Somewhere inbetween a milky spiral, on an azure planet that is blotched in brown and green, there is a private island, as the residents would call it, hidden surreptitiously in the marine expanse and generally barred for the general public.
Frothing waves crashed onto its beige sandbank ruthlessly, just to draw their anger back in another attempt to drown their arid counterpart.
A couple meters next to this perpetual battle, a bulky man of imposing stature can be made out sitting jauntily in the sand, leisurely listening to the waves‘ attacks with a nonchalant expression painting the part of his face that was not hidden behind his lightly brown-tinted sunglasses.
On first sight, you could see that his garments were a bit strange for the occasion. A fancy black blazer lay next to him, while a white collared shirt dressed his torso, the buttons partly undone. Shoes varnished in black lacquer rested on a small sandy hill not far away.
Truth be told, his attire was a bit too formal to be worn at a beach–when have you ever seen a white-collar worker sporting their work uniforms for a day in the blistering sun?– It seems that the black haired man is either resistant against the heat or simply used to wearing these clothes, no matter the weather.
Lost in thoughts, he stared at the magnificient vista in the front. A great marine nothingness expanded beneath him and a whitely blotched turquoise nothingness formed the above.
He silently sat in the sand for few a minutes before starting to scold the air.
“These online-meetings are killing me. What exactly do they even want? You can decide on the miniscule and boring details alone! Let me have some rest god damn it. I should just don my swimwear in the next meeting to make them understand.“
After a short fit of anger he sighed heavily and stretched his arms into the air in another unfruitful attempt to resolve his jetlag exhaustion before falling into the lightly cream-colored sand.
Another boring day is a step away from ending.
...
A slight frown formed on his face.
Lately he felt like his life has become problematic. Another day passes. Another day wastes away. Another day filled with a whole lot of nothing. No, rather it was filled with lethargic emptiness, with insignificance, fully devoid of interesting stimuli.
“It feels like there‘s nothing left to do,“ he muttered out loud before closing his eyes and continuing his thoughts inwardly.
And exactly that is the problem...
Never once in my life have I imagined, that having less daunting problems would become one of my biggest complaints!
Smooth sailing is good for business and all but man ... it‘s way too boring!
The imposing man was called Théo Floga.
Altough Théo grew up in relative poverty, he managed to conquer the business world like a storm. Aquiring all the enviable things he wanted to have in his adolescenct years, he was quite the successful man, not even mentioning that he managed to do all that in no more than his fourty years of lifetime!
Money, Power, Women, Freedom and Respect ... He fearlessly hunted for these vices and virtues continuously until he aquiesced every single thing.
Well, that’s what he had thought at least...
When reaching one peak, you glimpse the jagged heights of another, and so he tried out many different endeavours outside of the economic realm.
And somehow, he managed to complete them with pure eagerness and indefatigueability.
Climbing the Mount Everest or diving into lightless, fearful abysses of the ocean into almost unbearable depths. Discovering unknown exotic animals and insects, along with fungi and plants as the acting leader of jungle excursitions or reading hundreds of books, just to write bestsellers himself.
He dabbled in everything that seemed intriguing, and in the meanwhile he found out about his preferences, his fears and his distastes. He did not do these things with the intention to tell boisterous stories at fancy balls and gatherings, and neither to enrichen his reputation, nor to appear valiant in front of the fairer sex.
No... Absolutely not. He did it out of the sole, sad reason that is boredom!
An inner dissatisfaction with the world he can’t leave behind no matter where he goes.
With these bitter thoughts plaguing his mind once again, he grabbed a handful of sand in anger and threw it to the side, making it vanish with the gusts of wind streaking through the deserted palm beach.
“In the entirety of my lifetime I have fostered countless relations and grown obnoxiously wide networks,“ he exclaimed in a low voice, “ Everything to keep me entertained, to make me full, to make me whole. I’ve done it all!“
His bitter voice grew louder in exasperation, joining the whistling wind, before being ultimately drowned.
“But now, at the long-awaited point, where I should stand proud, satiated and satisfied ...“
He swung his head up to face the sky and blurted out in incredulity, “I’ve grown bored of it all.“
Hell, there must be something wrong with me.
He fell back on his back from the sitting position he ended up in his rant and squinted his eyes into the burning golden sun. His thoughts travelled further.
