Can I just say that trying to find a job is extremely stressful, especially when you don't have a car? Granted, most of my issue is that I'm not that good at handling rejection, especially imagined rejection, so that's most of my problem. I'm just tired of staring at my future and thinking "Okay, I'm done with school, Now what?"

The World According to Kristen

     I've been waiting for things to change for a while now. The storyteller in me doesn't want to believe we went through a pandemic only to learn basically nothing. I realize that, in all likelihood, that's exactly what happened. The pandemic was a reminder, on a large scale, that the world doesn't care about us. Or rather, that the universe doesn't care about what happens to humanity. Even on earth, were only one out of thousands of species, if we die, someone will take over where we left off. No one wants to know that. So now we're trying our best to forget about it, to put it behind us, to pretend that it was just a fluke. 

     But whether or not it was just a fluke isn't the point. The point isn't that there's any inherent meaning in what happens to us, the point is that we take what happens to us and give it meaning. The act of living and making choices is an act of saying that those choices matter. And I don't like the feeling that we're forgetting it because it's easier than confronting the horrible truth that the universe at large doesn't care about us, not even as pawns. I don't like the idea that when confronted with the truth, all we know how to do is to plug our ears, not try to spin a different narrative, not try to find a way to grow from this awful experience, not remind ourselves that just because our world doesn't care about us doesn't mean that our choices don't have meaning or value. 

    Call me crazy, but I don't think our universe exists to protect us from the evil of other's if we follow it's whims. I don't even think our universe understands good and evil. All the universe is is a place we can change to suit our needs, something we do every day without realizing it. We use this power constantly, whether or not we're aware of that fact, and I for one think denying that fact is deeply irresponsible of us. I think it's important to remember that it's not just human's that do this, everything in our universe is doing this constantly. If the pandemic taught us anything, it's that we as people aren't powerless, our actions, or inaction, will affect the world whether we want it to or not. Society can't protect us from consequences, it can only give us plausible deniability. 

     I think I'm officially over the world being in a miserable state. 

The Heartbeat of Humanity

 Pressure
Builds beneath the surface
Of a blocked blood vessel.
Only a matter of time
Before it bursts
Killing all that surrounds it.

All around me are people
Holding in their pain,
Suppressing it,
Trying to ignore it.
Flashes of anger,
Waves of sadness,
Moments when one's will to live wavers.
Keep all of these hidden
Lest you're cast out forever.

The heartbeat of humanity
Grows more and more unsteady.
Yet nobody seems to hear it.
Nobody seems to know it's even there.
They know how they feel
But they can't see those emotions reflected around them.
Pain felt by all.
Pain close to bursting out
And destroying the world we hold dear.

How much longer until the 
Heartbeat of humanity
Shuts down for good?

     I'm thinking I might try writing lore for a world I've been building. I love it, but it's not that good, so it's perfect for this blog. 

    I'm trying to come up with standalone short story Ideas. As someone who spends way too much time world building, it's proving more difficult than I anticipated. 

     Spring has come to Washington state. It's kind of nice to see the sun out. It'll be less fun when the temperature warms up I'm sure. 

Thoughts on Frog Fractions

    I don't have a lot to say, except that I'm not entirely sure this game has a point. Not because it's random and doesn't really have a plot to speak of, but because the gameplay isn't deep enough to be interesting, hard enough to be frustrating, or really fun in any way. There are some kind of funny moments, but nothing that made me laugh out loud. Maybe it's supposed to parody other games, but I don't know what parts of those games it was parodying. 

  Most of the time, I can see what somebody was going for, so I know that it fell flat or wasn't executed well. But here, I don't know if the lack of point was intentional, if it was supposed to just be weird for the sake of being weird, or if the weirdness was meant to make you laugh or shrug. It's not really weird enough to be either in my opinion. There are a few interesting moments, but overall I think the games to boring to really stick out in my mind. 

All the World's a Stage, Chapter 7

   The stream is out. “The Future” is finally out for all to enjoy, all fifty people who were around when I ended it a four o’clock. On unfortunate fact about normalcy, I have to end before my neighbor’s show up. 

   As soon as I finish, I check my email, hoping for responses to my many job application. So far, I’ve had two requests for an interview, one from an office in Seattle, one from the grocery store. I interviewed for both, though I haven’t heard anything back. There aren’t any requests for interview in my inbox, but there is an email from Nina. I forgot I gave her my personal email back when she first joined. 

    I open the email. It reads, “Hey Ellen, How’s life? Thing’s have been crazy since you left. It got so bad we all decided to give the boss what for, and when he kept pushing us, we all quit within a week. Lucy apparently has another job lined up already, but Maryann and I didn’t. We were wondering if you had any luck so far. As for non-work-related things, how would you like to hang out sometime? We’ve all missed having you around. Sincerely, Nina Cravitz”

    I reply, “Hey Nina, no luck with job searching so far. I got a couple of interviews but haven’t gotten any further than that. It’s alright though, I’ve been using my free time to relax and recuperate from the crazy year we’ve had. Hopefully I’ll get something soon. I’d love to hang out with you guys if I get the chance. Thank you, Ellen Thompson.”

    I look over it before I send it. It’s not a bold-faced lie, but it feels pretty close to it. I’m trying to stretch my money out, but between rent and student loans it’s going to be tight. I should probably apply for unemployment, but I don’t know if I’ll qualify, since I doubt the state considers “invested in crypto” to be a good enough reason to quit. I could ask my parents for money for food at least. Or maybe I could pawn some of my things.

   I look over the responses to my stream. Surprisingly, most people seem to like my music. I know only a few people listen, but since I’ve had no formal training, I was sure I’d suck at it. At least one person wants to know when “The Future” will be officially released. I don’t know, but soon, I hope. 

   I don’t see anyone wanting to financially support me. It’s alright. I’m struggling, but it’s not dire like it is for many other people right now. 

   I consider looking at Julius Corvin’s YouTube page again, then stop him. I bought all the music from him I’m ever going to listen to, all I’ll be doing is increasing his ad revenue. Even if he’s renounced NFTs, which deep down I suspect he hasn’t, I’ll never again be convinced he’s a good person. 

   That’s one good thing about not being famous. No matter what I do, there’s a limit to the amount of people I can disappoint. 

   I check my email again and notice that Nina’s already replied. I wonder if she’s at her computer for the same reason I am. I open the email, which says, “I looked you up online to find you on social media. I didn’t know you sang. It’s a bit rough, but it could be improve with practice. I have a friend who helps people learn music. Email me and I’ll give you his contact info.”

   I think for a bit. I would love to get better at singing, but if I’m honest I’m growing to love writing lyrics and music more. At first I only wrote music so I wouldn’t get flagged by YouTube for copyright infringement, but then overtime I started to feel more comfortable expressing myself. I write back, “I’d love to get better, but money’s a bit tight at the moment. Glad to hear you like it though. Want to friend each other on Facebook?” 

    After I send it off, I refresh the web page in the hopes something shows up. Nothing still. Whatever, something’s going to turn up soon, I’m sure of it. Or at least I’m telling myself I’m sure, so I don’t freak out. To aid in the effort to not completely freak out, I go online to look for anything I haven’t applied for yet. I send out a lot more. At least now, when I end up homeless, no one can say it was because I didn’t try. Just in case I refresh the page again, and there’s an email from the grocery store with the subject line reading, “Are you free to start tomorrow at 5pm?”. Well, night shifts suck, but at the moment I can’t complain. I email back saying “Yes. I’ll be there.” 

