Ordinary Man

People like to believe they're special. During pregnancy all the way to young adulthood, parents tell their children they're special and will achieve great things in life. The reality is that nobody is really special. Ordinary people living ordinary lives. The twist is that one such ordinary man is about to find out just how extraordinary the world is.

It all started one night when the middle aged man had a peculiar dream. A dream where the sun shone bright, the sky never clouded and the temperature remained a warm 27℃ with a cool breeze one would generally experience in autumn.When the middle aged man woke, he heard the birds happily chirping outside his window and was greeted by the warm rays of a summer sun. The middle aged man thought he was still dreaming, after all they had only ever heard stories of sunny days, yet all it took was a pinch to the cheek for him to realise this was real. At first the middle aged man was afraid to go outside, he thought the world had to be ending. One; two then three hours passed, the middle aged man simply sat and stared at his window, not moving a muscle. When nothing happened he ventured outside, curious to what he would find, but terrified as to what would happen to him. The middle aged man squinted his eyes in an attempt to deal with the bright light and within minutes of walking sweat begun to bead on his forehead. The thick faded brown suede jacket did not aid him in his battle against the unusual weather, yet as if God sent, a cool breeze encircled him. Filling his lungs with a deep breath the middle aged man felt a soothing vigor flow through him.
Something caught the middle aged man's eye, amid the sunny day there was a lady walking with an umbrella and a thick winter coat, as if she was shielding herself from a fierce storm. The middle aged man was confused but strange people were not uncommon in the world. It was only once the middle aged man reached the shopping district that he saw he was the only person without an umbrella and a raincoat. A few people glanced in his direction with puzzled expressions yet nobody ventured to interact with him.The middle aged man chose not to give thought to the strange events and instead headed to his favourite watering hole for a stiff drink to clear his head. As the middle aged man nursed his drink he couldn't help but wonder what was the purpose of his dream, or how his dream had become a reality, or even why nobody else found this weather strange. But try as he might, the middle aged man could not reach any logical conclusion. By the time he headed home he could no longer walk straight, so he decided to chalk it off as some strange coincidence where the planets were aligned or something like that and left it at that. Comfortable in his bed and falling into a deep sleep, the middle aged man looked forward to everything going back to normal the next day.
To the middle aged man's despair, the following day did not go back to normal, nor did the next, in fact it was only getting hotter but nobody seemed remotely fazed by this. The middle aged man did not know what to do, so he continued to follow the same routine which revolved around him walking through the town then ending up at the bar where he pondered on what was going on as he got drunk. One thing the middle aged man began to notice after the fourth night was that a lady sat in the same table every single night with a glass of red wine. Normally this wouldn't be strange, but the lady was always alone and would leave the same time he would. The middle aged man wasn't sure why the lady caught his eye, she had average looks and wore plain clothes, yet for some reason she stood out among all the other women who were clearly more attractive or better dressed. A pleasant distraction from his usual thoughts.
