EDIT: It would be prudent to note that this work is inspired from a story a friend told me.
My earliest memories were that of cold sensations and loud noises. There was a man I recognized as my dad shaking a bell at me. He made lots of funny noises. There was a woman I knew as my mom holding me while telling stories. Those memories were the only time I felt genuinely satisfied, if you could understand that. As I grew up, I wrapped my head more and more around the situation that I found myself in. I started to realize that the delivery truck that I slept in and the canned foods I ate every day weren't normal. I realized that cleaning myself at the fitness centers and standing in line at the soup kitchens weren't something a kid like myself did. I had to adjust to that quickly when I learned that I was "poor", and I hid that at school. Luckily, public education was still around and accessible, though I knew I would never be able to scrounge up the money needed to join a club or sport. The most embarrassing thing for me as a kid was before I learned any of this, and invited a couple of friends in the third grade over to the truck. They were less than impressed, so to say, and my social standing in school plummeted. I don't think I've had any close friends since word began to spread about my financial status.
I guess I should have tried to make the best out of that situation back then. All good things have to come to an end, and when my dad died because of malnutrition, my mother and I found ourselves without a way to pay for what meager necessities we needed to live. We starved for the first night. The next day my mom told me that she would start working. I wondered how, I learned that she dropped out of high school. I found out the hard way, while walking home from school and finding her bent over the back of our truck squealing like a pig. I don't think I was ever the same, but life goes on, and my mom kept running the same kinds of risks.
It was in high school that things really got bad for me. I was about to graduate school. I was in my senior year and with the limited resources I had, I was about to walk away with a diploma and find my first meaningful batch of work. I walked home one day and found my mother lying on one of the small mattresses in our truck, naked and covered in blood. Her cell phone, the only phone we had, was broken. I ran for help. I remember how everything felt surreal, like I was watching a play as I grabbed the nearest pedestrian. She was dead before she could reach the emergency room.
I kept things under wraps. My parents never reached out for help. I didn't know I could. What the doctors told me, what the policemen said, I didn't trust it. Edgy and clich?, I know, but I just didn't see how they could help me. There were tons of other people living in the same conditions I was, why should I have been the exception to the rule? I didn't believe that they could just make my problems vanish. So I lived by myself. The truck wasn't confiscated, and became my cold little barrier to the elements. I had no food, so naturally I knew I had to look for a job. However, nobody was hiring. To feed myself, I dug for scraps in trash bins. To stay warm, I took rags from the trash. I smelled like trash. I looked like trash. It shouldn't have surprised me that I found myself getting kicked out of the job center empty handed more and more quickly. I had to look presentable.
So I stole. I picked up a brick off the streets and went to well-to-do neighborhoods and broke into their cars. I stole valuables, and pawned them. I took money, and saved it. Then, I made a mad dash for relative safety. Eventually I managed to save enough to purchase a cheap suit and some cleaning supplies. I went back to the fitness center and freshened myself up. Lo and behold, I was finally offered a job like it was some magic spell. I took it without hesitation.
Of course, having a job didn't put an end to all my problems. It was a terrible job by most standards. It wasn't anywhere near enough to support my standard of living. It was, for all intents and purposes a part-time job. It didn't help that my co-workers knew I was street scum. I dressed in smelling clothes and probably smelled myself despite my attempts to freshen up as much as I could. Nobody talked to street scum, it was common sense. It was like trying to become buddies with the old hobo that sleeps in the alley. I understood that.
However, there was one girl who was different, in more ways than one. She was foreign, I knew that. I also knew that she held a better position than me. But more than her being foreign and having a better income, she also was the only one who bothered talking to me. I didn't know why she would, nor did I care. I was happy that I had somebody to talk to after so long. I lacked social interaction so likely I said a lot of things that were strange or misunderstood. She didn't seem to mind, though it may be because her grasp of the English language wasn't strong.
She was also quite nosy. We ate together at lunch, and she would bring up some embarrassing questions. I'd do my best to avoid them, but in the end she would give me a look that suggested she wasn't very impressed. One day, she finally dropped the bomb when I dodged yet another question about my life. "You're street shit, aren't you?" She asked bluntly. I couldn't respond. What could I say? I knew I smelled of it. The fitness center could only smarten up to my ways before barring me access entirely. She nodded, as if my silence were a confirmation and the next day she suggested we eat out, and demanded that I tell her everything. I had numbly nodded my head.
It was a pizza parlor, not to shabby of a place but it was a place that was forever engraved in my memory. I arrived early, and when I saw her walk in with a stack of forms, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was when she was somewhere in the middle of explaining to me what each form was and the benefits that I felt the tears rush to my eyes. For the first time in years, somebody was actually offering me a hand for help. It was too much for me to bear, and I began weeping like a child in a pizza parlor off the main street. She said nothing, but I remember her patting me on the shoulder awkwardly. For the first time, somebody wanted to help me. And for the first time, I reached out for help. I spilled the beans completely; I told her everything about my life. She only nodded occasionally, sliding me forms to fill out as quickly as I finished them.