   I open my webcam again. It’s time to finish “The Future” for real. I don’t know if it’ll be my big success, the song that will finally enable me to stop worrying about money forever and do what I want with my life, I just know that it’s my favorite song. I also know that no matter how hard I end up having to work in my next job, I’ll never stop singing. If I keep belting out tunes, eventually somebody will listen to what I have to say. 

The Future

 A song by Ellen Thompson
Is this my present, or is it a prison?
I belt out my thoughts but nobody wants to listen.
Have I committed a cardinal sin? Will I ever be forgiven?

Because this isn't the life I was planning on living.

My parents always told me that tomorrow was today.
Nothing was better at pushing dreams away.
My dreams would never change the world, what more is there to say?

I never dreamed that thing's would be different one day.

Is this my present, or is it a prison?
I thought things would stay the same, but even the climate's inconsistent.
Have I committed a cardinal sin, will I ever be forgiven?
Am I doomed to sing so badly that nobody wants to listen?

I try to think of the moment and not think about tomorrow.
To do anything else leaves me overwhelmed with sorrow.
They told me my greatness would only grow and grow,
So now I'm left paying interest on the time I borrowed.

Is this my present, or is it a prison?
I scream out my thoughts but nobody wants to listen.
What sin have I committed? How will I be forgiven?
Because I hope to god this isn't the only life I'll live in.

People keep saying that life is getting better,
They say the future's bright if we only worked together,
But the mathematicians among us say things can't go up forever,
So the bad times we're stuck in is something we must whether.

Is this my present, or is it a prison?
I don't know why I'm talking, nobody's going to listen.
Tell me what's going wrong, so that I can be forgiven,
Or else let me die, because I can't remember living.

Those of us in glass houses don't dare throw a stone,
But it would be nice if those in charge would throw us a bone,
I want to live in a community, not die poor and alone.
But as I sit and suffer, our kings sit on their thrones.

Is this my present, is it a prison?
I'll sing my song forever, somebody has to listen.
Through hard work and contribution, I'm sure I'll be forgiven,
And someday soon, I'm sure, I'll love the life I'm living. 

    Tomorrow is the last chapter of "All the World's a Stage". I'm glad, but I don't know what else I should write. 

The Way the World Moves

 I remember physics
The way we saw lines
Pushing and pulling things apart
Study the angles, measure the force
Use Pythagoras to find how fast and far
Something is destined to go.

I look at social media
And I see the vectors
Pushing us 
Invisibly 
Towards our final destination.

We write,
Speak,
And sing,
About how sad we are
About how much we wish
The past had never ended,

But we never seem to talk
About the way the world moves.

We don't talk about how many want more,
But other's think we need less.
We can't talk about how a few have everything,
While other's will never have enough.
When the time comes to blame someone,
Everyone's at fault.

But we don't see the lines
Pushing and pulling us apart.
We can't see the angles, we don't know the force,
And Pythagoras can't help us anymore.
All we know is that we'll end up somewhere,
But no one knows when we'll stop. 

     I wish we didn't take "Normal" for granted. So many people never get a chance to experience "Normal".

 You would think that, what with the past two years being as awful as they were, corporations would ease off on being evil just a bit. I realize that's a bit naïve, but corporations operate based on the illusion that they make people's lives better, what their doing is solidifying that they don't make things better for people nor do they want to make things better. 

    I confess, I'm genuinely baffled by this. I know they exist to make money, but surely they know that they can't make money if society collapses? Are they operating under the assumption that people are too desperate to stop them? 

    One thing that's been keeping me going is the knowledge that the 2010's started out strong, but then 2016 happened. Therefore, it's entirely possible for the 2020's to get better at around 2025 or so. 

    I'm extremely grateful to be able to say that my life is boring right now. 

All the World's a Stage, Chapter 6

 Warning: Adult language

   Something I didn’t think about when I quit my job is that I now no longer have an excuse to avoid eating dinner with my parents. I know I should be excited, in the past I loved eating dinner with the rest of my family. We would talk about how our day was, and how excited we were for the upcoming Super Bowl or iPhone release. But then Covid hit, and we didn’t see each other for almost a year. Now that we’ve started seeing each other again, we can’t seem to find anything to talk about. My parents sometimes talk about work and what they want to do when they retire, and all I can think about is the fact that I will never be able to retire, even if I worked two jobs like a lot of people have to do these days. I know they don’t mean to upset me but eating in their house has become a painful reminder of the fact that they had it so much easier than I did. Or at least, so everyone says.

     “What do you think, Ellen?” 

     “Huh” I say to mom. She’s been talking to dad about something for a while now, and I’ve been too absorbed in my own thoughts to listen.

     “Do you think that once Covid passes and things go back to normal, you’d like to go on vacation with us?” Mom asks.

    I have to clamp my mouth shut to keep from laughing. Not at the idea of going on vacation with my parents, but at the idea that Covid is ever going to end, not to mention the ridiculous notion that we’ll ever be normal again. 

    “That might be nice.” I say.

     My parents start talking to each other again. I look down at my plate. Apparently, I managed to eat everything without even noticing what it was. I could blame my obsessive search for work, but I think the problem is I honestly wish I wasn’t here. I thought I did. When my mom invited me over, I said yes, but then when I came over dad said, “It’s good to know you’ve learned to put family before work at last.” I almost left right then. I should have left. I got enough of being stepped on by my boss, I don’t need it from my dad. 

     “I told him ‘I don’t need this job badly enough to work overtime for you. I have a family that needs me. You knew a month ago that we needed ten people in this department, and you didn’t take the steps to make sure we had enough people. I’m not working overtime; I don’t care if we can’t meet our deadlines, I’m not letting you take advantage of me.’ And then I left his office.”  Dad says.

    “What if they fire you? We have enough money trouble as it is.” Mom says, sounding like she’s about to cry.

   “Sweetheart,” Dad says, “They won’t fire me, the department would fall apart if they did. Even if they did fire me, I can walk away knowing I stuck to my guns and did what was right, not what somebody told me to do. If I worked overtime just to keep my job, I’d be compromising who I am, and every day I saw you or Lisa or Janine or Ellen, I’d remember that I let down the people who matter to me the most, the people in my life who truly need me.”

    He glances in my direction. I’m trying not to burst into tears. “Where’s Janine?” I ask, to change the subject.

     Mom sighs, “She had something come up at work and couldn’t make it. I told her it’s alright, she’s done plenty for us, help someone else for a change.”

     I try not to say, “Oh, so it’s alright if Janine shirks family dinner but not if I do it?” But I must look upset because mom says, “Ellen, she’s a lawyer. Lawyers never have a work life balance of any sort. Besides, she’s trying to earn enough to pay off her student loans, and she wants to save enough to open her own law firm. Compared to her, you have it easy. All you have to do is show up, do the work your boss gives you, and then collect a salary.”

      I can’t help it, the words, “Yeah, my life is totally sunshine and rainbows right now.” Come out of my mouth in the worst tone of voice. 

