Chapter 1 - Part 1: The usual first day
Looks like it is a bit confusing at first. I should have ticked the 'my novel' tag beforehand. I thought it was a setting just for claim. By the way, I'm the author. The original, to say it all. Okay, I guess that clears the confusion for this series.
That there will be no one young enough willing to marry me once I reach my goal at thirty years old – that much, I wholeheartedly understand.
Following that weird dream in the early morning, I had woken up in cold sweats.
My heater had somehow been turned on too high, so, I had painstakingly woken up at ten o’clock in the morning to lower it.
After that, I couldn’t get any sleep in until seven o’clock at night.
Even now, every time I close my eyes, I still see her poisonously sweet face in vivid details.
That person… was she an apparition?
If so, what kind of apparition was she? Dream-apparition?
More like a ghost.
It felt ridiculous.
Thankfully, I was still in one piece after meeting her.
I looked closely at the mirror as I brushed my teeth.
Should I start believing in God?
I had taken a bath. My pants were faded blue, and, I casually wore a white shirt.
Since it was going to my first real day at the university, I thought that not going with the usual cool t-shirt would be fine.
To be honest, it was a choice that only a lame person would make – Fashionable pants and white salaryman-shirt together.
However, I was already lame, despite my good face, and, good physical frame.
My eyes look dead due to the habit of trifling social interactions whenever talking to someone.
Nowadays my conditions have probably degraded to such an extent that my breathing sometimes becomes unable to resume in front of people. That was in the presence of my relatives last year; I was good enough to talk with my family at home.
I did not visit relatives because I merely had a job without any real proof of progress; my parents wouldn’t approve of me if I didn’t have an appropriate job to go alongside a degree – a degree which I don’t have yet.
I already had an undershirt on, and, I wore a thick, hooded jacket of a creamy-white color.
…So, I planned to work in between intervals to have enough money for both my bachelor’s, and, master’s degree, with loans in between.
I would do the much higher degree upgrade called ‘doctorate’ if possible. But, it only remains a possibility.
Right now, I just had to prove myself in order to prevent my sisters from suffering the same fate as me. Everything related to my home was a blank area now. I don’t think much about it.
The sky appeared to be completely white as I looked at it through the kitchen’s window; eating is primordial in the face of such a cold weather.
Bread heated in the oven along with butter, cheese, and, spiced sausage slices – I hated using toasters.
Scholarships are hard to get by, so, I shouldn’t pin false hopes – is what I repeatedly tell myself.
“I’ll be going then, Cerise!”
Cerise, my little dog pet, looked at my clothes with curious eyes; I had had the luck to work in an office in my desired country for the remaining one year before I could enter a university after securing my loan, and, had already amassed money for two years’ worth of sustenance for living, and, university fees.
So, I’ve only been wearing office clothes lately, and the blonde dog kept looking at me as I made a tense face, before continuing to eat the breakfast which I had given to it on a small bowl.
I checked the windows to see if I had left any of them open; I closed the exit doors of my apartment, starting to walk along the frozen grass as my shoes made crunchy, and, squashy sounds.
It had been snowing even today.
My bicycle appeared to be quite desolate, but, I was afraid that its chain would break if I took it out in such a moody weather; I lifted the lump of freezing metal, turned back to open the door, and, hurriedly left it stored inside my kitchen, as my dog kept glancing at it weirdly.
***
First day of April.
I was glad that the roads were clear enough for buses to be operating.
As I entered a bus, I found it to be virtually empty.
It was six o’clock in the morning, so, I could only find adults dressed up for work in the vehicle.
A rather mundane sight, to be honest.
I didn’t have the luxury to buy a car, nor, did I want to waste money on that.
I don’t like going out, unless for jobs, or, anything important.
My recent job had not been taxing, unlike the previous ones which I had done, so, I did not consider the possibility of entertaining good friendship with anyone, so, no random social outings.
In fact, I don’t like wasting money at all. And, time is a bottomless pit of boredom.
If I had something I really wanted to do…
In my lone seat, I scrolled across apps in my computing device idly – lately, software engineering had caught my attention; doing a bachelor degree for that afterwards, or, applying for a double-major degree switch in my current university wouldn’t be a bad idea, if they happen to accept it.
There was certainly that option when I was browsing online through the degree programs available.
And, I heard a frowning man on the other side of the bus, right across me, talking on his mobile phone:
“Dutiful son? Are you stupid? This is my life! I want to achieve my wish with my own hands! I’m losing time right now because of reasons including your crazy outbursts.”
Man… My ears certainly sting at these words.
At another stop, a beautiful-looking girl boarded the bus – and, sat beside me.
For sure, the economy was such that even good-looking people like her had to do strenuous jobs early in the morning, till the typical end-hours of the normal working world.
Rather, I would come across a lot of those pretty faces which were motivated for all the wrong reasons.