After the sixth night, the middle aged man's routine was broken. He arrived at the bar, as he usually would, ordered a cheap single malt whiskey and sat at the bar looking at the lone lady across the room. To his surprise, the middle aged man found that the lady was not there. He checked his watch, 21:30, she was normally here at this time, never a second earlier nor a second later. At first the middle aged man thought she had noticed him watching her and got freaked out, or maybe something bad had happened to her on her way to the bar. The middle aged man sat at the bar and nursed his drink. There was no reason to dwell on the lady, he had no connection to her at all, for all he knew she was married and simply liked siting alone at the bar before she headed home to her husband. Yet not being able to see the lady that distracted him from his thoughts soured the taste of his drink. The middle aged man paid the bartender for the drink and left the bar, not wanting to drink anymore he figured he would head home and see if he could have another dream that would return everything to normal. Standing outside the bar, leaning against the wall, was the lady waiting for the middle aged man. She explained that she had a dream where she sat in a bleak bar, but when a man with a suede jacket entered, colour would come to the world. Since that dream she frequented the bleakest looking bar in town, hoping to see the man there. When she saw the middle aged man she just had a feeling that he was the one from her dream. The middle aged man was stunned by what he heard, the lady that had caught his eye was waiting for him all along. The lady asked if they could talk somewhere private. The middle aged man, who had some questions of his own, invited her for a drink at his place.When they arrived at the middle aged man's place he found a bottle of cheap red wine that a friend had left by him months ago and poured them each a glass. The middle aged man apologised for the cheap wine and explained that he mostly drank at the bar, so he seldom had any decent wine at his place. The lady didn't seem to mind and was more interested in staring at the middle aged man. The lady was curious and asked the middle aged man why an average looking woman such as herself caught his eye. The middle aged man took a sip of his wine and explained that she was the only person he saw without an umbrella and coat. Baffled by his answer, the lady couldn't help but chuckle, that such strange motivation led to them sharing a bottle of wine at his place. What she didn't understand was why he found it strange that she didn't have a umbrella or coat. The middle aged man didn't know why, but he felt comfortable telling the lady about his own strange dream and how that dream became a reality as well, yet nobody else was fazed by the change. The lady said nothing, listening intently to the middle aged man, once he had finished his explanation the lady leaned in and kissed him. It was a short kiss, just slightly longer than a peck, but even after she broke away the sensation of her lips and the scent of her cherry sweet perfume lingered. Without a word, she rose to her feet, removed her blouse and skirt and walk to the middle aged man's bedroom. The middle aged man wasn't sure what spurred the lady's actions on, yet it had been far too long since he had laid with a women and she didn't seem to think he was crazy after he gave his explanation. Or maybe she did think he was crazy and pitied him, either way the middle aged man's thoughts were put on hold when the lady called him to the bedroom.
That night a nagging whisper woke the middle aged man from his sleep. The lady was still laying next to him fast asleep and unfazed by the small kitsune sitting on her chest. The sight didn't shock the middle aged man as his mind had yet to process what he was seeing. It was only when the kitsune spoke that the middle aged man fell from the bed in an attempt to create distance between the creature and himself. The kitsune leapt from the bed walked towards the middle aged man, who had backed himself up against the wall frantically looking for an escape or weapon to defend himself with. the kitsune explained it was not there to hurt him, only to let him know what was happening. The middle aged man learned that people's burdens manifested as animals and he had the ability to see them, therefore he was the only one who could help free them before they became curses. The middle aged man had no interest in helping rid people of their burdens, he had his own problems hehad to deal with. The kitsune promised the middle aged man he would find the answers he was searching for by helping the burdens. The middle aged man was overjoyed to finally have a lead, he glanced at the sleeping lady then back to the kitsune before he asked how he could help free the lady from her burden. The kitsune told the middle aged man that the lady was searching for acceptance, but what kind of acceptance, the kitsune was unsure of. The middle aged man began to feel drowsy, before he passed out he asked the kitsune if it knew what his burden was or if it could see his burden. The kitsune looked at the middle aged man for a few seconds before it concluded that it didn't sense any burden from the middle aged man. Before he could ask anymore questions the kitsune vanished from his sight and the middle aged man fell asleep.
When the middle aged man woke up the following morning he found that the lady had already left. On his kitchen counter was a fresh mug of steaming hot coffee and a note with the lady's number. A sip of coffee and the crying cicadas made the middle aged man realise nothing was just going to go back to normal. He had to get answers and if the kitsune was to be believed, he'd have to go out and find the answers himself. The middle aged man found that it was easier for him to see people's burdens after his interaction with the kitsune. The burdens differed vastly, most were petty things that were easy to solve, on the other hand others were quite hard and the middle aged man had to give up on a few that were simply impossible for him to complete without committing some form of crime. What never changed were people's freaked out expressions towards this complete stranger invading their private lives. The middle aged man cared very little about the people's burdens or the people themselves, yet he was enthralled by the lady's burden as he would ponder what type of acceptance she was searching for. That night he dialled her number and invited her over for a glass of wine, which she readily accepted, and the two sat and spoke over a bottle of wine. The middle aged man did most of the talking, the lady would avoid most questions about herself and was more interested in the vivid stories the middle aged man told. He was frank about the way he saw the world and told her about the burdens he helped, or attempted to help, throughout the day. He was always careful not to mention her burden, afraid he would scare her away, nor did the lady ever ask him what her burden was.