    My father glares at me and says, “I know you had to give up some of your alone time to be with us, but I would appreciate it if you made even a little bit of effort to be polite, especially since you haven’t shown up for dinner in almost six months.”

     “I showed up for Lisa’s birthday party.” I snap. Any desire I had to be civil to my father has gone out the window.

     “Do you really want credit for doing the minimum I would expect from you? I thought you knew better Ellen. I didn’t raise you to back out of responsibility because you didn’t feel like doing the work. We’re family Ellen. Family means that, from time to time, you do things you’d rather not do, and you haven’t been doing nearly enough. I expect better from you Ellen, and I’m deeply disappointed in you.”

    I look him in the eye. I swear, it’s not my father sitting next to me anymore, it’s my awful, cruel, selfish, entitled, monster of a boss, knowing I can’t possibly meet his expectations, but demanding I meet them anyway, and when I fail, demanding I do so much more because he knows I can’t possibly run away. I need his job. I need my family. Oh, heck with it, I didn’t need my job, and I’m sure I can get by just fine without my family to. 

     “Screw you. Screw you so hard. I don’t care if you ‘need me’. I don’t care if you’re life will fall apart if I’m not there, I’m tired of putting up with your nonsense. I’ve wanted, so badly to just throw it all away and come back here, but now I see that if I do that, I’ll just be trading one cage for another. You don’t care if I come to dinner or not, all you want is someone you can step on, someone so weak she’ll never say no, no matter how tired she gets. And spare me that ‘I’m disappointed in you’ garbage. I’ve done everything I can to make you two happy, and this is the thanks I get. Why do I even bother?” 

   I look up and everyone is staring at me. “Did I say that out loud?” I moan.

  “Yes.” Mom says.

  “And I want an apology right this language. We don’t use that kind of language in this house young lady.” Dad says.

    “Dad, you say things like that all the time when you think Mom isn’t listening.” Lisa says. She never quite learned when it’s best to keep your mouth shut. 

  “Okay, I’m sorry I used a bad word.” I say, with the smallest amount of sarcasm I can manage. 

  “That wasn’t a very good apology, Ellen” Mom says, sourly. “I know you’re busy, but your father’s right, you need to put family before everything else. Even work.”

    “Good thing I quit then.” I say.

    All the air goes out of the room. “You WHAT?!” My father says.

   “I quit my job. It was just me and three other women doing the work of twelve people, and the boss kept refusing to hire anyone. I had enough, so I quit.” I say.

   “Did you have a backup?” Mom says, her voice trembling.

   “No. Does it matter?” I say, even though I already know the answer. 

   “Yes it does.” Mom, says, slamming her hand on the table. “What if you can’t find one quickly, you know we can’t support you.” 

    Don’t I ever? “I’m sorry I upset you, mother, I just felt tired of working from six in the morning until eight at night for an idiot who couldn’t run his department properly. So I did what Dad would do in that situation, right dad?”

    “No, you are not right. You don’t quit a job without a back up plan. People in movies get away with that because they aren’t real people and the writers of the show wouldn’t let them starve, just whimper enough to get the audience to feel sorry for them. You don’t have that luxury, Ellen. If you don’t get a job fast enough, you’ll end up on the streets. Your mother and I can’t help you there.”

     “I’m not going to starve.” I say, with more confidence than I actually feel. “And I’m not going to let you guilt me for doing what’s right.” I say, standing up and grabbing my things.

    “Ellen, what are you doing?” Mom says.

    “I’m leaving.” I say.

   “We have dishes to do.” She says, annoyed.

   “I’ll do the dishes when I feel like I’m an actual member of this family again.” I say, stomping out of the house. 

    All the way home I keep playing the conversation. Half of me thinks I went to far, half of me thinks I didn’t go far enough. None of me is satisfied. For some reason, I keep thinking of the day Janine graduated from high school. Mom and dad were so happy. She’d worked hard and been rewarded with a perfect GPA and a scholarship to UW. Everyone kept saying she’d go far in life. Did she go far? She did get a bachelor’s and Master’s in law and landed a job at law firm, and she does plan on opening her own firm later on, but so many other people have done that, I don’t know that it’s all that special anymore. 

   Nobody expected me to go far. I worked hard, harder than Janine because I’m not nearly as smart as she is, but my grades weren’t as good. I didn’t get a scholarship, so I had to take out more student loans to get my bachelors, but at least I didn’t have to pursue a masters to get a job. I went through three jobs after college, she’s only had two, and I’m about to get another one. At least I will if I can find one.

    I’ve been applying to every job I can find. I even applied to Target. They won’t pay much, but maybe with my savings I’ll be able to survive. Or starve to death a little more slowly. Either way, it’ll buy me some time to look for a job where the pay is something I can hope to live on. 

    I arrive home at eight. The first thing I do is collapse on my bed and sob. Less than an hour ago I told my parents of, and now I already wish I hadn’t. I didn’t mean to get so snippy; I was just tired and frustrated with life. Everything about the past two years has been awful, and I can’t take it anymore. If this were the movie that I wish it was right now, a fairy godmother would come in and start a chain of events that would magically bring my family back together, get me the job I always wanted, and give me a nice house to live in instead of this awful apartment. 

    But this isn’t a movie, and soon I get up and open my laptop. I navigate to YouTube and see the video I posted about my stream. It’s coming up soon. I should be excited, but I haven’t taken nearly enough time to prepare for it. Not to mention my apartment isn’t set up for singing in, and I’m a little worried I’ll annoy my neighbors. Ah well, that’s why it’s scheduled for the middle of the day. 

   I wonder what Lisa’s posting about. I doubt she’s got a bigger following than I do. I open a new tab and type in “Lisa Thompson Tumblr” into the search bar. It takes me a while to find it, since there’s more than one Lisa Thompson out there and most of them are more famous than she is, but I finally find it, thanks to her using a picture of herself in her Tumblr avatar. 

    There are fewer posts than I was expecting, and by that, I mean there are about two posts a week rather than fifty posts a day. Most of them seem to be various iterations on the theme, “school is awful, and my parents are making me miserable.” Which, since she’s seventeen, is to be expected. Unfortunately, Tumblr doesn’t show followers directly, so I have to read through several of her posts before I get to one where she brags about having finally gotten to thirty followers. I don’t know if that’s true or not, given that it’s only thirty I suspect it is, but I’m still upset she got to double digits before I did. And that’s only on her Tumblr page, who knows how many people follow her on Facebook and Twitter. 

    I’m about to log off when the title of the post bellow that catches my eye. It says, “What can I do?”. I realize that, since it’s Lisa, it probably doesn’t say anything interesting, but I still read it anyway. The actual post says, “I remember being in elementary school, thinking I was the coolest person ever. I passed all my classes without trying. My parents kept telling me I needed to try harder and I though, ‘what for’ my sister’s spent all day locked up in their room trying to study and it didn’t make them happy, so why would I want to do that. Then middle school started. Suddenly I had to start studying. First, it was just for language arts. I know, who flunks language arts right? But at least with math if you suck people assume your just a normal person with a stupid brain. If you flunk LA, they know you’re dumb. But all throughout middle school aside from Language Arts and Geography a couple times, I passed my classes without too much hassle. The worst part about it all was the homework. I hate homework and teachers give way too much of it once you’re out of elementary school. It’s like they think you shouldn’t have a life, or at least as little of one as possible. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a secret order to kill us all and have us replaced with zombies. I was expecting high school to be the same way. And it was. Until Corona virus ruined everything. I was excited when school shut down at first, who doesn’t want to sit at home all day, right? But the longer it went on, the more I missed my friends, and homework just felt so much worse in high school than it had been in middle school. I still did okay at first, but the classes got harder, and they kept pushing more and more work on us, and now I feel like I’m about to snap.”

