The Unfeasible Series

the death: excerpt four

The thin frame of scraggly dreams held together by the strings of a long since shredded piece of duct tape roamed the streets in silence. He was in search of a job to make his family's ends meet. Guilt clipped at his soul like a hole puncher.  

His medical bills and medicine were weighing so heavily on his mother, that he feared she would forever have slumped shoulders and a half smile with bagged eyes. She was too beautiful to be forever hunched, forever looking at her feet. 

The teen trudged forward, feet scraping against the concrete kissing his shadow. The farewell of friction kept him moving forward, even as if he was on a treadmill. 

Often, the teen found himself kicking his illness. It was bad enough he couldn't be useful, that he was stuck in a body not matching his mind. And even so, it withered and crumbled from genetic abnormalities cast upon him like a game of change tossing a die. Sometimes he wondered if the body would be more functional in the ground, where tree roots would learn to grow around the decaying form. 

He smiled at the thought, a small sense of peace enveloping his soul. 

If his soul was set free and body returned to the earth in a testament of usefulness, he could bet the sun would shine brighter. His mother would be less hunched under the crushing weight of bills and debt. 

His lips twitched down in a soft frown. Before he committed to joining mother nature, he wanted to help his mother pay some things off. 

He had already stopped taking his medicine, instead going out of his way to sell it online. He had a buyer who would pay almost four times what it originally cost. And once a month, he would insert chunks of the money he received into his mother's bank account. So subtle that she didn't notice. 

That she hasn't noticed. 

He nearly tripped over his own feet, accidentally kicking himself in the process. A pain erupted around his Achilles heel. He looked down to assess the damage when he laid eyes on a small paper mere inches from his foot. 

"NOW HIRING!" It stated in bold, black letters. The teen read on, noting that it was a bookstore near the area. It had a pretty decent starting price listed as well. 

He gently picked it up, looking around. He read a nearby address and began marching forward with a new purpose to find the bookstore. He liked reading well enough to dip his toes in the water of working in the shop. It didn’t take him long to find the shop, he noted, looking at the time on his phone. 

He had turned the location off when he left home. The reason being that he quit school a week or so ago and decided to go job searching instead. So far, no one would hire a quirkless kid who was just out of middle school. Once again, he kept his mother in the dark with his actions. She didn’t need to be aware of the frail body gifting presents in the form of money. She didn’t need to be aware of his worsening condition, of the bruises wrapping around his chest, arms and legs. She could remain ignorant to the withering son so long as she continued to work hard at the three jobs she was currently at. 

The teen just wanted to help out, albeit if it was only one more time. 

If he couldn’t be a full hero, he would at least be helpful. His shoulders felt as if hands were pushing them down, his feet walking up to the store window with the feeling of a ball and chain around his legs. Fatigue ate at his heart and mind, eyes blurry with recognition of possible failure. Failure always seemed to follow him, laced to his soul with nothing less than an indestructible string. 

Finally looking from his worn shoes, he searched the store window for “We’re hiring!” signs. But his mind got distracted by his reflection in the glass store front. He looked at the skin-and bones, malnourished teen who was bruised and burned--scarred and lonely. His hair was still untamable, looking oddly big on his body, even if it was thinner than in years past. The clothes, although relatively nice, looked as if they swallowed him whole. His skin was pasty and slick, a side effect from quitting the medicine. The teen told himself he didn’t look bad--he had long ago convinced himself that he had always looked this way--and yet he can never seem to find the courage to look the reflection in the eyes. 

He instead chose to look through the reflection and into the shop. Bookshelves greeted his eyes. “International Bestseller!” A sign read. “The Anonymous author that’s work shook the world!” “Read the story that makes pro heroes cry!” “A dream long since lost, new hope found?” 

The teen read the labels, eventually turning his gaze to the book they surrounded. Interested, he entered the store. Walking up to the desk, he looked around. The store seemed mostly empty with only two other people wandering around. An old man in the historical section, and a middle aged woman looking at recipes. A cough sounded from in front of the teen, scaring him so much that he partially jumped out of his skin. He gave a bashful smile, but withered slightly after seeing the glare the worker sent him. 

“I’m--I’m here for the job.” He mumbled, voice unsteady from the lack of use. He motioned to the hiring sign hanging on the door window just below the “OPEN” one. The worker gave him a hesitant once over that made the teen feel as if he was back to being an incompetent child being berated for asking for a new toy. 

“I’ll talk to the manager.” The worker spoke, smiling sarcastically before turning on her heel and walking to the back room. 

Feeling awkward by just standing there, the teen moved away from the desk. He glanced at the door the worker walked through, somehow knowing that she was not going to talk to the manager to get an interview. Feeling downcast, the teen decided to at least wait ten minutes to make sure. He began walking around aimlessly. 

Somehow he found himself at the stand he had seen when outside. There were a stack of books on the shelf, all by the same author. The teen picked up a book, hands shaking. For some reason, he could practically feel the foreboding animosity surrounding the book. He almost feared that simply touching the cover would lead to his fingertips burning. The feeling was dizzying. A sense of lightheadedness took over his mind. 

He analyzed the plain cover, noted the title, searched for the author, only to find none. 

Confusion wracked his brain. He flipped it over in his hands a few times before concluding that the bestseller didn’t have an author or even pen name. A publication mistake? He asked, though his mind was reeling frantically. He cracked the book open, shrugging off his nervousness. 

His eyes widened astronomically, practically popping out of his head the more chapters he skimmed. The world began swarming around him, pressing his vision in and out of focus. His heart was clenching and releasing, chest heaving with an emotion so thick he couldn’t place it. Words flickered in front of his vision, swimming before him like fish from the deep ocean. His ears felt as if cotton had been pressed in them, inhibiting his ability to listen to his surroundings. His heart sunk, breath getting caught in his thought like a noose had been tied around his neck. His ability to speak had long since become null, though his body was frantic. He flipped more pages. 

This can’t be right. He thought. 

He felt as if his whole life was a lie, as if he was just a puppet being strung along for the book. He felt as if his life was just a plotline--a means of engagement for the bored. His hands shook with the thoughts prodding in his skill. 

A searing pain shot through his temples, causing him to wince. Nevertheless, he flipped to the last page of the writing. Scanning it over with tear-filled eyes and a feeling of losing the only constant he’s ever known, the teen felt the feeling of being so clearly lost in a forever moving world. 

Somehow, when written in words, he felt incredibly useless. In writing, his life was nothing more than a never ending plotline, set before the world so they can judge him as they deem fit. 

Shaking hands dropped the book, letting the spinning world take over his mind. 

Maybe his plotline was not meant to exceed the present.