He sat upright, one leg tucked under, an awkward L from above. He was sifting through a box of memories. Photos, scraps of paper, some trinkets and oddities too. He dipped his hand in, rummaging, clutching. Hoping for a spark. An ignition through his grey matter. A burst of colour, a flash of image to make him feel brighter. Memories of happy times, laughter. Life had been sluggish and colourless, and this was his therapy. A quick fix rather than an antidote.
He’d been sat for a while, travelled across many places and times, when his hand fell on his leavers book from art college. His eyes scanned the messages from student friends unseen for decades. His eye hooked on a message from his tutor, scrawled in capitals, an exclamation at the end. It’s hasty hand had strangely missed a bar “WHATEVER YOUR ENDFAVOUR, MAKE IT BIG!”. Never noticed till now. Endfavour. Not endeavour at all. He pondered this new word. It had been waiting years to be discovered. It flooded his mind. His nerves firing, synapses transmitting. A rush of blood. A demand for action.
His physical self struggled to get up, his leg now half asleep fizzing and needling as he rose. His brain felt fluid. The word swam in his head. It searched for new meaning. He was split in two, his body limped to the kitchen on auto-pilot to make tea whilst his mind accelerated. This was what he needed, it was a purpose. An antidote to his malaise.
He sipped the hot tea as the steam billowed around his face. He thought of his life and his endeavours, they all seemed to be driven by selfish desires. It had seen him travel continents, climb mountains dive oceans. He’d found power and pleasure in these endeavours, but they were long gone. Time had drained them.
Searching through a box of memories to find crumbs to sustain an ailing spirit was desperately sad. He needed to take action. It was time for something BIG, something lasting something devoid of selfish desire. An altruistic encore, a rising crescendo of brilliance. He had an endeavour to find.