My most noteworthy achievement, atleast in the eyes of the public, is the vast amount of wealth that I’ve managed to generate throughout my life. I’ve had my hands in the most successful business ventures of the last decade and rubbed shoulders with economic titans. My name alone became a trusted trademark for quality, innovation and success.
I am not the richest man on the planet, but I should at least be somewhere up top. At this point it’s just numbers on the screen.
He started guffawing in a roaring voice “Hahaha– Totally went to shit, this whole endeavour! Being rich is lackluster and f***ing tedious!“
“And to think I devoted half my life to this crap, while being absolutely convinced that this would ensure no regrets?“
Théo’s face turned sour and he scowled deeply, his tightly knitted eyebrows exuding pure scorn as he made a bitter realization.
I bet on the horse with a missing leg...
Abashedly he dug his face into the palms of his hands with carelessly strong force, resulting in a loud clap ringing in the vicinity. Only the gusts of wind could hear his next whisper.
“Damn it ... So embarrassing, should’ve searched for the meaning of life or something...
“...Become a monk or something.“
Putting his self-deprecating rumble to the side, he adopted a serious bearing and lifted his dominant hand to grasp the air as existential melancholy rolled over his being.
Is that all my flimsy existence accounts for in the end? Some money and reputation? Can’t my fingertips reach a little higher? Push a little farther and prod at the invisible lid that pressed down on me my entire life?
His hands fell down to the ground and a deep sigh left his lips, “My delusions almost sound poetic, I think that’s enough sun for today!“
He stood up, walked to his lounger and took a greedy gulp of the Pina Colada, just to lie back onto the white plastic pool chair, covered in cool shade, donated by a spotted sun parasol, before falling prey to another melancholic train of thought.
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Do one thing, and gain another. That’s the irony of life.
Ambition kills a peaceful life just as much as curiosity kills the cat. In this scenario... wouldn’t I sadly be the curious cat filled with ambition?
He scoffed and whispered a faint remark before sitting in silence once again, “Too much sun, too much sun.“
For a short moment, the irritated man came to despise his mortal flesh and frail mind somewhere between the conscious and the unconscious. He hated the limitations of his options and consequently, the accompanied boredom.
As more waxing and waning thoughts wandered amidst his mind, he clenched his fist out of deep spite. He clenched it so hard, the area of skin underneath his nails turned ivory white before loosening up and allowing the blood to circulate again.
Finally he put a stop to his melancholic, somber mood when another familiar line of thought entered his head. He had a deja vu experience.
Perhaps, I shouldn’t be so ungrateful.
Right! Théo! Humble yourself! Modesty is key to a happy life, remember? We’ve been through this!
There are starving people out there without breadcrusts to satisfy their hunger, without water to quench their thirst and without shelter from the cold.
And here you are ... complaining pettily about mundane things like not having enough fun and satisfaction in life, despite being surrounded by redundancies and repleteness!
Hypocrite, that’s what you are!
At times like these, he questioned his pettiness in a self-deprecating manner, but deep down he knew he couldn’t disown his character.
“Hope is a dangerous thing,“ he faintly whispered with a deep longing.
“It’s not quite the picture perfect multi-millionaire lifestyle anyways. My life that is.“
Théo honestly revealed this truth before falling into deep reminiscense, “I was at the bottom, too, a long time ago“
Being a single child, meant being on my own after my parents untimely passed away a couple years back.
My mother worked a job at a grocery store before the cancer spread fatally. It came as quite the suprise and after fighting a heart-wrenching battle for months upon months she was finally able to find her peace.
That’s how she left, the lovely glue that kept us sticking together.
That’s just the way life worked, is what my father and I told ourselves over and over again, to cope with the cruel and sudden loss of my mother.
But even if we knew about the mysterious intricasies of fate and life, and the fact they worked in incomprehensible ways, it wasn‘t enough to bury the cold fact that the ones left behind, had to keep on living afterwards.
So with my father losing his guiding light, he found another guide in the bottom of the bottle.
But this guide ... it wasn’t reliable at all.
In retrospect... I can not blame him in any way for trying to find solace in bleak times.
It is after all, human nature.
What I cannot forgive, is him taking the easy way out and leaving me behind with double the anguish.
After what seemed like an eternity of self wallowing and countless harrowing weeks in intoxicated degeneracy, I managed to recover. I recovered from the loss. It was slow and painful, yet I did.
At this point I have barely turned 20 years old.