   “What am I supposed to do about it? My parents and sister’s keep going on and on about college, but I can’t keep up with high school, how on earth am I going to manage college? Should I just give up now and take a job at Target or, God forbid, McDonald’s? How am I going to make enough money to live on? Janine works eighty hours per week and has a master’s in law, and she still lives with roommates. Ellen’s been working full time since she finished college, and all she can manage is the crummy apartment an hour away from anywhere else. They work so much harder than I ever want to, and all it’s brought them is endless misery and crumbling drywall, yet they still won’t get off my back about working hard. I am working hard. I’ve got a zillion hours of homework every night, three clubs, community service, and I’m still somehow not ‘working hard’. Give me a break. I’ve been working hard for six years now, and I don’t want to work hard the rest of my life. I want to live on a beach somewhere and have someone bring me drinks in Coconuts. Not really, but that’s about as realistic as anything else at this point.”

    The post ends after that. Most of me can’t help but feel this is painfully amateurish. I know she’s still in high school, but don’t they teach you how to write at some point? The rest of me can’t help but think, “It’s high school. High school always sucks. Then you get out and go to college, and that’s a little better, then you get a job and it’s boring and slow but at least you earn enough to live on and do fun things, then you retire and die.” I know that isn’t true anymore, my most recent job proved that, but my parents hammered that into me so hard I still don’t want to accept it isn’t true.

     Honestly, if you were to clean this post up a bit and replace every mention of school with work, this could have been something I wrote. Heck, I could turn it into a YouTube video without changing a thing and it would still be mostly true. I remember telling Lisa on her birthday she wouldn’t be successful as a writer, or a social media influencer, and she should focus more on school. I still think that’s true, but these days it seems impossible to be successful at anything. The best any of us can seem to manage is to not die on the streets somewhere, and with Covid even that’s becoming tenuous. Put like that, maybe it’s not such a bad thing that she spends so much time online. If she’s going to end up failing anyway, why not fail at doing something she loves? It’s why I started a YouTube channel after all. 

    I pick up my phone and tap Lisa’s name in my contacts. I fully expect her to be busy, it is almost nine o’ clock after all, but she picks up instantly. “Hello,” She says, sounding annoyed. 

     “Hey Lisa,” I say, “I was just calling to say I’m sorry for what I said on your birthday.”

      “What, have you changed your mind about me being successful as an online personality?” she says. I can’t tell from her tone of voice whether she’s hoping I’ll say yes or certain I’ll say no.

     “No, I don’t you’ll be successful. Frankly, unless you somehow inherit money from Bill Gates, I don’t think there’s any way you can be successful in this day and age.” I say.

     “Well, there’s always NFTs.” She says, brightly.

     “Even if it were the only way for me to have enough money to live, I’d never get involved in NFTs. They leave a stench so foul people avoid you even if you’re famous. Just look at Julius Corvin.”

    “That old washed-up has been you used to listen to? Isn’t he, like, dead now?”

    “Unfortunately, no.” I say, “And also, even if he’s not in his prime, he’s still more successful than you or I ever will be, no matter how much we pray to the gods that we’ll rise to the top and topple him.”

   “Well, I might. You don’t have any social media presence.” Lisa says.

    “Lisa, everyone has a presence on social media these days. Even mom has a Facebook account, and when the pandemic forced me to work from home, I started a YouTube channel.”

    “Really? What do you do, vlog about how your job sucks?” Lisa says.

    “No, I write and perform music.” I say.

    “Is it any good?” Lisa says. 

    “Probably not,” I reply, “It’s just nice to have an outlet from the stress of work.” 

    “I know, right.” She says, laughing. “Hey, Ellen,” She says, sounding really somber all of a sudden, “Do you ever, like, think about what it’s like to be really famous?”

    “Everyone does.” I reply, “We all know we won’t be, but we all want a taste of what it’s like to have tons of people who all like us, no matter how stupid we are.”

    “I know, but, what if you don’t want to be famous?” She asks.

    “What do you mean?”

   “Like, you put a lot of time into your online life because you want people to see you and praise you and talk about how you’re actually a really good person who just isn’t appreciated by this stupid world, but you keep wondering if you’ll do something stupid and everyone will see it and laugh at you and tell you you’re a dumbass. And you know you’re not that dumb, but you still kind of think you could be, so you try to hide that part of you, and then you realize that means that people don’t know the real you anyway, so you just feel stupid.”

   I pause to try and work through what she just said. “So let me get this straight.” I say, “You’re worried you could become famous for doing something stupid, and you’re so worried about that that you feel like you have to hide who you are online?” 

    “Yeah, something like that.” She says.

    I think for a bit, then say, “Lisa, nobody shows their true self online. Everyone knows that if they post something stupid or vulgar, it could cost them everything. And even if you did do something stupid online, there’s so much stupid stuff made by people who are way stupider than you that I don’t think anyone would care.”

   “You’re right. I mean, I know that. But part of me just looks at all the people who got famous and thinks, ‘do they ever wish they could go back to normal?’ I know a lot of them wanted to be famous, but some of them became famous because they’re parents forced them to be famous, and now they can’t be unfamous no matter how hard they try.”

    I don’t think ‘unfamous’ is a word, but I don’t think she’d care. Teenagers live to make up dumb words. “Lisa, this is the internet. If someone isn’t working constantly to keep somebody’s attention, their audience will forget about them and move onto something else.”

    “I guess you’re right.” Lisa says, sounding doubtful. In the background, I hear mom yelling at her to get off the phone. “Gotta go, it’s late and I still haven’t finished my homework.” 

   “Okay, bye Lisa.”

  “Bye, Ellen.”

  I hang up. I play our conversation in my head. I meant what I said about people on the internet forgetting you if you don’t pay attention to them, but is that actually true? I read somewhere about the first person who was conceived via in-vitro fertilization. She talked about how she’d gotten used to being in the spotlight all her life. There are a lot of child actors who never act anymore, and they still get thousands of twitter followers. Did the guy who made the “Numa-Numa” video ever manage to move past that? It’s doubtless the first thing that shows up whenever prospective employees google him. 

   I guess that once you become famous, it’s hard to go back from that. Even if you never do anything the rest of your life, you still have those weirdos who know you because you were involved with something they loved and/or hated more than anything else, and that follows you everywhere. I know I run a YouTube channel, one that I made with the sole goal of becoming famous enough to never have to work a day in my life ever again, because I’d be able to sing for a living instead. But now I wonder if I really want to be famous. I love singing, I don’t want to give that up, but I don’t know if I want everything that goes with being famous. 

