I was a high school dropout. My parents told me it was a bad idea. I told them school was a waste of time. I was meant for greater things, or so I thought.

Afterward, I mooched off them for a while. A few months passed. My eighteenth birthday arrived. My present? Kicked out.

From then on, I lived on the streets, wasted away in a homeless shelter, and dived through dumpsters for a scrap of food. Another few years passed. I wondered how my life went to shit even though my future could have been so bright.

Eventually, I grew tired of that life. As best I could, I tidied my appearance. Even so, I looked no better than a gutter rat. Greasy hair, lifeless eyes, and not a drop of fat to call my own. Then, looking better than I had in several years, I traipsed from door to business door, begging for a job.

No. No. No. No. NO!

Unwanted. That is the word I would use to describe the way I felt at that time. In spite of failure upon failure, piled like a stack of bodies in a morgue, I could not go back. I would not go back. Finally, after days and days of searching, an old man offered to hire me. I smiled.

But... of course, I found myself doing work I never thought I'd do. A brush in my right hand. Cleaner in my left. Gloves for both. You know, I never would have thought a man could feel happy cleaning a toilet. That moment changed me. Never did a porcelain bowl shine like that one once I finished. A glorious achievement it was. I'll never forget it. I'll also never forget the moment the old man walked in and pointed out the spots I missed under the rim.

A few weeks passed. I got the first paycheck of my life. Perhaps cleaning toilets, sinks, and floors would be looked down on, but I earned something with my own hands for the first time. Nobody could ever take that from me.

Except... someone did.

That evening, I returned to the shelter, beholding the pay stub. In my sleep, someone snatched it. To this day, I never found out who did it, and the tears I shed will never be repaid.

Woefully, I returned to work. I worked. I cleaned. Weeks passed. I earned more checks. I got smarter. Nobody would take anything from me again.

By the end of my third month working in that shop, I earned enough to rent a shabby room. Although it was the cheapest, ugliest one in town, I earned my keep. Again, I shed tears at something I once took for granted. I may not have owned furniture, but I had a roof over my head. The same could not be said of myself a year prior.

Another few months passed. The old man died. The shop closed. I went to the funeral. I cried.

Without guidance or knowledge on what to do next, I traipsed from store to store once more. Again, nobody hired me. A quarter of my life gone and already homeless for a second time. So, I started a journal. I wrote of my past.

For a few more months, I looked for jobs, I wrote, and I pinched pennies. Nobody told me life would be this hard. Perhaps it's impossible to explain with words or perhaps I simply did not listen.

One day, I realized my bank account was empty. On a whim, with nothing left to lose, I sent the writings of my journal to a writing competition. I won. I don't even know how. So, I began to write more. I searched for jobs less. As the days passed, I sent more writings to more competitions. I didn't win any.

Then, on a midsummer's day, while searching for a job, a man approached me. He asked if I wanted to live forever. I laughed and said yes. I thought it was a joke or maybe a sales pitch from a religious person. And... he shot me. Of course, he did not shoot me with a bullet, but perhaps a tranquilizer. I don't really know.

I woke up. Again, I sat on the streets. I recall wondering if I dreamed the whole incident. After all, I found no news stories about the shooting. There were other stories of shootings, but not mine.

Having given up on figuring it out, I moved on with life. In time, I found a new job as a janitor... again. For the second time, I found myself in tears while staring at a toilet. From then on, I worked during the day and wrote at night. I still never won any awards. I did not get published.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Many years passed. One fine day, while celebrating a promotion, someone mentioned I had not aged since she met me. I took it as a compliment. Then, a few weeks later, an old acquaintance said the same thing. Out of curiosity, I studied my face in the mirror that night. I looked at a picture I once took with the old man I cleaned toilets for. I looked exactly the same, save for the neater haircut and shave. To my surprise, I recalled the man who shot me. I wondered if, at that time, the man did something to me. Did he somehow make me able to live forever? If so, why me? By now, I comprehended just how un-special I really was. I stopped writing.

