Short stories and Other Whatnots

In 5 Years.

A girl was once asked where she saw herself five years from now. In her mind, she thought: Living alone in my apartment with a job I soon grow to regret having because I was forced to think of a career in my teens. Living alone in my apartment with walls painted in various shades of grey and black, thinking to myself: when did I stack all of the chairs I own in that corner? When did I last go outside of this apartment during the weekend? Only to realize that I am a ghost, a ghost that haunts my own apartment. I am ghost that is haunting myself.

In five years, I see myself cancelling plans to go out. And it’s not that because I’m busy with work or tending to a family-related situation, it’s because I don’t want to go. I know I should go, I know I want to go, but it’s no fun going to a party knowing that you won’t be having fun. It’s not fun having fun when you don’t want to have fun. I want to go out but I am house arresting myself, and anxiety and depression are my parole officers.

In five years, I see myself recreating events where I ask myself: If I hadn’t done this or if I hadn’t done that, would thinks be different? Would I be happy? Would have I learned to love? And then these thoughts disappear, and I’m only staring at the ceiling of my empty apartment.

In five years, I see myself sitting behind in a dull, grey office table, glaring at the wall clock from across the room in hopes of it combusting into flames. Thinking, if I had studied more, if I had forced myself onto that particular subject, would I have a job that didn’t send me back to my apartment wanting to already be sixty-years old so I won’t be obligated to work.

In five years, I see myself growing weary of life. I see myself sitting on my couch in the living room of my apartment, staring back at the blank television screen and seeing this woman in her 20s with pale skin from the lack of sun and dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. That woman has had her feet swept by insomnia, and it waltzed its way into her life, making her feel restive.

In five years, I see myself consoled by a shrink. Happy is a decision, he says. I say my happy is as hollow as my own chest, lacking the palpitating organ. And then he asks, “Are you afraid of dying?” I see myself with an expression that clearly depicted my distaste of him, of myself, and of everything. I am, and always will be, afraid of living. And in the farthest, darkest corner of my mind, there hangs a necklace of rope or a bottle of arsenic presenting itself on my bedside table. My hunger to get a hold of it grows every minute.

“So, where do you see yourself in five years?”

The girl smiled, the darkness starting to ignite in her chest, engulfing her of her soon to be unhappiness, “Working in a job that I adore, and going home to a lively house to where my family is.”