As always, I ignored her, since the seat might have seemed as conveniently positioned to her, as to me.
Plain coincidence.
Well, I had a good enough face, and, my figure was proper.
However. Dating and such were not up my alley.
It would only be so in ten years, when I would have secured everything required for a family.
The frowning man had an even more horrible face now, as he kept glancing at the girl sitting beside me.
I did not like outspoken people like him.
It would do him good to keep the conversation he was having short.
“There’s no debt! You may have done things for me in the past, but, the current you is way too pathetic! You are my parent! Whatever you sacrifice, I have no obligation towards you! I have to look forward, and, progress. I have no business with some parent who has complete distrust, and, lack of expectations in his son’s projects! Remain pathetic! Because that’s what you’ve become!” he said loudly before cutting off the call, visibly.
Quite a spectacular conversation – almost everyone was gaping at him, some angrily, some looking annoyed, and, some mystified.
Fancy hearing his words.
Modern people are, as expected, modern.
There’s bound to be such discords sprouting here and there like weed. It is the era of science and technology.
You are as easily corrupted by the technology as you are enlightened by it.
Judging from his countenance, and, attire, he was not worth even noticing.
Many people believe that everything related to prestige is a necessity – a worthless necessity, I conclude.
Aristocracy shines to them; being spiteful, with plain vanity – is what people like them become.
I’ve worked in a hotel for my first job – for two months.
In that four-star hotel, I’ve met thousands of different kinds of average and rich people, so, I know what I’m talking about.
I get the feeling that nothing would change even in something like five-star, or, in the residence of the local president in this part of the world – that frowning man appears just like that, as I noticed the glances he was giving to the girl beside me, and, looking at my notebook-type computer device as if it did not belong in my hands.
Shaking his fingers with two gaudy rings while trying to appear busy with his mobile phone.
…Such a money-wasting person.
It completely prevented me from feeling the drive to continue reading the PDF textbook on how to use the ‘JavaScript’ utility.
At any rate, the journey which would have taken forty-five minutes when using a bicycle was now more than half-way through to its end.
And, the girl asked me:
“Could you remove your bag from the middle seat? It’s a little too cold.”
“Uh, sure,” I said, placing the bag in question on my lap.
She sat closer to me – away from the frowning man – and, said:
“Where are you going, this early in the morning?”
This way, she engaged in small talk with me, before getting bored, and, facing to the side, to quickly look forward instead. I found it funny, but, did not snicker, as I remained without any major self-consciousness in her presence, though, just slightly breathless from the contact with her body.
Well, most of the people are still restricting themselves to pure business.
Who would want to take the pain to risk a business involving the latest technology by creating it from scratch?
There’s Steve Jobs, that person who said:
“Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
Well, he created his own cozy castle, so, no one sees his genius.
He even rose to the top virtually alone.
That’s why, people call him a tyrant, and, such; they don’t want to acknowledge that person, who, without needing to resort to human resource exploitation, or, excessive advertising, or, even precocious partnership deals endangering his own company’s rights, took the world in his hands – the modern-day conqueror.
“Try not to become a man of success, but, rather, try to become a man of value” – with respect to this famous quote of Albert Einstein, I think that I’ve managed to become a man of value since a long time ago now.
What? It does not appear like I’m a man of value?
That quote is not that famous?
But, who cares about that?
Well, that’s my kind of thinking.
***
I reached my stop.
The frowning man was gone.
The girl who had been sitting beside me too.
I stood up, taking a second look at the university that I was going to attend this year; I suddenly felt dizzy.
Hazy, hot, heavy – my head hurt like hell.
Strange.
Fighting back the urge to faint, I grabbed my bag, and, went to the university.
No one in sight.
The gatekeeper was at the gate, alright.
The trees were covered in snow, the path looked like it had been recently swept clean of snow, and, a few shrubs remained unaffected by the cold, as they grew along the path. The buildings which acted as facilities for the university were numerous, and, I even noticed a track field from far away – universities sure are huge.
As I wandered about, a blonde girl entered my range of sight. Another girl behind her, looking like she would disappear.
Guess I’ll ask them stuff about the university after introducing myself.
Suddenly, the veins in my legs started writhing wildly with pain, and, I couldn’t help screaming:
“Ahhh!!!”
What the hell is this?! This pain!!!
My vision blurred, and my body started feeling cold as my sensations numbed down one by one.
“Hey! Are you alright?!!”
I heard only one voice – which girl was it?
“Hahhh!”
“Hey…!”
The voice was getting closer.
“Do you have a disease or something?! I’m calling for an ambulance, please wait! No… I don’t know the number for it! Wait, I’ll…”
“Hey, missus! What’s wrong with this lad?!” asked someone from afar.
“I don’t know!”
My consciousness was fading. What was with this unreasonable amount of pain?
“Oh my god! His body is disappearing!”
Who said that?
“What…”
I stopped hearing their voices.