Tire Iron, part 1
To be on my own terms, unchained and able to follow my own compass – isn’t that a common thing to want?  I tell you what; I think most people want to be free. Nothing to hold you back, nothing to stand in your way – just you and your dreams – with only yourself to blame if you don’t get there.  I don’t think it’s a game beneath it all though, I don’t see that Game that’s supposed to be what chains it all together.  Then, I’m not smart like the cat.  She talks about it and she is very convincing. She obviously knows something, or she wouldn’t be up there now, king of the hill.  For us on the ground it’s different. We can’t win so why play?  Let me be liberated and move as I will. Cut loose, take no responsibility, be naked, act without thought, cut all ties, care for and be cared for by no one, be unbound – aside and alone.
Repeat after me: I want to be free.
The Wilson roadhouse off the I-70 was a truck-stop dive in the purest sense of the word. Pictures, notes and the occasional hunting trophy littered the wooden walls.  Cheap plastic stools leaned against sticky, laminated wood tables and the stink of grease, beer and smoke was thick in the air. 
Selanine swaggered from the artificial glare of the men’s room and into the noisy gloom of the bar.  She zipped up the fly on her worn-out, baggy red jeans and ran a calloused hand through the inky, red-streaked, waist-length curtains of hair that fell around her shoulders and framed her equine face.  She is solidly built – long, strong legs with full hips and a voluptuously curvaceous body, covered in sleek, bristly black fur.  There is an earthy, rustic charm to the anthropomorphic horse that caught more than one man’s attention as she ambled to the bar.  Sel’s large scarlet eyes flashed to the door of the lavatory as the door swung open once again, admitting a slightly bowlegged and very drunk squirrel-girl.  Selanine chuckled to herself, signaling the bartender for a beer.  Possessing the best and worst of both genders had its upsides, she thought as she watched the girl she’d been cramped in a stall with stagger back into the crowd.  Fidgeting momentarily, she turned her attention to the beer and the barkeep.
“It’s busy in here tonight.  What’s the occasion?” Sel asked with a deep draught of beer on the heels of her query.  
“Big convoy comin’ through,” the lizard behind the bar replied, “Comes through about once a month I reckon, headin’ out to St. Louis.”
“You don’t say,” she muttered into the nearly empty glass.
“Big Rod and his crew may be rowdy, but they’re a thirsty bunch… and they’re loyal.”
“Big Rod?” The horse-girl snorted.  “Well shit - that’s so goddamn funny, I’m gonna need another drink,” she slurred with an unseemly belch, leaning heavily on the bar.
“Darlin’, that name’s well earned.  I’m buyin’,” a thick voice replied to the right. Sel twisted and squinted to see a heavy-set bull in worn jeans, a wife-beater and a scruffy Stetson, obviously staring.  Not one to pass up a free drink, she accepted the fresh bottle and raised the slovenly man a toast.  “To Big Rod then, for buyin’ a girl a drink, all gentleman-like,” she roared, eliciting a raucous chorus of inebriated cheers and laughs from the patrons.
Big Rod sidled closer, the drink heavy on his breath.  Sel didn’t care much – she was feeling well sauced.  “So, big man like you – you must be head of that convoy parked out front huh?  Real important.  What do they have you hauling?” Sel inquired, putting some effort into focusing her scarlet eyes on the bull’s beady orbs.  
His response was accompanied by an unceremoniously copped feel on her ass: “Bigwigs in Ozmia are sending out parts from their factories – some fancy engineering project on the west coast.  Got me and my boys hauling parts and chem barrels across state.”
 “A motherfuckin’ hero huh? Making the world go ‘round,” she grinned, shoving a hand into the bull’s lap to his obvious pleasure.  “I like heroes,” she continued, squeezing him teasingly, “and I’d like to see how you earned that name of yours.  Maybe you’ll take me outside and show me?” 
The eagerness was plain on Big Rod’s face as he thrust a couple of crumpled dollar bills onto the bar and toppled unsteadily to his feet.  Selanine sauntered after him, stumbling once or twice on her way out into the cool moonlit night.  
