I closed the door of my apartment. It had been a long way home. A twenty-minute walk on a normal day, had taken me an hour. Shoulder still hurting, joined by an aching right knee that must have taken damage falling on the ground. I passed multiple people on the streets but nobody cared to ask why an elderly person would have covered himself in mud. My face a mess, brownish grass sticking to its surface, clay muck covering half. I had yet to find the courage to wipe it off. The last remainders of the life I led.

Some people would find it over dramatic. Others would say it border lined obsession. While some might understand what it meant to live your life for one purpose. One singular goal. More important, they would understand what it meant if that purpose went away and left you behind with nothing. Was I sane to devote my life to the beautiful game of kicking ones’ foot against a spherical shape of leather? No. Did I spend way too much time on it? Yes. Did it make me a happier person? Maybe. It didn't matter anymore. It was done. The book closed. Big nose Terrance would build luxury apartments on top of the book. And here I was, scraping my savings together to buy this shabby three-room apartment in some backwater neighborhood. While no one would remember me.

Standing in the hallway I tried to take the dirt covered rain boots off, but the belly proofed hard to work around. A sigh escaped my mouth as I walked into the apartment with the boots still on. A trail of dirt prints and grass following my every step. I couldn't care less anymore. In three hours some cleaning lady paid by my son or daughter would come in to clean the place anyway. Better give her something to do while she is at it. Cleaning bots were cheaper by the hour but had a start up investment that was rather steep.

Walking down the hallway I pulled off the raincoat I had gotten as a present. Putting it on the peg on the wall. I had been the manager of the first team for ten years when I got it. The guys had rewarded me by throwing me under the bus, relegating. I had to do some serious explaining before the board had let me go on to the eleventh year. I had made it my purpose during summer break to let the guys responsible go through hellish training. They had given me a raincoat as a peace offer. I loved the coat. It was already thirty years old and it couldn't close in my current obese state, which was a bummer. We won the competition and got promoted back the next year. Many said they had seen none of my players as fit as they had been that year. The players where the lucky ones, early summer break hell training became mandatory from that point onwards.

Thinking back at their screams of injustice made the corner of my mouth twitch a little. The smile would have been there in its full glory if my face was not coated in dried clay. What a fucked-up part of my life had I come to. The worst part of it all was that I had never made it big. I had always been in one of the lower leagues. Wages were normal there. So was my status in society. It did not matter much. I did it for more than fame. But at times like these, I wished I had done something that made a difference. Made an impact.

The raincoat fell off its designated peg and on to the floor. I stared at the unmoving object that lay crumbled on the cheap plastic that covered most of the floor. It could be all in my head. Maybe God was not giving me yet another metaphor of what my life had come to.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I turned around, not bothering with the coat. Struggling to get to the living area avoiding more accidental confrontations with the meaning of life. One dirt stained step after another. I wobbled into the living room, and the heat from the fusion-fueled heater assaulted my cold and insensible face. I felt light-headed for a moment. My world spinning until I grabbed the chair sitting next to me. Leaning on it I heard the old piece of garbage creak under my sizable weight. With more luck than wisdom, I was smart enough to use my good shoulder. I might have gone out cold If I had used the bad one.

I opened my eyes again and looked into the living room. It wasn't much. With that, I meant that most of my stuff were still in the boxes I put them in four months ago. It was a little before, that I sold my share of the club and moved out of the house I had lived in all my life. It had become too big and lonely for just me to occupy. And after the death of my wife, it felt just as true for the house.

The mahogany chair I was putting a sizable chunk of my weight on had been an heirloom from my father's side of the family. A dreadful piece of antique. My children almost begged me to get rid of it, selling was preferable but Norma was even willing to take a sledgehammer to it. The older I got, the more of my respect it had earned. We old things needed to stick together in a world that saw us as a waste of space and resources.

I took my hand off of it, continuing my long and painful gait towards the comfortable recliner. Sitting in front of an old school flat screen television. My children thought me mad for still having one. This model was almost thirty years old. But who needed a television where the actors practically exploded next to your seat? Augmented reality was for the young and brave. All I wanted was to sit with my legs up and smoke a cigarette while the flat screen entertained me from a distance.

I walked over the beige rug that lay on the floor with as much care as I did for the plastic floor tiles covering the rest, knowing it would stain, but I needed to get to the chair to remove the rain boots. I might have tried the antique. The risk of going straight threw it was not worth saving the rug from a mud bath. I hated the piece of crap anyhow. Something my late wife loved. I didn't care enough to object and go a few rounds of arguing before giving up. Only taking it with me because the floor was cold without it.

I arrived in the chair. Letting myself fall into its soft embrace. A breath of relief escaping my pained body and mind. I pressed my toes against the heel of the rain boot. Bit by bit the boot lost its grip on my foot, sliding off, onto the ground below. That was one. The other would have me sacrifice either my clean fingers or my socks. Not wanting to get up again to change socks I made the only logical decision. I leaned forward, my belly still struggling against the action but now my arms were just about long enough to reach the critical pressure point on my heel. The boot slipped off and now I had a pair of freed feet and a hand covered in mud and brown blades of grass. I stared at my hand for a moment, bringing it towards the rug wiping the mud off before sitting back into the reclining chair, my feet up, my eyes staring at the ceiling. Home again.

I sighed, so what now?