After work the next day, she handed me a small backpack, and told me to gather my things. My truck, long since out of fuel in the lonely lot was not something I could take with me. She told me she'd have that taken care of. She told me about all the benefits I was missing out on, and reassured me that things will get better. I hung on to those words as the truth, daring to hope and believe in somebody for the first time. I was taken to a comfortable-looking apartment building after the day was done, and I marveled at how warm it was. She demanded that I take a shower, while she washed my grimy belongings, and I had no objections whatsoever.
There were new ground rules for me now. I could not leave the sofa after lights went out. I was to help out whenever she needed it, no exceptions. I had to continue filling out mountains of forms, and I couldn't use any of the electronic devices. I didn't care. Being given a home and somebody that cared was worth all of it. I dared not disobey her. Time continued to pass, however, and she began to trust me more and more. I was allowed to watch TV and go to the bathroom after she went to bed. I was trusted to go out and do the groceries now. She was my guardian and I was her loyal servant. It sounds lame, I know, but the life I had been given was something I dared not hope to have in the past.
One night she tells me to go and take a shower since I had not done so. I came back afterward to find that the sofa blankets and pillows had been put away. I go to inquire about this and she merely motions to her own bed.
"Is warmer to sleep together, no?"
I couldn't believe my eyes, though I dared not take this the wrong way. She hopped into the bed and I followed after closing the lights.
"No funny business." She says. I immediately affirm this. She seemed satisfied, snuggling up to my back. "You are gentleman. You do not deserve to sleep like pig in the mud outside." she says. She wraps her arms around me and seems to fall asleep. Of course, I thought about it, but as you guessed I made it my damned not to even come close to doing any of it. It took me a while, but eventually I did manage to fall asleep.
Christmas was around the corner at this point. I knew exactly what to get her. I had been carefully saving my precious income from the job, and made sure I could keep it a secret from her. After I purchased the gift, I was already excited for the holidays so I could give it to her. The days dragged by, and she became more and more eager for Christmas to roll around as well. On the night before Christmas, she stayed up with me, counting down the seconds until midnight. She even followed the childish rule that she could open one present then and the rest on Boxing Day. The moment the clock's hands reached the 12, she jumped up from the sofa.
"Christmas!" She squealed, moving over to the modest pile of gifts and agonizing over which one to open first. I stepped forward, tapping her shoulder and presented my gift. She snatched it from my hands with a wide smile, tearing at the wrapping with zeal. She pulled out of the plain box a flute, her eyes widening in amazement. I learned she used to play the flute as a child, but eventually gave it up. She had been saying she wanted to get back to it, but never had the spare change nor memory to purchase one. "Thank you! Thank you! How did you know?!" She exclaimed, enveloping me in a big hug. I hugged her back, telling her it was just a small way that I could repay her for everything she had done for me. She pulled back and smiled. "Well. Here is my present to you." She replied softly, a hint of rose coloring her cheeks. She pulled me into her bedroom, tugging my shirt off in preparation for a long night.
I woke up in a daze, suddenly aware of the sound of music floating in from the other room. I looked at the clothes on the floor, and my naked self and realized with overwhelming joy that last night was real. I dressed myself and quietly entered the other room, where she was sitting. She was in a trance, playing the flute I gave her with a nostalgic expression. She noticed me eventually though, and placed her present down, walking over to me.
"New rule." She begins in a matter-of-fact tone, "You do not accept any housing offers, ever. You are my boyfriend now." She says, smiling. I nodded mutely, and she gives me another huge hug. "Merry Christmas." She said. I hugged her back, returning the phrase.
Now officially a couple, I didn't see much of a change in our lifestyle. There were a few obvious ones, but our daily lives remained mostly the same. We continued to work, planning to spend a vacation somewhere nice. We took extra hours whenever we could, the extra workload didn't seem to bother us one bit now that we had a worthwhile goal. She had introduced me to her parents over the phone, and later she told me they approved until I met them. Everything was unnaturally perfect.
It was February then, when out of the blue she collapses at work. I dropped what I was doing the moment I heard the news, and headed straight for the hospital. They told me they were trying to figure out what happened and what to do. They told me she was in a coma. They told me a lot of things, and I can barely remember any of it in my state of shock. She didn't say a thing about it, if she knew anything. I could only watch her limp form as the machines beeped and whirred around her. Eventually I was forced to leave.
I immediately called her family, and after assuring them I would take care of her to the best of my ability, I spent most of my waking hours by her side. The doctors told me that perhaps some stimulation would wake her up, though by the tone of their voice it seemed like a hopeless prospect. Still, I continued to try. Every day, I would sit down next to her and whisper into her ear "Wake up babe, it's Christmas!". Sometimes, I thought I'd see her lips twitch into a brief smile.
In the end, it didn't work. They finally declared her to be brain dead, and against my will, I allowed them to cut the life support. I called her family, telling them what happened. I spent the days after preparing her body for the transport back home to the country she came from. I sent as much money as I could, determined to have her funeral be as lavish as possible. I quit work. I filed for unemployment and social security benefits. I hardly ever leave the house now, except to pick up groceries. I go to sleep at night clutching a picture of her.
If moving on means forgetting about her, I hope I never do.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/sRkhIQ3iG84/viewtopic.php
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