Seven

Mystic Stranger

My family owns a little coffee shop in a little poky town, where once BTS stopped for a hot drink. My old dad pestered them until they let him take a photo. My dad calls it the proudest day of his life, I call it the last straw, or alternatively the most embarrassing moment of my life, my dad made me take the photo. That was the day I started looking for a job in the city, and a way to escape the humdrum poky existence in that poky little town.

Although working as a gofer in a big office in the city isn't exactly the most exciting thing in the world. I'm still making coffee, but now I also get post, get lunch orders, answer phones, pick up files, type letters and all the other boring little jobs that keep my boss happy and productive. I'm just the assistant to another assistant, the dogs body, who except from cleaning does the shitty jobs my superior doesn't want to do, and I get no credit, all the credit goes to her. The thanks, they all go to her, and I'm like a wandering spirit that does it all but is completely invisible.

I live in a shitty apartment in the outskirts of the city, I used to share but the person I was sharing with did a moonlight bunk and left me paying a full rent on my peanuts of a wage packet. There are days and sometimes nights when I wonder what in hell made me think this would be better? Then I get up the next morning and I remember the last straw and I think of what I'd be doing right then back at home and I gladly go into the office and get treated like dirt.

That must sound like living with my folks is the most awful thing in the world, it's not, I mean it could have been much worse. It's just not what I want for my life, I don't want to work in my dad's coffee shop until he dies and I have to run it. I don't want never to see the world and live vicariously through other people's postcards like my mum does. I don't want to get married at 25 and start a family with the person I dated in high school, like my sister has. I want more, I've got ambitions and dreams, and I'm only on the first step of my journey.

I have a copy of that photo by the way, the one I took of Dad and BTS, the one that makes me relive my embarrassment every time I look at it. Now though I'm a little proud that I got to meet such an inspiring group. They've all worked to get their dreams, Jungkook especially, I guess you could say he's my bias, although I'd die rather than admit I was ARMY! That probably sounds bad to other ARMY, but if your Dad was known as the BTS coffee man I bet you'd be embarrassed to say you were ARMY too!

I'm going home for a visit soon, my sister just had another baby, so I have a baby nephew now and so I arranged to go home and visit. Mum would kill me if I didn't, and I guess I kind of miss them, my family I mean. They might be kind of embarrassing but they're still my family. I'm taking presents back, of course, not that mum and dad care but I want to give them something to thank them, without them I wouldn't have had the courage to move away. My folks aren't so bad, just a little stuck I guess.

It's weird going home, it will always be my home but somehow it's not my home as well. I suppose I kind of have two homes, my shitty apartment in the city and my parents home where I grew up. There are lot of memories there, it's like my whole childhood locked behind the front door, but my stuff, my art work, my writing, my dreams, my music, my life is at the shitty apartment. I didn't tell you about my dreams, did I? I want to be a travel writer, that's why I got that job in the city, it's at a publishers. I thought if I could work in the office and learn about what makes things good to publish then I'd have an advantage when I wrote about places to visit. Right now though I don't get to read anything, I guess I got the wrong job, probably should have applied as a proofreader but I didn't have the qualifications for that.

I'm on the train home, it's quite a long journey but it's sort of nice just listening to BTS and not having to get people coffee or run around because someone lost a super important file on a writer. It's like I'm traveling in my own private bubble. Mum and Dad are waiting for me at the train station, but Dad seems anxious to get back, he takes my luggage and rushes away.