It was an ordinary spring evening. Everything was not going well as usual. I had a lot of debt to pay on my rent, and even though the landlady didn't show it, she was getting very tired of it.

After smoking my last cigarette, I realized that I had no money at all for a new pack and I had a hard night ahead of me.

If you've never smoked, don't start, because as opposed to the "aesthetic image" from the outside you'll get a nasty addiction from which it's not so easy to get rid of.

Usually if I didn't smoke for longer than 2-3 hours, I would get terribly nervous, my legs would start to ache a little, I would get hungry, and there would be no food.

Standard situation 23-year-old guy, penniless, but with a great desire to conquer this life, in his own unique way.

The only thing that distracted me from all the daily hardships was reflection in my head and chewing over old situations. You may say this is silly, but in my head lives the idea that if I reached the right catharsis during such reflections, my life would literally change itself in an instant, as a reward for the right answer.

Probably it's all because of those American movies, in which the main process of work takes place under the cheerful music timelapse in 2-3 minutes and we see a year later already successful protagonist. Eh, I wish I could do that. But I learned pretty early on the idea that although miracles do happen, for some reason not to me. I never won any raffles or contests, and all my incredible ideas for startups went bust. You could blame me for this failure, and rightly so, but I could have been lucky, couldn't I? Why can't I get lucky just a little bit for once, I don't need that much, I can do everything myself from here on, just give me a chance to get rid of the pile of past mistakes that keep me awake at night.

Yes thoughts and only thoughts, if instead I had written or taken any job, my life would have been much better. I'd have the money to pay my rent without worrying about the consequences, and I could smoke as much as I wanted, even two packs a day, even though I never had one. Fuck it.

My stomach rumbles, there are no cigarettes, and I don't want to humiliate myself by finishing old cigarette butts in search of juicy tobacco residue. I did it last week and felt as miserable as possible afterwards ta and did not even get stoned. Need to think of something. Of the food there is an old pack of oatmeal, which I have never been a fan of, some frozen veggies that have more ice in them than veggies and that's it. The set is not for a Michelin meal or even a low-budget diner, but you can get by today. In the good news, payment is about to come in for a freelance project I did last week.

Frankly speaking, it did not turn out well, the customer was not happy with the result, although I, as always, for some reason decided to do more than required, motivated by the new project, after a long time without a normal paid job.

I work, well how do I work, I don't work, I just studied and used to work as a marketer. I wouldn't say it was my dream job, it's just that of all the things I could choose in the job market, I liked marketing the most when I graduated from school. I just thought I was going to do advertising, come up with all sorts of creative ideas, but in reality I had to do a lot of tedious and boring work. And that's where the failure came in.

The customer was selling cars, and although he offered less than usual for the work, it was not difficult and I coped with it in a couple of days, but the edits I was engaged in another 3. It was stupid, she said I needed to learn how to set personal boundaries. Damn.

I don't know why I remembered her, to make this day even worse. I would have loved to go on another round of self-reflection, but the phone rang. Mom was calling, this was in danger of being the most disgusting day of the week, and it was only Monday. Maybe don't pick up the phone? But no way.

- Hi.

- Hey, aren't you busy for me?

- Not really, I work here a little bit, why?

- No, if you're busy, I'll call you later. Work (she really believes I'm working, she knows me best, doesn't she?)

- You tell me what you wanted, I'm not too busy, just wanted to make tea (if I had it).

- Please call your grandmother, she has to go to the hospital tomorrow for an operation, you know she loves you more than anyone and she needs support.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

- Of course, I'll call her right away (no).

- All right, how are you doing in general? I'm doing okay.

- Yes everything is great, recently found a new client for a project on JTBD. In general, there is a lot to tell, it is easier when I arrive.

- You're so intriguing, all right, then. I love you so far.

- And I love you.

It's not that I like to lie to my mother, and she always knows or finds out a little later that I lied, it's just that even though she is a very deep person, she has never allowed me to be weak. And with my cool head I realize that my self-reflections are nothing more than a form of self-pity.

It's all bullshit, probably because I'm bullshit. Okay, I need to go out and buy some bread with the rest of the money, so the hunger might not come back until tomorrow. I'm lucky in terms of food, I'm not very vulnerable and I can eat very little for energy without consequence.

Even though it's the middle of March, it sometimes snows, like today. Snow, especially in the evening, is like a red-hot knife between my ribs, because it reminds me of New Year, my favorite holiday since childhood. But it's gone and another year it's gone and gone extremely disgusting, maybe next year we shouldn't celebrate it at all.

Everything around me reminds me that I do not live my life the way I want and that it is not right at all. The only problem is that I do not like "the right way" at all, I do not want to become just another cog in the system and live a colorless and boring life. I am ready to live it in misery and agony, if only to leave my mark, and not just a mark but a powerful imprint that will change the lives of millions of people for centuries after my death. Because of that, I always tried to go the roundabout way, because I thought that was the way of a great man, who could change this world, make it better, help people become freer and happier. Except how can I make someone happy if I was like this the last time I was 6 years old? I couldn't even make her..... happy, and I tried very hard....

The only thought that saved me from this homesickness, anxiety, and despair was that if anything happens, I can always go out the window and end everything as quickly as possible, without any foreplay. Only then would I betray myself and get rid of the meaning of all that I had endured for the past four years.

I quickly got dressed and went outside. Now it would be great to have a cigarette, but I had no cigarettes, so I would just walk to the store with a lean and irritated face, and I just had to cross the road.

The snow crumbled on the roofs of the houses, and the little white flakes played beautifully under the lamppost. It was not cold outside and there was no wind at all. The people of the city crawled out of their "proper" places of work a little at a time, and pulled themselves into the comfort of their homes, or not at all, but that was of little concern if you had enough money in your account to live on for a month or more.

It was snowing too fast, and it was nicely displayed against the red light at the traffic light. There's my store, just a couple of steps, I'll buy some bread and go back. I'll cook a nasty dinner eat it alone, go do my important things, pause for reflection and so continue until I finally decide to live a normal life, like the hero of the novel "Let there be a ficus, not give up all my contrived ambitions, make peace with her, maybe she will forgive me when she sees how I try to become an adult and responsible, no longer hovering in the clouds.....

But that will never happen again. Nothing... Because I'm not hovering in the clouds anymore. I'm hovering in the air.... In a split second, I will land on the ground with multiple injuries that are not compatible with life. Did I really get lucky? Haha yes, I finally got lucky. With this way of life, I didn't die on the fringes of the world alone in an apartment from old age or starvation, but in the light of streetlights and headlights, with a bunch of onlookers now looking at my bloody corpse.

That woman over there is about to scream, and the driver of the car that hit me with a foggy face gets out of it, hesitates a bit, and calls an ambulance. What do I need her for now? I don't think she'll be here in 3 seconds, because I have about 10 seconds to live.

How long they last. When I was a kid playing computer an hour flew by for me in a couple of moments, but here is 10 seconds, during which I could have time to say all the things I had not said, make all the right decisions, ask everyone's forgiveness and fix everything. To create everything I had planned, to implement all my ideas and, of course, to help everyone I could help.

But it's too late, I didn't even make the decision to end my life myself......

Dying is really not that scary. When I contemplated the option of suicide, it seemed to me that I would be unbearably ashamed to watch the consequences of my cowardly actions be revealed to the people closest to me. How I would have to clean up the garbage I had left behind in the halls of this life. But it turned out to be much nicer than that. It was as if I were lying on the softest bed at my grandmother's house, with the softest blanket and the coldest pillows.