s way hadn't yet borne fruit, she caved and made the call to each of the recruiter’s names provided by Trish. Because Toni’s degree was conspicuously devoid of a definitive direction and her slush fund was nearly depleted, it seemed prudent to surrender to the whims of the job market, suck it up and let fate take its course.

After several explosive rounds of ‘you've got to be kidding’, and ‘you mean you didn’t intern anywhere even for one summer?’, the employment agency finally matched Toni’s entry level non-experience with a solution that was not quite the road to success, but an acceptable foot in the door nevertheless. Not only would it provide her with an income, meager as the offering was, but it would pay for her fair share of the expenses and allow her to stow away a few pennies in a contingency fund (which Trish advised as the household’s de facto investment counselor). Initially, it put Toni back in good favor with her. Trish chided Toni that if she had chosen a real major like Finance, Accounting or Economics, then doors would be swinging open to engage her services, but since she selected the infamous BA in 'Basket Weaving', she'd have to fight tooth and nail to attain a firm foothold in the business community. She said she'd reserve her sympathy for those less fortunate who didn't even have the opportunity to attend college. At the time, Toni really didn't understand the implications of that statement and her contradictory liberal bent - another wedge that worked to pry them apart.

The job, which had been offered to Toni by her favorite of the three recruiters, one Mr. Massimo Mandolini, was as a management trainee in a bank in the gritty, not quite gentrified garment district of Manhattan. ‘Not really my dream job’, Toni complained to Trish during their celebratory dinner, but at least it was a start. 'There's upward mobility potential there for a college graduate such as yourself, young lady - that is if you're willing to claw, errr... work your way up from the bottom', Massimo quipped. Toni also complained that he neglected to ask her if that's what she was looking for; what she failed to realize was that he’d been having one hell of a difficult time selling her. He tried explaining to her that she simply needed to build a resume so being picky was simply not an option. Oh well, she thought. She didn't have a clue about the banking business or any other real-world function for that matter, so it all fell into the same, scary cliff-jumping category, an activity with which she was entirely uncomfortable. However, options were limited so she took a deep breath and acquiesced while bracing herself for the best.

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Toni’s first week on the job was nothing if not enlightening. Bank people were different from anyone else she'd encountered. 'These people aren't normal', was her very first thought. Her second one brought her forward in time a few years to what it would be like if she were to transform into one of them. When you don't have a solid core, you are a chameleon, and it's easy to lose yourself in other people's dramas and dreams. Toni was afraid that if she hung around those people too long, she would join the ranks of the relentlessly embittered, eventually becoming embroiled in everyone else's disgruntled dialogue – one more mindless complainer going through the motions of living but never really having much of a life. That's where they were and where she swore she would never allow herself to go. She rapidly pounded her head with the heel of her hand several times and said 'no' - as if that would effectively drive away the demons or something; all it did was to give her a headache and sore wrists.

That loquaciously vulgar environment contained a remedial cast of characters, primarily non-degreed, who were eagerly anticipating the arrival of their moment of glory. The odds that each of them would achieve success were insurmountably high and from that sad truth, came the creation of the battlefield in which Toni would nevertheless became a reluctant participant. She certainly wasn't prepared for their brutal brand of behavioral protocol, herself being naïve and terribly self-absorbed. She thought that having been exposed to athletics would have provided her with the requisite understanding of how to handle healthy competition. But, far from being driven by anything positive or carrying with them the glory of team spirit, they harbored terribly negative attitudes. They each brandished a caustic tongue and an absolute need to make something of their own n’ere do well lives. Most of those with whom she reluctantly found herself competing for advancement didn't share the benefit of having an educational background past high school, although what they lacked scholastically they made up for by having the home field advantage and many years in the trenches. It was unbelievable but despite her personal promise, Toni found herself fighting for something she didn't even want. She marveled at how easily things changed, depending on one’s perspective.

Toni was hated right from the start and perceived as the enemy, a college idiot who is, as the saying goes, 'book smart and street stupid' - or so they decided before having had even one conversation with her. On top of that, the potential trauma that would come about if her alternate lifestyle were to be exposed, made her act more withdrawn and socially inept than was the truth. Her closet dwelling was another significant factor that conspired to stall her maturing self from fully blooming. Rather, it redirected her into a pit of solitude. It became increasingly more difficult for her to deflect the lowered self-worth that was fomenting within. Trish advised her to utilize her co-workers' rejection as a catalyst toward