“Closed Doors”

Ashen Hill, 2022

“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. And not because I am lazy and I don't want to work… but because there's no opportunity anywhere around, and how are you supposed to earn money online when everyone wants to get everything for free?

Pouring macaroni out of the carton box into the jagged porcelain bowl, I can't help but wonder: are the best day of my life already behind me? Because if there are any ahead of me still, then they are so far away I can't even see them ahead...

*

Dorran and I are beneath the overpass. There's no road here, just a ravine overgrown with weeds and grasses. Nobody ever comes here, but we did, just to feel like two teenagers again, free from rules and conventions about what adults should and shouldn't do with their lives.

After gathering some bottles, we put them together on a low concrete wall which is a part of the overpass. Throwing rocks at unwanted bottles is a pointless game, but at least we're outdoors, breathing in the fresh air… As we do, I think of my two favorite songs: Let it out by Danny McCarthy and This City is Killing Me, by Dusty Brown. Somehow, they both fit the atmosphere of this meeting…

I watch Dorran carefully move the rocks in his hand as if choosing. Then, he throws one, and despite his best effort, it doesn't hit any bottle. It doesn't even get close.

After his failure to get the bottle down, none of us says anything. None of us sees bottles on this low wall. We see something else: our goals and dreams. Even though we keep trying, we can't score anything, not even one point.

“Do you ever feel like you're out of everyone's league?” Dorran asks after a moment, his toneless voice sounding oddly distant to me. Then, he puts a stone in my hand. And I, I try hard to ignore how the subtle touch of his fingers brushing against my skin makes me feel…

I swing my arm and throw the stone. It doesn’t fare better than his. The bottles are still standing, and we are still looking at them, like the two losers that we probably are.

“More often than not,” I reply to his question from moments ago.

Dorran doesn’t comment on this answer; instead, he attempts to throw another stone. This time, he almost gets it right; but it still flies past the bottle.

“I feel so doomed to be unlucky in love, Heston…I mean… I think I will be able to find somebody… eventually. But, I don't believe it will be a big love. Big love always feels out of my reach… Like other big things in my life: big successes, big job opportunities, big money… I see people get those and wonder: where's my lucky break? Where are the good things that are in store for me?” He spreads his hands, hopeless.

“I get it, you know,” I say silently.

I could add a lot of other things, but don't do it, as there's no need to. Dorran knows anyway that I can understand what he feels.