Prologue-2:Life

Let's see…

A day of life without work.

I returned each evening to my tiny, sparse apartment, the place as worn and tired as I was. The walls, bare and stained, seemed to close in, only they knew me and my deepest thought I felt. The furniture, old and threadbare, was no comfort. It was a cave away from the world, but not a sanctuary.

In the dim light, I moved through the same routine.

At work I had coffee, but at home, Alcohol and cigarettes had become my family, my solace. I poured a drink, the cheap liquor burning my throat, the warmth spreading through my chest like a hug I had never received. I lit a cigarette, the smoke curling around me, a thin veil of temporary relief.

"That's it right there, purpose."

Vices calmed the constant hum of anxiety, and dulled the edges of my relentless struggle. I never gave up not because I had a dream or a goal to strive towards, I never gave up because struggling was my purpose.

Without struggle, my life had only pain to offer.

The evenings stretched out in a haze of smoke and alcohol. I would sit by the window, staring out at the bleak landscape, the city's lights flickering like distant stars. The world outside was indifferent to my suffering, a vast, uncaring expanse.

I was addicted to the fight. Without something to fight against, I felt empty, adrift.

Like some sort of addict whenever Infelt I was lucky, I felt lost. The pain and the hardship were constant companions, holding away from the rooftop's edge, the noose, and other methods of 'logging off'

They were reminders that I was still here, still fighting.

It was in the struggle, in the edge of failure that I felt most alive.

The alcohol numbed the pain, the cigarettes filled the silence, but they also fed the cycle of suffering.

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I stood in the kitchen shirtless with a glass in hand and a cigarette between my lips. I sang along to a song with my Omelette and Ramen cooking up on the stove.

"All I am is a man~…..I stand in California with my toes in the sand…"

Rest of the night was pretty much the same, I ate my food and got to bed.

The nights were filled with restless dreams, shadows of my past and fears of my future. The blurry faces of my parents haunted me, I had seen a photo of them once as a child, a successful, rich couple.

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Every morning, I woke with a heavy head and a tired body, but I forced myself up.

"Another day, Another struggle,"

The day would be another struggle. I would trudge to the office, face the same frustrations, the same broken machines and indifferent colleagues. A sisyphean task that was my life.

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