It was a hard month. George tried to keep his worries out of his mind, but occasionally the depression would overwhelm him and he’d collapse into a despairing stupor. These episodes would last between an hour and a few days, and would leave him unable to do anything more energy consuming than crawl out of bed to raid the fridge. If there was nothing on hand, he’d return, unsatisfied, to his room. His roommates avoided him like the plague, for which he was grateful; despite only serving to aggravate his isolation and loneliness. Marian still came round to comfort him, but he was either focussed on studying or consumed by apathy. She felt useless and drained, despite giving nothing, but she persevered. She hoped that it would get better once he’d finished his exams and graduated, possibly gotten a start on his career. She held onto the belief that her presence improved his mood, mostly because she needed to feel more than useless. She also feared that her absence would destroy him. The only way out for both of them was success. By the end George felt he was as prepared as he would ever be for his exams. He walked into the examination suite bristling with confidence, even smiling, with his thoughts only spreading as far as the course material and how best to express his knowledge of it. Marian’s father was an intimidating figure. His moustache exploded unashamedly from his nose in jagged bristling wires of white, grey and brown. It reminded George of the untamable wild beasts he’d seen in historical nature documentaries. Food, even fluid, clung to it - desperate for its undomesticated naturalness. George wasn’t sure why he kept it. He’d never thought a moustache was an attractive feature in men or women, but this was a thing of ugly beauty. It has character. If he believed in that sort of this, he’d suspect it to have its own soul. It was another living thing attached to his face, breathing, feeding, growing. Mr. Ross had other features apart from the beast on his upper lip, but George struggled to latch his attention onto anything else. His small beady eyes hid beneath a broad brow, furnished with deep bushy eyebrows. Everything about him was either bushy or broad, or both. Ears, shoulders, jaw. It was comical to see him squashed into a dining chair before a dinner setting not broad enough for his shoulders. Mrs. Jefferson, in stark contrast, was waxed and tamed. Straightened black shoulder length hair, and not another hair visible apart from the discretely plucked and landscaped eyebrows floating loftily over the artificially extended eyelashes. Her smile, on the other hand, was purely natural. Her eyes wild and daring. She was an image of what Marian could be like if she succumbed to the narcissism of personal beautification. Instead, Marian was more akin to her father in this regard. They were, the four of them, celebrating George’s graduation with a family dinner. Marian’s sisters were otherwise engaged, or had given partially understandable but dubious excuses as to why they couldn’t attend. George prefered it this way; Marian was jealous of her sisters’ looks and George was similarly judging, though only visually. “So where from here?” Mr. Ross asked casually, speaking through mouthfuls of pasta. George swallowed what he had in his gullet slightly before he was done with chewing it, “I’ve applied for positions in most of the major engineering companies in the county, and a few of the minor ones that were offering low experience openings.” “Which one would you want the most?” Mr. Ross prodded, not quite timing his enquiry between his mouthfuls this time. George shrugged. “At this stage I don’t mind. Anything will be better than nothing. No matter where I end up, I’ll get experience and a wage to keep me going till my experience adds up to enough to get into an area I’d prefer to target.” “Sorry mum, could you pass the parmesan?” Marian interjected. Mrs. Jefferson nudged the bowl across the table, “There you go dear.” “Thanks,” said Marian, helping herself to a healthy handful of the thinly shaved cheese. “How about you, Marian,” her father’s interrogations switched target suddenly, “you’ll be finished this time next year,” “This time in two years,” Marian cut in. “Right, right. Still, any thoughts to your working future?” “At this stage I’m not sure, but I know that I want to help the needy, create some shadow of balance in our legal system.” “Will you be content in the shadows? Strive to be in the light! Have some ambition, pitch your dreams high, so that even if you fall, you will have risen to your peak.” Mr. Ross flicked over to George. “That’s what this generation is lacking. Ambition. Dreams.” “Hope.” Said George. “We are lacking hope.” Mr. Ross stumbled over his next words, and even neglected to shovel another mouth load of spaghetti into his mouth to follow the one he had just swallowed. He wasn’t accustomed to being agreed with whilst aggressively stoking an argument. “Everybody dreams,” George continued, “everyone has aspirations, ambitions. But without hope those dreams are like torture. A living hell that strikes us down when we are almost happy. They must be forgotten, hidden, all but destroyed. If you can’t shut them out, those dreams will kill you, suffocating you in despair. Strangling any breath of happiness, smothering any glimpse of achievement. Without hope, dreams are fatal.” “So you refuse to hope.” “I refuse to smother my eyes in fantasy. I must be content with what I can achieve, otherwise I will never