No Rebound

Chapter 1

Chapter 1I consider myself to be a cheerful and easy going person by nature, but my god some days just defy anyone’s ability to stay jovial.

My default setting is happy unless something happens to piss me off, and some days it all just seems to come at once!

Sarah, now she’s a different matter. Her default setting is slightly grumpy unless something happens to make her cheerful, but when she’s happy she’s an absolute scream. Unfortunately I wasn’t making her happy any more so grumpy was becoming her norm, thus my day from hell started with her calling me at 6.30am to cancel our date for that night.

I wasn’t overly happy about it as she didn’t seem to have a reason and our visit to this particular restaurant had been arranged for weeks. We ended up having a huge row; the outcome of which is that she is no longer my girlfriend. I can’t honestly say I was too upset about us breaking up as it wasn’t really going anywhere but it’s a lousy way to start the day nevertheless.

When I left the house for work I found my car had been blocked into its parking space by some inconsiderate prick who I guess was visiting one of the neighbours’ houses, but despite knocking on several doors I couldn’t find the owner of the offending vehicle.

Still being fairly stoical I headed back inside, changed clothes and got my trusty Honda 600cc out of the garage and rode to work, getting caught in an incredible downpour on the way.

Now I was starting to get pissed off because when I left the house in a hurry due to the car issue, I grabbed my old leather biker jacket that isn’t as waterproof as it used to be any more so I turned up at work soggy and uncomfortable.

I got to my desk and logged into my PC to find an urgent email from my manager demanding that we have a meeting in fifteen minutes. Now this was strange in itself, as my manager and I get on really well so usually she’d pop her head around my door to ask for a meeting, or would just come and sit in my office to discuss whatever she needed to see me about.

Fifteen minutes later I strolled into her office with a coffee for the both of us, to find 4 other people sat in her office looking bewildered. Now I’m starting to forget about how damp and dishevelled I am and am starting to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach; not helped by the appalling cheap instant coffee that the company supplies.

To cut a long story short -- there are going to be cuts due to financial constraints and the chances are the 5 of us are all going to be made redundant and we will find out formally in a few days.

OK, so far the day has been fairly lousy and I feel justified that my normally calm and friendly manner has degraded into something closer to miserably crabby.

I managed to last the day at work and left the office, thanking any god that would listen that it was Friday, and walked to the car park while struggling into my still uncomfortably damp leather jacket, just in time to see some stupid jackass reverse their car out of a parking space straight into the side of my bike, knocking it off its stand and onto the tarmac.

Now I was really pissed off. My bike isn’t new, isn’t worth loads of money but it’s my toy. I look after it, clean it and service it regularly so that it runs like a dream and is unfailingly reliable and now some arsehole has just carelessly sent it crashing into the road.

I ran over, waving my crash helmet and shouting at the offending car driver as they pulled over into a parking bay and as they opened the door the volume of the music was so loud it stopped me dead in my tracks.

‘For f**k’s sake why don’t you look where you’re f*****g going? You’ve just knocked my bike over you stupid b***h!’ I shouted, trying to compete with the car stereo.