ONE STORY OF FIVE LIVES

Chapter 1: EXISTENCE

HE

Why am I here? This is the question I've asked myself every day for the past 15 years that I've been working at this company. What am I doing here? Me, a 43-year-old man. Every day, I wake up with no desire to go to this job. Opening my eyes, I already feel tired. The same thing for 15 damn years.

And now, sitting at my old desk, I keep asking myself this question over and over - WHY AM I HERE? What would happen if I didn't show up? How long would it take my boss to replace me? A day? A week? Probably not more than a month...

Then, my gaze falls on a photo of my family - my wife, daughter, and son. They look so happy in this picture. Their joyful eyes looking at me, and suddenly, I feel relieved. I understand - it's for them that I come here every day, sit at this old desk, and do the tedious paperwork. So I can keep seeing those happy faces in this photo and sometimes in real life. They count on me. At least my wife does.

Would I still be here if it weren't for them? NOT A SINGLE DAY! Not a single damn day of work. Not one...

"Hey! Wake up. There's a call on the second line. Can you take it?"

I surface from my thoughts, automatically pick up the phone, press the second line button, and introduce myself. On the other end, I hear:

"My name is... I'm a police officer. Your family's car was in an accident an hour ago. I regret to inform you that your wife, daughter, and son died at the scene..."

No one at the office ever really understood what happened - HE just stood up, took the photo from his desk, and left. They never saw him again.

SHE

When did everything go wrong? It all started so well. I met my future husband while we were still in law school. I was so in love, I forgot about everything else. Everything else just faded into the background. A joyful wedding, a pregnancy... Somehow, I managed to get my diploma.

But then, life pushed me to the sidelines, just as I had once pushed it aside. My husband got a job offer, and we moved to a new city. For years, I juggled caring for a baby, keeping up a new household in a new place. Three years later, when our daughter was a bit older, my husband suggested I stay on maternity leave for another three years - after all, he earned well, and we had enough! It sounded "reasonable"...

By the time our daughter started school, more than seven years had passed. I tried to find work, but no one wanted to hire an older "specialist" with no real experience. So I ended up taking whatever I could get - a small office, an assistant's position, earning a pittance. Money didn't matter much; we didn't really need it, after all.

But from then on, my life could be summed up in one word: "DISREGARD".

Disregard from a boss who "tolerated" me at work. Disregard from younger colleagues who quickly advanced, while I stayed in the same assistant position for years.

Disregard from my husband, who gradually stopped treating me as his wife and more as some kind of staff member - not even a subordinate, but a household worker - a cleaner or a waitress.

But the most painful was the disregard from my daughter. She was, of course, the only child in the family, a "daddy's girl" who was allowed everything. Who was I compared to her? And gradually, her opinion became more valuable than mine... I felt like a ghost in my own family more and more.

One evening, at dinner, my daughter - now a teenager - was passionately explaining how everyone should live, what they should do, and how they should achieve success. I sat quietly, watching her, smiling... I suppose, once, I had thought the same way, though I had long forgotten. She noticed my smile, took it as condescension, and was furious! She fell silent, then spat out in anger, "Not everyone has to be such a loser like you!"