Balo was panting frantically, in a rush to get to his vehicle. He was already fifteen minutes late for the most important presentation of his career, a merger that promised to elevate him from a mid-level analyst to a partner. It was the one deal he had been told all his life will propel him to greater heights and here it was, this was it. He drove out and was speeding excessively. The highway stretched out before him, then, the realization hit him. The blue leather portfolio. The one containing the original, signed contracts and the flash drive with the encrypted models. It wasn't on the passenger seat. It wasn't in his briefcase.
He remembered he had left it on the coffee table, right next to a half-empty cold coffee. "No, no, no !! Balo screamed alone in the car, slamming his palm against the steering wheel multiple times, the pain was secondary at this point. He looked at his watch. If he turned around now, he’d be thirty minutes late at least. In the world of finance, thirty minutes was an eternity, it was a sign of incompetence and a lack of preparedness, but showing up without the documents was a career death sentence. With a growl of frustration, he turned the wheel at the next exit, tires screeching as he pulled a desperate U-turn to head back toward the house.
He felt like his life was crumbling. He cursed his luck, cursed the traffic, and cursed the silent house that had allowed him to walk out the door empty-handed, cursed the government, cursed the car etc Seven minutes later, Balo was racing back toward his neighborhood. He reached a major intersection, the junction of okada Road. The light was green. Usually, Balo would have gunned it, flying through the intersection to reclaim lost seconds. But as he approached, his phone slid off the seat and wedged itself under the brake pedal. "Are you kidding me?" he yelled at the empty car.
He slowed down instinctively, leaning over to fish the device out from the floor mat. This three-second delay, a moment of fumbling kept him somewhat at the intersection. That was when the world exploded. A massive cement truck came charging down, horn blazing, its brakes failing with a high-pitched scream , and roared through the red light from the other lane. It plowed directly through the space Balos car would have occupied had he not made the mistake of picking the blue portfolio instead of the black oness. The truck collided with a delivery van, spinning it like a toy.
Balo slammed on his brakes, his heart pounding against his chest. Dust rained down on his windshield. Had he been on time, had he not forgotten that portfolio, he would have been pulverized. He sat there, trembling, the engine idling in a world that had suddenly gone silent except for the hiss of a popped radiator nearby. At that time everything else seemed minute, he had forgotten where he was even rushing to.
Balo didn't go back for the papers. He most certainly couldn't. The road was blocked, and his nerves were shot. He pulled his car into the parking lot of a small just fifty yards from the wreckage. His hands were shaking too hard to grip the wheel
"You look like you’ve seen a ghost, are you okay" a voice said.
Balo looked up. Behind the counter near a bar he walked up to, stood a woman with observant blue eyes and silky-smooth hair, tucked loosely behind her ears. She wasn't wearing a uniform, just a black apron over a green sweater.
"I... there was an accident," Balo managed, his voice cracking. "I should have been in it."
Elen(her name) simply walked around the counter, took him by the arm, and led him to a small circular table in the corner. "Sit. Breathe. I'm Elen. I’ll bring you something that isn't coffee. You have enough adrenaline in you”
A few minutes later, she returned with a steaming mug of ginger and honey tea. She sat across from him.
"I forgot my work," Balo whispered, staring into the liquid. "I was so angry at myself. I thought it was the worst day of my life."
"Sometimes the universe has to trip you to keep you from walking off a cliff," Elen said softly.
They talked for an hour. Then two. Balo discovered that Elen had owned the cafe for three years. She had been a corporate lawyer in the city, the very world Balo was killing himself to climb into until a health scare forced her to reevaluate what "success" actually looked like. She spoke about the joy of knowing her customers' names and the peace of a life measured in conversations rather than billable hours.
When he finally stood up to leave, the sirens outside had faded, and the wreckage was being cleared.
"I missed the meeting," Balo said, a strange smile touching his lips. "I’ll probably be fired. Or at least demoted."
"Is that a tragedy?" Elen asked, tilting her head.
Balo looked around the warm cafe, amidst the chaos then back at the woman who had calmed his soul. "No," he said
Balo did lose the partnership. The firm didn't care about near-death experiences they cared about the bottom line. He was let go three weeks later.
In his old life, this would have been the end. In his new life, it was a bliss. He used his severance to help Elen expand, handling the logistics and finances that he once used to build empires for strangers.
Two years later, Balo sat at that same corner table. The blue leather portfolio was still in his house, but now it was filled with sketches for their second location. Elen walked by, leaning down to kiss his temple as she balanced a tray of pastries.
He often thought back to that morning, the frustration, the frantic U-turn, and the heavy feeling of failure. He realized then that his greatest mistake was the direction he was headed.
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