The roadhouse lay just off the interstate, across a wide parking area with an adjacent workshop.  It was a favored pit-stop for cross-state truckers.  Tonight, the silent behemoths parked beneath a brilliant Midwest starry sky presented a tranquil contrast to the rowdy abandon in the bar. 
As the bull led Sel past the mammoth trucks, she spotted a tire iron glinting in an open toolbox.  Without breaking stride, she snagged the tool and held it behind her back, a distant part of her brain wishing the world would stop tilting slightly to the left.
“There she is, my pride and joy,” Big Rod proclaimed as they arrived in front of a garishly red-painted rig with several lewd slogans and images sprayed across the cab.  Selanine smiled indulgingly as he paused to peel up her high-cut shirt and bared her prominent chest, stealing another touch before climbing to the driver-side door.
He rummaged inside the cabin for a moment, before dropping back to the ground and proceeding to break the peaceful sounds of the night with the clink of metal as he drunkenly fumbled to undo his belt and zipper.  Finally managing to conquer his pants, Big Rod looked up just in time to see Sel swing the tire iron at his head before his world dissolved into a reddish black well of splitting pain and broken teeth.
“Dumb fuck…” she hiccupped, the bloodied tire iron dangling loosely in her grip.  With the toe of her heavy boot she haphazardly kicked the bull onto his back and leered at his bared package.  “Hnh, I’ve seen better,” she grunted as she bent down and plucked the dusty Stetson from Big Rod’s head while he groaned incomprehensibly.  Pausing for a moment, the equine frisked him quickly and extracted the truck keys and a revolver from his belt.  She turned the gun over in her hand before pointing it at the unconscious man on the ground.  Her arm wavered unsteadily even as she pinched one eye closed, finger hugging the trigger.
A wave of nausea hit Selanine then and she lowered the gun to lean against the side of the truck and wrestle her pickled bowels into compliance.  With the urge to hurl passed, she cast the tire iron aside indifferently and made her way around the truck to heave the storage unit open.  Rows of crates marked with the Spindlecorp logo lined the cavernous interior.
“That was lucky… next time I should check before braining the asshole… oh well.  This looks right,” she muttered to herself.
Stepping over Big Rod and his bleeding head-wound, Sel clambered into the rig’s cabin and jammed the key into the ignition.  She punched the coordinates of the nearest MiraTech stockhouse into the GPS while the truck’s engine roared to life.
Soon after, the quiet of the empty interstate was shattered as the rig thundered down the tarmac, leaving the roadhouse as a small speck of light in its dusty wake.  Sel hung out the window, only one hand loosely guiding the gargantuan vehicle, the Stetson perched on her head and her long hair whipping in the night wind.
She howled her delight to the moon, emptying the bullets from the stolen gun into the air before lobbing it into the darkness, cranking up the radio and stomping a large boot onto the gas pedal.  As employment went, this beat a dead-end desk job.

Part 2
Some days it seems like everyone just has their heads crammed up their asses, obsessed with finding their life’s purpose and having it recognized. Pursuing the attention of others to convince themselves that they are still destined for fuckin’ greatness – they haven’t found out what that purpose is just yet though… I think looking for your life’s purpose like that is looking for the wrong goddamn thing in the wrong goddamn place.  Looking for your life purpose is like looking for the reason behind steak.  What is the purpose of steak?  What grand plan does steak have for itself?  How is steak going to change the world?  I don’t know about you, but I never met a side of beef that said: “You know Sel, I feel like I was put here to write poems about the fragility of spirit in the face of adversity.”
Enough about steak, I’m getting distracted.
My point is that you don’t need a purpose to make people recognize and value you – to be successful. You just need to be confident.