   Then again, it’s not like it matters. Julius Corvin didn’t get famous by singing, he got famous by convincing someone with money and connections to bankroll him into stardom. I have neither the talent nor the connections for that, hence my single digit subscriber count, and there’s so much better music on YouTube I’m sure I’ll be safely ignored for the rest of my days. And in a way, I can still be famous, just famous among such a small group of fans that the chance of my actually meeting any of them in public is astronomically small. 

   You know, I wonder how many creators became famous just looking for that small group of fans who loved them and only them? Did anyone really start out hoping for fame, or was fame just a “happy” accident? 

     One of the problems with blogging is that I keep having moments where my brain just doesn't want to write. Not where I can't think of anything to write, just that my brain doesn't want to write in general. It's not a big deal, since this blog is more of a hobby than anything else, it's just a thing I keep thinking I should address before the inevitable day in the not too distant future when my blog becomes amazingly popular seemingly overnight and I have praised heaped upon me by people all over the world.

    I kid, of course. But even if only one or two people ever find this blog, I want to give them a good experience. If I were forced to choose between the great writer nobody knew about, or the bad writer who got famous by spitting in critics faces, well, I choose the first. 

The World We Want

 I dream of a world
Where no one needs to speak 
To be heard.
Where we all live in silence, 
But the world won't pass us by.

I dream of a world
Where love isn't in short supply.
Whatever love is, you can find it
Wherever you look
In the eyes of those you care about.

But the world
Doesn’t care about you
Or your loved ones.

The world
Is filled with people
Who only care about
Themselves and those
They keep close.

In our world
You can't change things
Without getting people to agree with you.
And there are no guarantees that they will.

So I, like everyone else,
Can only dream of a world
In which everyone's voice is heard. 

My greatest regret

    I kind of regret not starting my Blog back in 2014. If I had, I would have gotten a lot more opportunities to talk about things absolutely nobody cares about, and I might have had more fun. I do love blogging, but I wish I was in a position where it could just be a hobby and I didn't have to worry about it being a dead end. 

My Stationary Collection

    I don't know why, but I've always loved collecting stationary. I like the idea of turning ordinary paper into a vessel for stories and memories. Because of this, ever since I was very young, I've collected pens, pencils, paper, markers, just about anything to do with marking up pieces of paper. 

     I have a giant collection of notebooks, mostly from thrift stores and gift shops because the places that are supposed to sell notebooks are also the places that typically have the worst ones. 

What I want

    The problem with living on the internet is that no matter how often you remind yourself that fame isn't a good thing for most of the people who have it, it's still very alluring. I keep waiting for someone to notice me. I don't even really know why, other than that's what bloggers are supposed to want. 

    

The Next Big Question

     People keep saying the pandemic forced us to rethink our priorities, which is why the Great Resignation is a thing now. 

      Personally, I think that there's going to be a movement asking, "Why should I leave my house?" soon. 

All the World's a Stage, Chapter 5

     I can’t keep my eyes open, but I’m so on edge I don’t want to drink any coffee. The moment I walked in the door my boss started in on me for being unable to keep up with work. I swear I finished everything yesterday, but there was so much stuff on my desk that apparently should have been done ages ago, and I honestly can’t remember if I needed to do it or not. 

     I keep trying to work, only to have numbers disappear from my mind. Is this what it feels like when you’re developing Alzheimer? Or I’m I just too tired to be here?

    I want to work. I never wanted to be one of those people who leeches off of their parents until their parents die, then pretends they aren’t dead so they can continue to collect social security. But my “I want to quit sticky not is completely filled with marks” and I don’t know if that’s because I didn’t replace it this morning, or because I just thought that a thousand times in the two hours I’ve been here. 

    If there weren’t so much work, I’d hide in a bathroom stall and cry. This is just too much for me to manage. It would have been too much two years ago, now it just feels like the world is crushing me. 

   I walk over to the water cooler. I just can’t face work right now. I pick up a cup, fill it, then just stare at the wall. Lucy walks over to me and says, “Shouldn’t you be working right now?”

    I’m not in the mood for this. “Shouldn’t you?” I growl.

    She sighs and says, “Well at least we should have more people soon.” She says.

    “Who told you that? A time share salesman?”

     “No. One of my friends in another department said that the owner is planning on making some investments that will allow the company to grow.”

    “What sort of investments?” I ask.

     “I’m not sure.” Lucy replies. “I think it was something to do with blockchains.” 

      I gulp down my water and toss my cup in the trash. I walk to my boss’ office and bang on the door. He opens it and says, “What is it, Ellen?”

   “There’s something I need to ask you.” I say.

   “Can it wait?” He says.

   I think for a bit, then I reply, “No.”

  He leads me into his office. Apparently once you’re a manager, you no longer have to stay in an enclosed room with no windows. Outside, I can see people going about their day. “What is it?” my boss asks.

     “Is it true that the owner is planning on getting involved in cryptocurrency?” I ask.

     “What does this have to do with your job?” He asks, annoyed.

     “Just tell me.” I say.

     He sighs and says, “You have to promise not to tell anyone I told you this, but yes, he is planning on branching out into investments involving the blockchain. I’m told he feels that the only way for the company to grow is if we branch out and do more in the metaverse.”

     I’m stunned. I don’t know why. Every other company on the planet is run by scum, so I don’t see why the one I’m working at would be any different. But I can’t help but feel so angry and betrayed right now. 

   I don’t even think about it, I just say, “I quit.”

   My boss looks at me in confusion, “Pardon?” He says.

  “I said I quit.” I tell him.

  He leans over and looks me in the eye, “Why? Is something the matter Ellen?”

  I want to tell him that everything is wrong. I want to tell him that I’ve wanted to quit almost since I started this job, but with the pandemic and my student loans I didn’t want to take the chance. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Not because I’m worried about being blacklisted, at the moment I don’t care, but because I know that yelling at my boss won’t change anything.

   “I’ve been debating it for some time, learning we were going to be involved in cryptocurrency was what pushed me over the edge.” I say.

   “Ellen, I’m sure you have good reasons for feeling the way you do, but right now I can’t afford to lose another employee. We’re already way behind, and if I tell my boss we’re missing this next deadline, I could lose my job. I know you’re angry, but you can’t just leave me and the rest of the team like this. We need you, Ellen. If you leave, you’re going to let us down.”

   Oh, how I wish I was in one of those movies where the protagonist can respond to his awful boss by flipping over his desk and flipping him the bird. Alas, I can’t get away with that here. If I flip out like I badly, badly want to, I will only make things worse. 

    “None of that is my concern sir. If you wanted to meet this deadline, you wouldn’t have tried to make four people do the work of twelve, or at least you would have stayed late as often as you seem to expect me to. We’ve been carrying your job for at least six months now, and at this point starvation is the only thing keeping us stuck here. I’ve had enough. All of us have had enough. I know you’re worried about your job, but if I were you, I’d accept the fact that me staying or leaving wouldn’t change the fact that you’re done.”

     I stand up and leave before he can respond. I said to much. I know that. But it still feels so good to tell him what I’ve been thinking for months now. I grab a box and start packing my things up. “What happened?” Mary Ann asks from her cubicle, “Did he fire you?”

    I can’t help but laugh. “He couldn’t fire me if I took off all of my clothes and started dancing on his desk. I quit.” 

