My life can't get any better than this. I mean, I'm blind and all but I suppose there are conditions worse than mine. Other people probably have it worse than I do, considering I'm the only blind kid that "needs" so much attention. As if I don't get...
What is work? Because honestly, most jobs are bullshit. The work that creates real value - childcare, research, building, teaching, art - is barely paid at all, while the banksters and lawyers rake it in. It's no wonder the world is in a negative spin, it's the polluters and the economic-leeches that get fat in this rigged game of some eighty years, the one we call economics.
Chaeyoung thought to herself, completely overworked after a long day at the same job she's had since high school.
I say take away the money and let us play, because I tell you that once the bullshit is gone art is play, science is play, maths is play and engineering is play. Once the stress is gone, once the power play and attitude problems of the entitled elite is gone - almost anything can be play. Your fancy cars and vacations don't give me the time I need to care for myself, or be there for a friend; they're the gold handcuffs I can do without.
We should make a world that rewards things that make living healthier, happier and more worthwhile. Polluting earth, creating stress, strutting puffed up egos while others go hungry isn't life, it's barely human. Maybe universal basic income is a start, but it ain't the end, the end is true liberty without the bribe currency brings. I'm not a donkey needing a carrot; I'm an awful lot more than that.
After a frenetic night at Dominoes, Chaeyoung sank into her armchair. It was a little after midnight and even the birds were quiet. There wasn't a car on the lane within a three mile radius and the dog was asleep on her bed.
She drank in the silence through every pore, soothed by its meditative quality. Each time a worrying thought emerged she mentally jotted it down on a notepad, wrapped it around a stone and threw it away into the abyss.
When her anxieties had finally leached into the void, she moved her aching limbs up the stairs to bed. Then she laid there wrapped in her blanket, cocooned by the thick protective buffer of the absolute quiet. She wanted slumber to take her away already and shortly after closing her eyes, it overtook her.
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When Chaeyoung opened her eyes she was on a river bank. Cool water flowed by, eddying around the twigs of a fallen tree branch. In the distance, there was a willow tree, exactly the same as the one she used to sit by with her mother and grandmother as a little girl.
Across the way sat a kingfisher, its blue plumage resplendent it what must be the light of summer, though early in the morning. She cast her eyes up to find the sun but it wasn't there. Odd.
Then she recalled going back to her apartment, feeling dead tired and falling asleep. So perhaps this was a dream. A pretty nice one at that.
Chaeyoung dipped her hand into the water and brought it out, watching the drips from their ever-increasing circles on impact. So vivid.
She held her wet fingers to the air, there was a breeze, just softly. There was much to see about this ethereal environment. Radiant energy seemed to surround this place, as if acting like a shield to keep her safe and guarded.