A harmonious thrum accompanied the arcs of sizzling lightning as the gateway portal opened to admit Selanine into the sterile arrival terminal.  She took a moment to steady herself and get her bearings – she hated that infernal machine and its ability to yank her from place to place.  It just wasn’t natural. Then, the same was true for so many things in this place and for Mirage as well.  With an unanswered salute to the technicians cooped up in the control room above her, Sel proceeded across the bridge and through the door into the atrium beyond.
It was all so neat and clean.  Smooth, white-paneled floors and walls with grey carpeted walkways.  Abstract paintings and statues adorned the large hall, and a large, wall-spanning window afforded a breathtaking view of the bizarre watery environment contained and protected from the starry void by a luminous glass dome.  Uniformed guards and employees passed through the chamber with purpose, some in quiet but spirited conversation and others in reverent silence.  The dull hum of the artificial environment and hushed voices was softened by unobtrusive classical music that seemed to issue from the walls.  It made Sel shiver.  She thrived in chaos, and this was anything but.  
To alleviate her impulsive aversion to the sterility of the place, the equine girl took no small amount of pleasure in tracking dusty boot prints across the pristine floors, watching over her shoulder as small constructs rushed from hidden alcoves to feverishly restore their domain to its immaculate state.
Selanine delved into the labyrinthine web of corridors, stairwells, walkways and elevators.  She greeted or waved at the other employees she passed – some returned the salute, others hurried along.  Unlike most of them, she reported directly to the CEO and didn’t follow the usual protocols.  That made them wary around her.
After some searching and doubling back, she finally found Mirage in one of the observation lounges adjoining the training facilities.  Without response or even a glance from her boss, Sel was admitted into the lounge.  The room was darkened, illuminated chiefly by the wall-spanning window overlooking the simulation room, and to a lesser extent the lights on the intricate control panel behind which the black cat reclined in a slender chair.
Curious, Selanine indulged Mirage’s pretense to ignore her and plodded to the window to see what occupied the CEO’s attention.  The room below been arrayed to depict a sprawling battlefield, swarming with hostile forces.  At the heart of the chaos a strange, but admittedly graceful creature leapt and spun dizzyingly, fending off the continuous assault.
“I got you the cargo you wanted,” Sel voiced into the silent room, watching the cat in the corner of her eye.  No response was forthcoming.
“Ok, so I might have brained a guy… but he asked for it. And you don’t normally give a fuck about that,” she continued, the silence growing louder.  Still no response.
She glanced out the window again, then back to her boss: “What did you want that shit for anyway?  I thought you had the dough to make anything you fuckin’ want”.  Nothing.
Selanine’s upper lip twitched slightly.  Something angry coiled up in her gut and impulsively, the equine girl slammed her hand down onto the switch that toggled the training simulations difficulty and intensity controls from automatic to manual, and then spun the dial up into its maximum.  Defiantly she glared out the window again to see the results for the unfortunate creature stuck in the room.  The simulation continued unabated, but nothing seemed to change.
“She did the same to the local controls after I left the room.  Like you, she overestimates her own abilities.  She also seems to have difficulty following simple requests and orders.”  Mirage’s quiet, bored voice - tinged with exasperation and disapproval as it always seemed to be when she addressed Selanine - managed to fill the room oppressively.
Sel turned to see Mira tap a few commands dismissively into the screen projected by the machine on her wrist, overriding the equine girl’s petulant action with ease.  Finally, the cat turned her cold yellow eyes to her employee.  
“You’re still here,” she stated flatly.
“Well yeah, I came to report to you, as usual”.
“You reported to me when you came in”.
“Yeah, but…”
“You’re dismissed,” Mirage concluded and returned her attention to the spectacle in the training room below.
Sel grimaced, wrestling with her urge to argue, to scream at the cat, to throw a punch just to get some kind of reaction – anything from her.  She restrained herself, however.  Something about Mirage stopped Selanine’s wilder impulses dead in their tracks.  
With her fists balled up in anger and teeth grinding, Sel stormed out of the observation lounge, slamming the door behind her – and was denied even that small outlet as the door slowed its momentum and slid shut silently.
Part 2 monologue inspired by an article by Steve Errey.