Years passed. Technology increased. People lost their jobs to robots, including many of the people under me. I knew my turn would come in time.

Things got strange. My friends; their hair began to turn gray one by one. Me? I stayed the same. People noticed. Frightened, I quit my job and hid away. The hobby I dropped, I picked back up. Hoping to combat the fear of my situation, I took the pen name Immortal Dreamer. For the first time in my life, my writings got published. I, or rather, the strange identity of the Immortal Dreamer became famous. Even when others asked for my information, I denied them.

Living in fear, I moved from place to place. Eventually, I left the country. Whenever it felt like someone might find out about me, I moved again. I learned many languages. Still, I continued to write. The Immortal Dreamer lived on. However, I stopped taking commissions. I sent my manuscripts by mail rather than the internet.

A hundred years passed. I watched as technology improved past anything I once thought possible. Jobs of all kinds ended up being run by bots. People found time to study new things, travel to strange places, or even accomplish incredible feats. Disease became a thing of the past. Daily life improved for everyone... for a time.

From the sidelines, I watched as handfuls of people grew tired of paradise. They grew tired of the technology surrounding them. While some turned to the remaining vestiges of nature, others turned to hidden acts of organized crime, mainly underground fighting. Even though I tried to hide, I found one such establishment by mistake. The people there... I could only describe the scene as animalistic. People cast bets on which fighter would survive.

Since I stayed away from technology, the outcasts accepted me. In spite of their habits, I made my place with them. As time passed, I grew accustomed to it. The steady desensitization from exposure to the fighting affected me. From there, I not only made my home with them, I also climbed the ladder. In time, I became the 'boss', the one who called the shots.

All the while, the Immortal Dreamer continued to write. Every experience changed my style. At some point, I discovered rumors about the Immortal Dreamer. Some said he was an alien attempting to endow humanity with wisdom. Some said it was a title passed down in a family. Some even claimed it was a robot. Even so, I, the true Immortal Dreamer, lived among other people.

One day, many years after I took over the underground, my establishment was raided. I got arrested by a robot of all things. Looking back, that was scary as hell. Big ol' metal arms holding you down is not a good way to spend your day.

Anyway, I ended up at a police station in a country that used to be foreign to me. Perhaps I should have seen it coming. Well, at least I saw the officers coming, one fat as a whale, the other skinny as an ostrich. They questioned me. I confessed. I took all the blame. I got thrown behind bars.

Again, my life hit the reset button. Again, I ended up at the bottom of the barrel. For some reason, they never found out who I was. In fact, they ended up labeling me as a person born outside the system. Apparently, that was an issue in their eyes.

From then on, I lived in that prison, wasted away in a cell, and ate the slop that passed as food. Another few years passed. I wondered how my life went to shit even though my future could have been so bright.

Luckily, they allowed me to write. The Immortal Dreamer lived on. By the time my ten-year sentence ended, I filled over one hundred journals. Good thing the guard who read my stories never read my works before. Pretty sure he found out several years later, but by then, it no longer mattered.

More time passed. Humans slowly died out. Concerned, I tried to help, but to no avail. Only a handful seemed willing to survive. The others entertained themselves to death, consuming everything with abandon. Humanity slowly strangled itself with its own creations.

By the time I realized it, only the few people I gathered remained on the planet, or rather, their children did. Time began to flow strangely for me. People I knew were gone before I could get to know them. Others took their place. Even so, I, the Immortal Dreamer, continued to write.

One day, a single man approached my settlement. The town elder, an old friend of mine who reminded me of the old man I cleaned toilets for, brought the stranger to me. I greeted the stranger.

Bowing, the stranger introduced himself. He said he knew me. Supposedly, he shot me one day in the past. Of course, I remembered once he said that. How could I forget?

I asked the man why he did such a thing. He said he knew what would happen. He said he knew I would end up here. I asked him how he knew. He did not answer. He only said it was time for him to go. He left. I never saw him again.

And so, the Immortal Dreamer never stopped writing.