   “Why?” Nina asks. The look on her face is one of sadness and despair.

   “I’ve wanted to for a while now. I just took the plunge.”

   “You know you could have demanded a raise.” Lucy says.

     I look over at her. “No amount of money is large enough to make up for what this job has taken from me.”

    I grab my things and walk out, filled with both joy and dread. I don’t have another job lined up. All my life my parents told me to never quit without having another job lined up. I try telling myself it’s not that bad, with so many people quitting these days I can easily find a job that will allow me to stay afloat, but in the back of my head a loud voice keeps screaming, “You’re doomed.” 

     I try not to think about anything on my way home. I walk inside and realize it’s been so long since I’ve been at home before nine at night that there isn’t any food in my apartment. Fortunately, there’s a grocery store not too far away from the house. I check my bank account to see how much food I can buy, then I realize just how big of a mistake I just made. 

    If it were just rent that I needed to worry about, I’d be fine. But there’s also my student loans, food, water payments, and other stuff I can’t remember right now. I’ve been saving all the money I can, but I still only have enough to make it maybe a month, and only if I’m very lucky. 

    I open up my laptop to look for any job I can find, and then the fatigue hits. I’ve been running on adrenaline, and without the constant worry about meeting demands at my job, I can’t keep it going. Then I start feeling sick to my stomach. I suddenly realize I’m not sure if I ate breakfast. I frequently skip it if I’m working because I eat lunch out. I need food, and more importantly, a day off.

    The stores a mile away, so I decide to walk instead of drive. I don’t want to waste money on gas until I know I have another job. Since it’s the middle of the day, the stores not very busy. I try to be careful, but between hunger and exhaustion I spend too much money on chips and soda and not enough on actual food, something I regret on my walk home. 

   I was planning on going to sleep, but with caffeine I’m awake enough to begin searching for a job. I send out thirty applications by six that night. When I’m done, I feel proud, but then an unwelcome thought enters my mind; How do I know if my new job will be any better than the one I just left?

   I try to distract myself with YouTube. I notice I’ve lost two subscribers since I checked last. I feel deflated, but since I haven’t posted anything for three months, I shouldn’t be surprised. I turn on my webcam and say, “Hey guys, sorry I haven’t posted anything for a while. Work’s been crazy. I haven’t left the office before eight since last September. I just quit this morning, so hopefully I’ll have more time to work on videos now, so that’s good. Hope you’ve been having a good time. Don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.”

   I click the off button. I should probably edit it, but I’m sure the video’s good enough as is. A good thing about having a single digit subscriber count is that you don’t need to care if your videos are good or bad, all that matters is that you have fun making them. One nice thing about not having a job anymore is that I can put more work into YouTube. I confess, I’ve missed it. 

   Out of curiosity I navigate to Julius Corvin’s YouTube channel. I know I’ve denounced him, but part of me still likes playing “Memories” when I feel sad about something. 

    Nothing seems to have changed since the last time I was here. There aren’t any new uploads, and the community tab is full of him bragging about how successful he is. I don’t know why I was expecting something to be different. Nobody seems to be angry at him for getting involved with NFTs. 

    I click away. I need to stop pretending he’ll change. He was once a big part of my life, but now he has well and truly lost touch with the people responsible for keeping him alive. He’s a lot like my boss. They’re both people whose existence depends on others sacrificing themselves for their benefit, but they’re unwilling to do anything to make that sacrifice worthwhile. 

    I go back to my YouTube channel. I love singing, I’ve done it in some way ever since I was in choir in middle school. When I was in high school, I dreamed of being a famous singer, before my father told me that was stupid. I still kind of want to be a famous singer, or at least to make enough money singing that I don’t have to work in an office anymore, but I will never be like Julius Corvin. I will let my moral compass guide me, not whatever makes me money. 

    Maybe I could be a famous singer. In this day and age, all it takes is a camera and a decent microphone to become famous. I have no plans; I could write all the songs I want and post them all to YouTube. Maybe somebody will notice me and make me a star. Or maybe I’ll get evicted from my apartment when I can’t pay rent. 

    I open the file for “The future”, my first big hit. I just need to polish it, then it’ll be ready to release. But I don’t want it to be a small release, I want to make it clear to the world that this is the next big thing, that this will take the internet by storm the way all great music does. I know, I’ll do a stream of me performing all my songs, and at the end I’ll reveal “The Future”, it’ll be a great way to both grab attention and celebrate me quitting my job. I open my webcam again and say, “Great news guys, I’m doing a stream at the end of the month. I’ll be performing all my songs live, and at the end I’ll have a new song to show you. Hope you’re free to see it.” I stop the video and save it for later. If I’m working on revealing a legend, I want to make sure the video is properly edited this time. 

    I confess, the state of the world worries me. 

So Stands She

 Far east, where America began
Stands a woman, tall, cast in bronze,
Her image looming large among the populace.
Where she stands, there is hope, hope for a world
Free of the strife and pain of old.
So stands she, a symbol of old hope,
So stands she, a symbol of new promises. 

Across the United states, over roads
Ill kept by the masses,
People traveled, in carts and on foot,
Driven by the promise of freedom.
Back east, the cities grew,
Forests of green replaced
First with stone, then with concrete and steel.
A new promise was made,
A promise for prosperity
And wealth for all.

As a symbol of that promise
A statue was built
With a name no one remembers.
But underneath the bright exterior
Anger and disunity grew
Until a spark ignited a fire so large
Everything in its path was destroyed.

We fought,
We killed,
We tried to rebuild,
And in the end we forgot everything we had learned.

But a symbol loomed large in our consciousness,
And soon all the world was consumed
By a desire for a better life. 

The west filled up,
But people kept moving.
Driven by the old promise
That one day, one shining day,
They would have a place in this great land.
People grew up praising the flag, 
And brought their children up to do the same.
If anyone criticized their great land, 
They were told, "People in glass houses
Shouldn't throw stones."
 
And back east, where America began, she still stands
Waiting for the hope she was promised.

So stands she, an image of America
That America can't seem to live up to.
So stands she, a lie told for so long
We believe it to be real.

So stands she, a symbol of 
What makes America strong
And what will break it apart one day.
She is a promise, that we would do better,
That we wouldn't repeat our mistakes,
That we would welcome all who needed our help.
But no symbol, no matter how strong,
Can stop human cruelty and ignorance. 

  I wonder, if people could pick any world we haven't already tried, what would they pick?

   I keep thinking that we're trapped in the past. I don't think going back will fix anything, it'll only remind us why we left the past in the first place. 

 I wish I thought we could go back to normal. Any normal. But I don't, and every time I see something that reminds me of the past, I feel sad. 

The world as we know it

    When this post goes up, it will have been one week since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. 

     So many people are talking about this, but the thing I keep coming back to is how so many were horrified by the invasion in Ukraine but said nothing when Syria was invaded. I am one of those people. 

    I stopped watching mainstream news in 2016. I realized that the only time I saw black people was on the news, and that every time I saw them they were being shot by police. Concluding that this was probably making me more racist, I decided to stop the watching the news. 

