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Despite the exhausting and traumatic events of the previous few days Ryan woke up at mid morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. Giving each other a full day alone to decide what course of action will take, each of them wanted to make sense to Ryan. But he wasn’t sure how he was going to spend that day. After some breakfast, Ryan found himself putting his golf clubs in his van and heading to the nearest driving range, almost without any conscious thought. Golf courses and ranges had always been his sanctuary, his quiet place for time to be alone.
He got two big buckets of balls and went to the bay furthest away from the entrance. After some gently warm up and loosening exercise the hitting began. Added reason for this particular driving range visit was that he really felt like hitting something. In fact he felt like hitting something over and over again. He knew that hitting golf shots would be the only task he could completely immerse himself in, whilst still having the recent events on his mind. Probably it even helped his golf performance to have something else being his main focus. Because that allowed his brain to stay out of his natural talent’s way, and let his instinct for hitting golf shots take over.
Ryan stayed there hitting golf balls for hours. People in nearby bays, came and went, each of them to different length of time. They couldn’t help but look and admire Ryan’s shots. Some would just have a quick glance when they thought he wouldn’t know. Others made it completely obvious they were watching and enjoying the exhibition. Some of these even tried to talk to Ryan. He managed to keep all the interaction very brief without being too rude. He stayed there for over five hours, hitting close to a thousand balls. Hands hurt and shoulders ached but the inner turmoil outweighed any physical discomfort. The length of his stay meant he’d almost certainly hit some of the balls more than once. During his stay the tractors had been out twice to pick up balls and bring them back to the ball machine.
Time alone with his thoughts had made him realize just how extreme a situation he had found himself in. Whatever he chose to do, his life would never quite be the same again. He had been dragged into a world that he would have very happily stayed a million miles away from. The part that really got to him was that he was being punished for being a good person. He’d never really known how he really wanted people to remember him. The one thing he did want though, was for people to think of him as a good person, partly because of the belief that good things would happen to good people. He knew that belief was a little naïve but he never thought that naivety would be proved in such spectacular ways.
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