Forwarding my sorrow into work, I’ve gradually come to be what and who I am now. A made man. A man with everything the heart could covet but painfully enough, noone to share it with. And what was equally painful, were the sweet joys of success suddenly turning bland and dull.
In any case, without running off on a tangent too much I’ll say it has been quite the lonely ride.
I have no wife yet, no kids, no close family members. Just a couple of good friends, a set of valuable confidants I had the good luck to meet in this life. Honestly, they are the only valuable thing I have left in this life...
The only other people in my life are bloodsucking corpoorate leeches, waiting for a chance to sink their slimy teeth deep into my flesh, ogling me for my golden blood. Either scheming or masquerading, they are machiavellian masterminds, hungry for power and despotism.
What’s more, I’ve already turned 38 years old the other day!
How ridiculous! Where is my picture perfect wife?! Where are my sweet, cheeky kids?!
At this moment his monography was interrupted by a young man dressed in a light white shirt and straight black trousers, a cloth wrapped around his arm. He arrived next to the parasol and politely bowed.
“Mr. Floga, Sir. Your dinner has been prepared.“
Fidgeting his fingers behind his back, an apologetic look formed on his face.
He anxiously added, “A-Also ... about the specific dinner you requested. Well, it seems the cook had a problem with it and wanted me to apologize in his stead.“
“He couldn’t fulfill your demands and instead substituted your wish with a hearty pork-brothed noodle soup. Really, it is the best recipe on the market he told me to convey to you!“
Théo glanced at the waiter and got a good look. After a few breaths he sighed with disappointment, “Just call me Théo.“
“And why can’t he do such a simple thing? It should certainly be simple to prepare.“
The waiter twitched, “B-But... Spicy Instant Ramen? You have to look out for your health more.“
Théo shaked his head and exclaimed dismissively, “... But that’s my favorite by far! Just prepare the packet, throw in some other stuff, boom, you got excellent food!“
“...I- I’m sorry, but your nutritionist agrees wholeheartedly with the cook.“
He scolded the cook in satire, “Tell Jeanne that he’s a miser! Never cooking the good stuff, tsk!“
“...Well, whatever. Forget about it. Tell him I’ll come eat after going for a swim.“
“Yes, Sir.“
After delivering the bad news, the server turned the way he came from and soon arrived at a marvelous beach house of enormous size.
“W-wait! Don’t tell him he’s a miser! It was a joke!“ Théo shouted to the waiter, but he was already too far away to hear his exclamations inbetween the whistling beachwinds.
...
“You should tell it to the nutritionist ...“ he sighed with a chuckle and a scolding headshake, but soon formed a serious expression.
“Wait... who the hell even hired the nutritionist?“
“Was it really me?... Haha now that is bad news.“
Théo gave a wry laugh, and pondered for while before dismissing the useless thoughts, “No point thinking about it. The food will probably be delicious as always.“
But yet he murmured quietly with a light frown, “As for the Samy*** noodles, I’ll have to sneak some the next time I’m in the city. Hell, I’ll just cook them myself!“
He sighed with a melancholic smile on his lips, “Hahh~ How can you not call me a pitiful bastard.“
But maybe pity is what a bastard deserves.
His eyes turned dull and lifeless yet again, thinking about the state of current affairs.
Boring political schemes, witless debates of company executives, risk-averse strategies, stupid public relation campaigns that couldn’t be more run off the mill, accompanied by feigned smiles fully able to spit out pretentious lies.
It’s all asskissing in routine.
Théo stood up and disrobed down to his underpants, before he started walking in the direction of the water. His muscly body faced the endless blue, shining heroically as he gazed at the sinuous ocean and observed how fast the tides were changing.
Just some time ago, he had realized that this concept wasn’t limited to the vast oceanic waters.
Change affects lives aswell, considering how his life now, doesn’t hold a shred of the thrill and integrity it was comprised of in the vernal time of his life.
A long while back, where the sorrow of losing slowly forgot reminding him of its existence.
Where an incandescent, tempestous passion replaced it to shake awake every crevice of his being.
The good old times of longing and desire.
* * *
His feet stepped slowly into the water, further and further until it reached his chest and he began swimming.
Théo thought about the passionate days. The bright array of emotions he experienced, the tough calls he had to make, and even the feeling of bittersweet defeat he had to go through painfully often on his way to the top.
Even these moments were nothing but good memories in the end. They reminded him of the days he wanted to change, to alter his life and in the end... unmistakably did.