    I don't really know how to feel about Ukraine. I'll be honest, when news first broke that Putin had invaded Ukraine, my main thought was "Of Course". It had been building up to it for a few days, and with how badly things had been going for some time, it seemed like it was about time for warfare to break out. Honestly, everything since 2016 has all but ruined my ability to feel sad or angry about something. 

  But since then, I've been consumed with strange, conflicting emotions. I don't have any good words for what I feel about Putin. What he did was objectively horrible, and there will never be any justification for what he did. As far as I can tell, he invaded Ukraine because he thought he could get away with it. 

    But some part of me keeps thinking about the cold war, and wondering if Putin is invading Ukraine for the same reasons Donald Trump won the 2016 election. He wants to go back, to bring Russia back to the glory days of being one of the most feared nations on earth. It's a horrible thought, nobody else in the world wants this to happen, but he wants to be remembered, and he's hoping this will let him soar in his people's minds. 

    I look at Putin invading Ukraine, and think about how Donald Trump tried to stage a coup on January 6, 2021. Up until that moment, we'd been grudgingly tolerating him, certain that the mechanisms of democracy would protect us from the worst things he might try to do. But democracy didn't save us. Right now, western democracies are trying to use the mechanisms of the global economy to starve Russia into submission. What'll happen if they don't succeed? 

  All this is making me think of how we've been transitioning to a global economy. In theory, it's amazing. We don't have to worry about famine, we can get anything we could ever want, and we can go anywhere we please in an instant. But we moved to globalization without knowing what the outcome could be, and now we're seeing the costs that come with it. 

     But we can't go back. Even if we all wanted to turn our back on each other, we know that sharing what we have brings great rewards. That's why we built society to begin with. People want a freer, more globalized world. But if we want that, we have to abandon the old model of society. It's no longer a home for us, it's a prison all of us are trapped in, no matter how free we appear to be. 

All the World's a Stage, Chapter 4

    The apartments a mess. I keep meaning to clean it, but between work and family obligations, I can never find the time to do so. I try to focus on work, but I keep being distracted by a pile of old CDs in the corner.

    The CDs are from when I was younger. My parents were old fashioned, so when I asked for music for my birthdays, they’d always give it to me on a CD. That way, I’d always have it even if my computer broke, they said. They gave me all sorts of CDs, mostly from bands I wasn’t really interested in. They could never remember what was hip, they said. Eventually, I just told them to give me iTunes money.

    Strange, the one on top has a picture of Julius Corvin on it. I don’t remember owning any of his CDs, I’m pretty sure I was buying my own music by that point. I reach over and pick it up to see if I can figure out when it was made. On the front is the title “Life’s a journey”, on the back is a bunch of songs with titles like, “Old friends”, “Trouble at the office”, and “The Future”. Wait, those aren’t Julius Corvin’s songs.

    Those are my songs.

    “I must say, you are a truly wonderful songwriter. Never has there been music I was more eager to steal.”

    I leap up and look around, then see him standing next to me. A man, about as tall as I am, with a cold, calculating grin. “You’re Julius Corvin!” I say.

   He looks at me like I’m a three-year-old learning the names of colors for the first time. “Why thank you for noticing. It’s not everyday I come over to the common part of the world to meet one of my devoted fans you know.”

    “Who let you in here? How did you get here? Why are you in my house?”

    He brushes me off. “Irrelevant.” He says. He walks around the room, checking it out thoroughly, with a look on his face that suggest he’s just entered a slum. “This place,” He says derisively, “This, room, if that’s what you want to call it, is truly the worst place I’ve ever been in in my entire life.”

     “It’s called living within your means. I don’t make millions off my music like you do, I can’t even get any adds, and thanks to you,” I say, waving the CD case in his face, “I will never be able to make any money-making music. Then again, I’ll never make money selling people the belief that they own things they don’t actually own in such a way that it sets the world on fire, so maybe that’s a good thing.”

    He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Is that meant to be an insult?” He asks.

   I pause to think up a decent response. He continues, “A woman living in a trashy studio apartment with furniture so old it would be in a museum if it was anything anybody wanted to see thinks she can insult a man with a fanbase stretching across the globe. Do you really think I care if you don’t think my actions make me a good person? Goodness is never worthy of respect. Goodness makes you give up everything you have, so nobody can say you have more than your fair share. Goodness made you decide that it was worth spending money you would never have to go to a college you didn’t want to go to so you could waste your life at a job that makes you miserable.” He shakes his head sadly, “When I look at you, the very essence of purity and goodness, the compassionate person who would do anything if it made people happy, I don’t feel anything but pity for the circumstances that made you who you are. Just think of how much better it would have been if your parents had encouraged your bad tendencies.”

     I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Are you actually Julius Corvin, or are you the devil?” I ask.

     That’s when I look up and notice the blood red sky, with mountains around us and people screaming in the distance. “Oh god.” I scream.

    “Why are you invoking his name?” Julius asks me. “You don’t believe in Him. Neither did your parents. For you there is no god, nobody to look after you in your time of need, only people who want the world from you but never seem to give back.”

    I shout angrily, “My boss may be awful, but my coworkers are nice. My parents may ask a lot from me, but they give a lot in return. Janine’s amazing, she’s going to change our world one day, and Lisa, well, she’ll figure out who she is eventually, and when she does, she’ll amaze us all.”

    Julius looks at me with one eyebrow raise. He says, “Your boss is awful. You admit as much. Yet your coworkers don’t seem to be able to stand up to him and tell him enough is enough. You’ve seen what happens when people quit their jobs. All it would take would be for you to walk away and convince your coworkers to do the same. Then your boss would have to change he ways.”

    He starts pacing back and forth. I swear I see steam rising from his footsteps. “Then there’s your parents. You say they give you a lot, yet they didn’t even give you a present for Christmas last year.”

    “I’m an adult.” I retort, “And I read online that expecting adults to give presents to each other is stupid.”

    He looks at me. I sigh and say, “Also, I couldn’t afford to give them anything, so I told them to put the money they were going to spend into Lisa’s college fund.”

    “The fund they are managing with utmost care, letting it grow into an amount that, when the time comes, will let her attend Harvard if that’s what she chooses?”

   “Lisa doesn’t want to go to Harvard.” I say, then backpedal, “At least, I don’t think she does.”

   “Whether that’s what she wants or not is irrelevant. If your parents have the money and think she can get in, they’ll make her apply whether or not she wants to go, and if Harvard accepts, she’ll have to go even if that’s not what she wants. That’s what they made you and Janine do, wasn’t it?”

    He’s not wrong. I may be the only person who cheered when she found out Harvard rejected her. “Well, even if my sister is a complete airhead, she still deserves the best chance she can get to have a happy life, and if mom and dad have the money to make it happen, they should try.”

    “Indeed, they should try if they have the money. But, I fear, they don’t have the money to make it happen.”

   I leap up, “You don’t know that.”

   He looks at me the way a parent looks at a child who’s pet rat has just died, “You remember what your professor said when you were learning about finance. Don’t trust investment advisors who say they can do better than the stock market. You told your father that when he was looking to grow his retirement account. Yet your father went with him anyway. You keep telling yourself that it was just a harmless mistake, that your father would never let himself get hoodwinked, yet here he is, convinced that not only is his youngest daughter a genius worthy of getting into an Ivy league school, but that he’s so good with money he can make the same mistakes everyone else makes and suffer none of the consequences. Is it not possible that he’s doing this because he knows it will devastate you to learn that you sacrificed everything for your sister to be successful, only to then have to help pay for her college anyway? Could it be that he’s waiting for the day to show you just how little he actually cares about you?”

