The self destruction of Frank Martin

   Ohhh a triathlon, that should be fun.


  That was it, that was the sentence that turned my life upside down. Before we get to that let's rewind to last year, it all started with the mid season finale of Breaking Bad. Yes, that's right Walter White you get the blame for ruining yet another life. After the episode aired it dawned on me that there were only eight episodes left, and when they were finished I would have a hole in the lump of coal that is my heart. How would I survive? I needed to find something, anything to do, I needed a hobby, my god I needed to go outside. Perhaps I could fill the void left by Heisenberg and start manufacturing crystal meth myself, but then I remembered my chemistry experiment back in grade eleven, sure I blew up the lab but on the bright side all our classes were outside for the rest of the year.  Perhaps I could develop a crystal meth addiction, but that would be impossible as I usually freak out after eating a whole pack of pop rocks. With a life in the drug business out of the question I set out for something, anything I could do.

  As a child I always had big dreams, one doctor told me it seemed as if I had stars in my eyes. Another, better, doctor told me it was actually styes in my eyes and prescribed some eye drops. I had heard about this triathlon a few weeks back, and I thought to myself "I can do this, or at least I can cheat enough to make a passable effort." I trained whenever I could, sometimes I ran places instead of taking a car, which since I can't drive is the safest bet anyway. I ran everywhere, in the words of esteemed war veteran and marathon runner Forrest Gump "I just kept on running." It seemed I was always running from someone, from something. I thought maybe if I kept up running I could stay out of trouble, for a few minutes anyway. In the days preceding the the triathlon I felt that my stamina was finally where it needed to be to compete, dare I say win the thing, but as always nothing is ever that simple. These days it seems that trouble can find me anywhere and everywhere.

 Have you ever had a day where you felt like a left handed person? No not a freak, but you can't do anything right. The day of the race got off to a bad start when I missed the bus to the start line. Here I was outside my house, wondering how I was gonna get to my destination, I asked myself WWWWD(What would Walter White Do?) I was desperate, I needed to do this race, I needed to prove myself, I needed to steal er I mean borrow a car. I guess I didn't need to stea......borrow the car but there was one right there and why the hell not, it was time to live a little. After getting the car started, I was on my way, I knew the race was starting soon, with no time to spare I disobeyed all traffic laws, which is quite easy when you actually don't know the traffic laws. Something happened to me when I stole that car, a little piece of me died, and it seemed like the harder I tried to get to this race, the more I died, over and over, till all I could do was start over.

 With karma being the female dog that she is, the car that I had borrowed began to get very low on gas. I knew I wouldn't have enough to make it to the race so finding the nearest gas station I could I pulled in to fill up and get on my way. Now this next part may be too graphic, and there may be kids reading so I am going to make this as PG as possible. When I went to pay for the gas I realized I had left my wallet home, so being in a bind I had no choice, I had to pull out my.....ahem...puppy rifle and take the gas. The African American man behind that counter was caught by surprise, I think mostly cause this time he was not the robber but the robbee(PG racism). He pulled out his sawed off cat gun and went to fire at me, but I was faster and launched two puppies in his chest. As I fled the gas station, something came alive in me. For the first time in a long time I had stars in my eyes, not styes this time, actual stars. I fled as fast I could, but glory was fleeting, soon the stars were gone and everything was quiet again. The triathlon was about to start, I had to get there.

 I was getting closer, I could see the start line, people weren't running yet, phew I thought, I was going to make it. I swear I don't know where that person came from, I didn't see them till it was too late, until they went barreling over my car, I had no time to check, it was proving ground time, the start line was near, but the sound or sirens was also near. Some stooge had phoned the police, begrudgingly I had to drive past the start line, there was too much heat, I couldn't slow down, but I couldn't let them stop me from reaching my goals. With me refusing to pull over they took drastic measures, they started firing. sticking my head out the window there were bull......puppies whizzing past my head, I knew I couldn't run anymore so I stopped the car, walking into a hail of puppies I decided to go down in a blaze of glory, puppies rained down from the sky like it was Armageddon. I took out many of them but I caught a few puppies myself and my life flashed before my eyes. Luckily miracle doctors were able to fix me up, and after a small bribe I was able to flee scott free, yep that would be my new identity.

 Mine is a cautionary tale, people often ask me if I could do it over would I try another way, find another mission in life. Perhaps what I need is to find less stressful hobbies, maybe take up golf or tennis, or darts.  Those are all good hobbies, but where's the excitement really? Being idle often leads to trouble. I guess if I could do anything different, I would try and help the many people I refused to help before, try and meet new people, every new person is a question mark just waiting to be answered and see what they have to offer. Is redemption possible for me? Can I be a good person again? I feel like I could be, if only I could try harder..........if only I knew the right path...

If only.............I could stop playing Grand Theft Auto.