A glimmer of light reflected in his eyes.
He couldn’t help but guffawe, “Gahahaha, maybe I’m beginning to get old and sentimental. My life wasn’t that bad, was it?! Can be worse! Fuck it, let’s quit the nilly willy and look for a nice wife and make twenty kids! I’m just at start of my life!“
In his reminiscent and fervent thoughts, he hasn’t quite realized how far out he had actually swum. He turned back and realized that the coast was barely visible anymore. The unrelenting ocean winds blew against his face and the tides pulled his body to directions, only they knew.
“Puhh, time to swim back,“ Théo sighed and began digging his hands into the water surface.
While propelling himself forward, a sudden pain stabbing his right leg sent cold shivers down his spine and a nervous shout forced itself from his lips, “ARGH!“
“My leg is cramping up!“ he realized in panic and immediately tried to shout back to the shore, “HELP! HELP ME!“
Sadly, no answer came back. His shouts were mercilessly swallowed up by the distance.
“Fuck, what’s with this timing? God must have heard me cursing him in my head these days,“ he thought out loud in a shiver, but just a moment later he had found strange resolve, “But I haven’t done the triathlon in vain! This little distance I can easily cover with three limbs, hell it wouldn’t even be a problem to do it with two!“
As if calling for misfortune, his blasphemic remarks brought about another trial. His left leg also started convulsing.
Incredulous of this ill-fated development, his face turned into a big scowl and his wet hair was zipped with electric impulses, trying its best to stand straight on end.
Goosebumps formed on every pore of his skin, alarming damp shivers running up and down his back he uttered, “W-what ..?“
This is going to be difficult...
Not losing his hope just yet, Théo stubbornly dragged himself over the water surface with just his hands, trying his best to ignore his immobilized legs, which were pained by persistent spasms.
Massive waves of water steepled over his body and covered his entire figure from time to time, just like a liquid blanket.
Only once had Théo felt so powerless before and it was right after the deaths of his parents.
He was like a trifling ant in midst of hungry lions and tigers.
The air around him started to change for the worse. Somehow all water torrents grew more fierce, pulling on his already exhausted body with unfeeling urgency.
The winds were the same, suddenly turning from an uncomfortable breeze into invisible whips slashing on his exposed body parts.
The distance he could cover in this state was miniscule.
His arms started aching long ago and it seemed like they had reached their limit now too... Painful spasms in all of his extremities made him a lone, defenseless sheep to the wolfish ocean.
After struggling and screaming out in exasperation, a deep exhaustion washed over his body and Théo started sinking into the dark parts of the ocean without any further resistance.
The waters gulped him down in one big bite, with no intention of spitting him out. It was as if he had never existed at all... The situation was helpless.
“Is this how I die?“ was the question he wanted to pose, but could only think as his lungs were quickly filling up with water.
“So cruel,“ he blurted out in deep resentment.
Even though the pain of drowning forced his mind into stalemate, a chuckle wanted to escape his lips as a strange and vulgar accusation came into mind.
“...Fucking nutritionist, has he seriously never heard about magnesium?“
At this exact moment, a terible underwater current pulled on Théo’s body with the strength to eviscerate him into bloody shreds. His sight was long filled with bleak darkness with his fading consciousness not even registering the pain of his body being torn apart.
...
The undercurrent grew feisty and turbulant, until it reached a magnitude that couldn’t be categorized under a simple kinetic action.
It could only be described as an inexplicable anomaly. A miraculous phenomenon.
Untangible energy turned deeply black and visible to the naked eye before formed into a revolving, resplendent sphere somewhere way beneath the water surface.
Meanwhile, harrowing winds turned into a hurricane-like state, perturbing the serene state of the palm beach above.
Down below, the mass of incomprehensible energy slowly started stabilizing and the eye of the sphere, altough blurry, showed an abundance of stars and planet clusters of different colors, patterns and sizes.
It was a wondrous combination of strings and forms for noone to see, as the spectators were limited to the gloomy bottom of the dark sea and its frightened, resident organisms.
When the rotund Space Door fully stabilized, the remnants of Théo’s body slipped in, accompanied by gargantuan amounts of oceanic water, before vanishing into nothingness alongside the etheral Space Door.
...
It wasn’t long aftet that, that the weather outside returned to its former, sunny state, just as if nothing had ever happened, leaving all of the witnesses speechless.