be content.” “So you would be content with stagnancy?” “If stagnancy was all that I were cursed with, I would remain content. That I would be happier with more would be hard to deny, but thinking about that would only lessen the reality that I have been dealt. I do not want to be less than content.” George returned to his meal. It was delicious, and he had been neglecting it. Mr. Ross watched him warily, shovel only now returning to use. Mrs. Jefferson and Marian exchanged glances, but remained silent. The clacking of cutlery and chewing of food were the only sounds to breach the unflinching silence. “I’m sorry about dad,” said Marian, “he likes ‘thought provoking conversation’, and I think he went too far tonight.” “Don’t worry about it.” George was lying back on her bed, toying with her hair as she sat beside him, facing the opposite wall. “He means well,” she pressed on, “he doesn’t mean anything personal about it.” “I know,” he said, “I said don’t worry about it. He had a good point, and I don’t disagree with it and he raised it for a good reason.” Marian turned to him, eye to eye, “And what reason would that be?” There was a flicker of menace in her otherwise calm demeanor. “He’s worried for you.” Marian looked both shocked and unimpressed. “He’s worried that I have no ambition?” She asked sarcastically. “No,” he sighed, “It’s not that. He’s worried that I have no potential to provide for his little girl. That I will only ever serve to be a burden to you, a weight around your neck dragging you down.” She lay down on her side beside him, hand falling to his chest, head tilted so that her eyes could meet his, “And is that how you feel?” This thought had been plaguing George’s mind ever since it was abstractly brought up earlier at the dinner table. So much so that he couldn’t even recall what they had eaten for dessert. Nor if there had even been dessert. He knew that his silence was damning, but he couldn’t bring himself to formulate a lie for her. She was better than that. But nor could he tell her the truth. She propped herself up on an elbow, irritation seeping into her face. “Is that how you feel?” She was edging towards incredulity. George couldn’t look her in the eyes. “It’s more complicated than that.” This whole situation was on a downward spiral and George could feel it slipping through his fingers, staring down into the abyss of inevitability. There was nothing he could think to do to save it, his actions would only serve to accelerate the fall. “What’s that supposed to mean.” She spoke it monotonously. It wasn’t a question, but George interpreted the emphasis himself, and couldn’t help but treat it as one. “Do you really want to know?” He asked. It was a stupid question, and he knew it, though he felt compelled to ask it, to give her one final chance for escape before he let the unforgiving painful truth out. It was a stupid question because it wasn’t really an out. There was no answer for her to give but one. She had no chance, no choice but to agree to it. “Of course I want to know. I care about you.” Here it is, George thought, the dive into the abyss. He only hoped that there was something on the other side of the bottomless darkness. “I will be a burden,” he said, “I’ve amassed an unassailable mountain of debt, and it will take me a lifetime, probably more, to conquer that mountain. But the top of the highest peak only just pierces the surface of the ocean. As much as I’d love to have you beside me for the gruelling ascent, I can’t bear to drag you down just to watch you drown beside me.” “What about what I want? What if I want to be there beside you, even if it may mean drowning with you. I know you won’t be able to pull yourself out of that debt, and that’s why I have to help you. You can’t ask me to stand by as you throw your life away. You know you need the help, and I know that I need to help you.” George shook his head. “I don’t want you to suffer for me. This is something I have to do myself.” “No it’s not. You never have to do anything by yourself. You are choosing to suffer this alone.” Her frustration was building, bubbling towards the brimming of tears. “Can’t we just forget about this? Tonight was a nice night.” “Forget about it? This is your life, your future we’re talking about. We can’t just ignore it.” “Can we at least talk about it another time?” Marian sighed, collapsing back onto the bed, resigned. “We can, but I won’t forget. We will talk about it.”
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. . Self care - 26.01.2022 (Poem) Perceptions of reality - 2.02.2022 (Poem) Natural impunity - 9.02.2022 (Short Story) Lost in a Labyrinth - 2.03.2022 (Poem) Ministerial Standard - 23.03.2022 (Poem) Dungeons and Dating - 6.04.2022 (Short Story) Better Shared - 20.04.2022 (Poem) Touch to toilet - 27.04.2022 (Poem) Shooting Stars - 4.05.2022 (Short Story) Chop Shop - 18.05.2022 (Poem) Family Ties - 25.05.2022 (Short Story) Age of Consent - 8.06.2022 (Poem) Legacy - 24.08.2022 (Poem) Performative Enjoyment - 7.09.2022 (Poem) Bridge of Dreams - 7.12.2022 (Poem) Faultless - 22.12.2022 (Poem) Disconservative - 11.01.2023 (Poem) Single use - 1.03.2023 (Poem) Donor Cards - 6.04.2023 (Poem) Creative Art Say I - 13.04.2023 (Poem) Home-bound - 5.07.2023 (Short Story) Sand and Sea - 20.07.2023 (Short Story) Luminosity - 15.11.2023 (Short Story) About the AuthorA 33 year old medical intern who plays frisbee and likes long walks over mountains. Archives
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