    “You don’t know my dad! He’d never do something like this! He worked as hard as he could to make sure we had a nice house to live in and could join all the clubs we wanted to. He was there when I couldn’t pass algebra and needed a tutor. He was so proud when Janine got into law school, and I got my degree in business. He’s not evil, if I need anything, he’ll be there for me.”

   In response, Julius points to my left. I turn an old lady, withered and frail, with baggy, wrinkled skin, and snow-white hair. I gasp, and see her mouth open too. I reach up to touch her, certain she needs help, then I realize.

   It’s a mirror.

  It’s me I’m seeing.

  I smash it. Glass goes flying. “I see you can’t handle the truth.” Julius says. He comes over and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Your job has aged you. You are no longer young, or pretty. Anyone who looks at you sees somebody so ugly they wish they could erase them from their mind. Yet you say that your parents would be there if they needed you. I don’t think they could be less present if they lived across the ocean.”

   I want to clap back. I want to say that there’s no way it could be this bad. I want to say that even if I aged one hundred years since this pandemic started, my parents would still love me. But he’s right. As soon as they could convince themselves it was safe, they started pushing me to come over for dinner. Even when I had work, they made me come over for my sister’s birthday. Even though I told dad time and again to check his financial statements, he told me I knew nothing about a subject I had to study to get my degree. I know they love me, but at the moment I’m not sure they care about me anymore than my idiot boss does.

    Julius laughs. “You finally get it. You finally understand that parents who push their daughter to go to law school could never be good people.”

   “Not all lawyers are bad.” I say.

   “True.” Julius says, “Just enough to taint the whole lot of them. Like how all singers aren’t evil, just the ones you like to listen to.”

   The he laughs. And doesn’t stop laughing. The ground beneath me begins to shake, then open up. I fall in, screaming for help, then land. I look around and see the metal bars surrounding me and the ceiling made of stone. I’m in a cell. I scream and bang in the bars. Then Julius comes up and grabs my wrist.

   “Don’t bother screaming. Nobody will hear you, and even if they did, I doubt they would care. You’re trapped here, just like your trapped in your putrid job and your awful family. You will never escape, things will never get better, you will always be a prisoner.”

    I pull my arm free and scream at him, “I am nobody’s prisoner. I won’t let you destroy me. I will break free from this cell and my miserable life, and I will be successful.”

     All he says is, “Be grateful I stole your music. It’s the only way anyone will care about what you have to say. Too bad they’ll never know you said it.”

                                                                                      ***

    I wake with a lurch. Thank God it was just a dream. Wait, if it was a dream, then why didn’t I take the chance to punch his stupid face when I still had it? I know I’m not good at lucid dreaming, but surely when I saw that the man who used to be my favorite musician was in my apartment gloating about how he stole my music, I should have known it was a dream. Who would even publish music on CDs anyway unless they were planning on selling it at a crafts fair?

    Looking back, it feels laughable to think that Julius Corvin would even be able to find my music, let alone want to steal it. I have five subscribers, so there’s no way he’d find it unless he knew my name, and I’m not even anywhere on his forums. Even if he saw it, I doubt it’s original or witty enough that he would want to steal it. In a way, I almost wish I thought he would. Then I would know that not only am I able to write amazing music, but I’d also have the satisfaction of suing him. Granted, it would be horrifically expensive from my perspective and nothing more than a minor inconvenience for him, but sometimes us little folk have to take what we can get.

    Imagine what it would be like to sue him. I’d call Janine first and tell her everything, then send her a big box of evidence that I’d meticulously collected. Then I’d set up a crowd funding page and tell Lisa to tell all of her followers on social media about it. I’d then post a video talking about how much I loved him as a teen, how he remained a source of inspiration throughout my college years, and how when I was an adult plugging away at work, he was the only thing that kept me sane, but then he got involved in the shadiest scam and man can attempt to pull on those who value him, and I saw him for the man he truly was, the devil in human form, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he decided to steal from someone, but I had no clue it would be me. Unlike all my other videos, this would spread far and wide, as everyone seeing it would be moved by a sense of justice, and I would get all the money I needed to prove I’d been wronged. After I won the case, I would have a massive following, moved by my lovely music that perfectly encapsulated what it felt like to live in the 2020’s.

    That would be amazing. Too bad that won’t happen.

    The rest of the dream though. I know he spent a lot of time badmouthing me and my parents, but I don’t remember what he said. I wish I did, so I could prove just how much of a liar he really is. I think most of it was about how my parents don’t really care about me, they just pretend they do. Well, that’s easy enough to disprove, just look at all the photos they hang up on the walls of me and my sisters. I don’t think the dream was really saying anything about how I think my parents don’t like me much, it’s just me being stressed about work.

    I’m about to settle in to go back to sleep, then I pick up my cell phone to check how long before my alarm rings. It’s 5:15 now. My alarm’s set for six. I moan. I know I could technically go back to sleep, but I know I won’t be able to, so I may as well get up. I throw off the covers, and then I just weep. I’m so tired of work. I’m tired of never getting a good night’s sleep. I’m tired of watching the world collapse around me.

   It’s not just that we can’t get any more employees at work. It’s going through the grocery store and seeing all the empty shelves. It’s reading articles about how many school districts can’t find teachers and many hospitals can’t find doctors and nurses. It’s seeing people online complain about the proliferation of NFTs and seeing many wealthy elites buy into them anyway and watching them push us to buy them as well. It’s knowing that the world sucks, has always sucked, and there isn’t a thing I can do that will change it.

     I don’t just want to quit my job right now. I want to quit life. I want to just hole up in my house and weep for everything I’ve lost, not just since the pandemic, but since 2016, that sense of hope that things would always get better and I would never, in my life, feel like I was at risk of never having enough. But I can’t do that. No matter how bad I feel, I can’t stop going out and doing my part, even if doing so leaves me feeling so empty inside. I wish so badly my parents were part of the ultra-wealthy, the people who don’t even notice we’re struggling. Then I wouldn’t be trapped in my life, and I could live it like I always had. I know that makes me a bad person, but right at the moment I don’t care.

    I look at my phone again and see a notification that Lisa’s posted. It’s probably from yesterday, but she could be getting ready for class. I remember her complaining about how horrible school’s been lately. If she’s up this early, she might have a point. I can’t help but feel sorry for her, it’s one thing for an adult to worry about the world, it’s another thing for someone who isn’t even out of high school yet.

    I get out of bed and wander to my bathroom. I look into the mirror and notice the bags under my eyes. I don’t know that my job has aged me, but it certainly has drained my spirit.

    Whatever. Nobody in the world has ever wanted to do their part, but we keep doing it anyway because our friends and family needs us. I could give up, but that would only make me a bad person, the kind who lives with their parents until their forty because the don’t want to admit they’re losers.

    So it’s time to get ready. No matter how tired I am, no matter how much I want to just leave, I have to keep working. It’s the only thing that reminds me that I’m still a good person.

 Our world isn't real.