'you're not my homeland anymore, so what am i defending now?'
He is holding her hand and looking into her eyes as he takes an already bloody dagger to her chest, carving out the place in his heart he once belonged. She feels like a ghost. S...
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Eliza spikes her coffee with the smallest bit of vodka to poison the beast of anxiety that harbors inside her chest. It's just enough to get her through a dreadful eight-hour workday in which she'll feel inferior to everyone around her and cry when she gets a critique from her boss. She slips on grey slacks with a matching blazer as a pale pink undershirt clings to her chest. Her hair is an unruly mess but she takes Sleakeazy's "For Curly Hair" potion and it's much better. On the way out the door, she shoves a bagel into her mouth because she's already running late.
Eliza was once the most organized person she knew. However, once she hit her twenties, she became someone who misses appointments and forgets to feed herself. She finds taking care of herself to be a chore. She has little to no friends and because of that, she puts all her energy into her job.
She's a writer. Not the kind that publish prose or spill their souls on pages in order to evoke emotion from fragile people. She's a journalist who covers the mundane lives of others for nobody's enjoyment. Her columns are the least read. It's not that Eliza is a bad writer, she's just given shitty stories. Her pitches are good, her writing is good, but she's stuck. She's never going to get a chance to write something raw and real. She wants to investigate and change lives with her writing.
Her editor will never see her potential and she hates it.
That morning, like every morning, there's a staff meeting. Eliza comes in seconds before her editor shuts the door which elicits a slightly dirty look from the stern man.
"Sorry," she mutters before sitting down next to the sports correspondent whom she envies greatly. Eliza knows nothing about sports but at least it's something people care about.
"Alright, pitches, let's hear them!" Mr Haas demands. He's an intimidating man, sitting at six foot three with grey hair and dark stubble. He always wears a suit and tie at the start of the day but his coat never stays on past noon and his tie past three. He's loud and knows how to control a room. If he were a woman, he'd be a bitch.
Eliza raises her hand. She has something good but so does everyone else. Given she's the youngest in the room and has the least tenure, she often never gets a chance. Most writers offer multiple pitches and the most boring one goes to Eliza.
The same thing happens today.
"The Ministry is making a lot of efforts to rebuild after the war. A profile on Kingsley Bolt and his efforts would look great on the front page," one of the senior writers beams. Eliza tries not to roll her eyes at the pitch, but Haas is in love.
"What else can we get on the Ministry? Newsie here usually covers that kind of stuff." (Eliza was Newsie). "Have they gotten new tile or something?"
Everyone in the room chuckles at Haas' comment but Eliza doesn't find it very amusing.
