Drabble 139 – Conatus

I’m not really a risk taker. I am in the sense that I’m a freelancer, so every day is a fun game of ‘can I make enough money to pay my bills?’ but aside from my precarious work situation, I prefer to play things safe.

I’m fiercely protective of the things that I have. I don’t like to gamble, I worry about switching jobs in case what I end up with is worse than what I have. I just worry, a lot, about losing things.

I can sit here, grumpy as I am, and try to puzzle out a reason for it. I can try to find some kind of meaning hidden in here, and to be honest, there probably is something. But instead I’m going to end this and go off to do something fun, because time, too, is precious and should be guarded.

Anyway, here’s a drabble.

CONATUS

(n.) Latin for “effort, impulse, striving”

The instinct or innate desire of living thing to persist.

To Georgie, there are no words on earth more motivating than “you can’t.”

To prove she can, she has:

• Eaten a bag of marshmallows in one sitting
• Kissed a boy and a girl in the same day
• Hopped a train and ridden it until she got caught
• Convinced a billionaire to give her several million dollars before dumping him for a girl who rode in on the back of a motorcycle

“You can’t,” the girl with the motorcycle says, wind whipping her hair.

Georgie shoves the money through the slot of a library’s book return box. She grins. “Watch me.”