HASALYNX PRESS
Read Romance Ebooks Legally — Anytime, Online, With a Monthly Subscription

“Sir! Sir, please, wait a moment!”

Hearing the husky feminine voice with a northern accent, I turn around and see an overweight yet attractive blonde holding a tv microphone.

“Thank you so much, sir! It's very hard to find someone to talk to on these streets… I am Ashley Bennet, a journalist from the Fun Hunters' Youtube Channel. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you to say a couple of words about life in this town. May I?”

“Sure,” I reply, feeling happy and a bit important, too. It's been a while since life made me feel like my thoughts and opinions mattered. “Here?”

“Yes,” Ashley waved at the cameraman with a tripod, who was vaping just meters away, a cloud of smoke covering his face.

I doubt he can see her, but he hears her voice and joins us shortly afterward. Once he gives us the sign, Ashley places the microphone beneath my chin. “What would you tell us about life in Ashen Hill, sir?”

I take a deep breath… and my mind goes blank. Right when there’s an opportunity to say it all, I can’t do it. I want to, but I can’t.

*

After this happening, I quickly returned home, the silence around me louder than before… I carefully look around the cluttered living room at all the objects stocked there. They are covered by dust, sparkling like gold in the setting sun. Untouched for years, these items seem to uphold some bigger order… Looking at them, I can't help but think that in the past, life seemed so special… But now, now I know that it was just my lofty ambition and wild imagination making it seem so.

I hang my coat on the ethnic hanger that my parents brought once from the mountains. Then, I take off the shoes, turn on the radio, and wash my hands. The news is just ending, which means that soon, the jazz hour will begin. I know the whole program; I had listened to this station week after week for almost three years…

Preparing macaroni with cheese for dinner, I think about life. It's boring… uninspiring… dull. I can't even say that I'd like to press “restart” and do things differently because there's nothing I could improve in the past to change my situation in the present moment.

I did everything as well as I only could. I was a top student in high school and got into my country's top college… I was the family's pride, and everyone foreshadowed a bright future for me. And I, I surely envisioned myself in it, successful as always; the sky being my only limit... If there was one thing that I felt I could be sure of, it was my career. I was convinced I put in more than enough work to have a good future and not worry about what to eat…

But instead of succeeding, I became one of those jobless, indebted college graduates who depend on their parents even in their late twenties.