Once the bottle of wine was finished and the middle aged man had finished telling her his stories for the day, the lady stripped off her clothes without a word and went to his bedroom. This time he didn't linger at the table. Sex with the lady felt different from when he had sex with his ex-wife back when he was married. He wouldn't say it was an act done out of budding love, nor would he say it was pure lust. However there was some deep connection, but the middle aged man cast the thoughts away and instead focused on the lady. The middle aged man didn't wake up and slept soundly that night, and when he woke up the next morning the lady was nowhere to be seen, leaving behind a mug of hot coffee as if she had just left as he woke up. The middle aged man had come to enjoy talking about his quest to the lady and enjoyed their intimate moments more so. And so it became a part of his routine. He would spend the day getting information from the burdens he freed, at night he would share a bottle of wine with the lady and talk, after which they would have sex and in the morning she would be gone, leaving a mug of hot coffee for him.
This routine continued for three months. As the time progressed the middle aged man began to lose hope. The information he obtained from the burdens were mostly snippets about how the world was ending or lifespans were shortened, but nothing that would explain why he was the only on who saw a sunny world, when the sun hadn't shone for the past six thousand years. They couldn't even help him find his own burden, most even ignored him when he asked about his burden. As his hope for answers faded, the middle aged man found himself no longer caring about it. Instead he focused solely on the lady. By the end of the third month the middle aged man no longer went out to find burdens. His world revolved around the lady and helping her alone. It was due to this that the middle aged man failed to notice the rising temperature, the sun turning a whitish blue and the world cracking and breaking away. What the middle aged man didn't realise was that that evening, at the end of the third month, would be the last time he saw the lady. When she arrived, the lady seemed different, the spark of interest in her eyes had died out and she even declined the glass of wine. Atfirst the middle aged man thought it was because he no longer went out looking for burdens and instead spoke about other mundane topics or even asking about her. They sat in complete silence for a while before the lady shook her head and ask the middle aged man if he would be willing to listen to her story. She apologised for leading him on. She had noticed he had started to fall in love with her, yet she didn't love, nor like him in the same sense. This had nothing to do with his physical looks, personality or sexual prowess. She was simply incapable of loving another. The lady told her story to the middle aged man, the story of how she was abused and raped by her uncle as a child. When her parents found out they disowned her and a few days after that sold her. Her uncle was a big corporate boss and her parents did not want to lose standing with him. The man she was sold to didn't treat her as a human and her sole purpose was to sexually please him. It didn't take her long to stop feeling anything; to cope she had severed her emotions, something she could never get back again. The middle aged man asked her why she had chosen to sleep with him if that was the horrible past she had. A small smile crept on her face, it wasn't a smirk, but rather a pain-filled forced expression. The lady sat silently for a while as she contemplated he words, the entire time she looked down, avoiding meeting the middle aged man's gaze. In the end she simply said that the middle aged man brought colour to her dark bleak world with his vivid stories and the only way she knew how to repay him was sexually.
That night they never had sex, they simply embraced each other and fell asleep. The next morning the lady was gone once again, but this time she left no coffee for the middle aged man. The middle aged man couldn't help but worry about her, and by the afternoon he couldn't shake the sinking feeling in his gut. When he called the lady, her phone just rang. The middle aged man convinced himself she was at work, albeit he never found out what work she did or if she even had a job, or she was simply busy. When night time came and the lady didn't show up at his place, the middle aged man stayed up and waited for her to arrive or even send a message, but a heavy fatigue fell over him and soon he fell asleep. For the first time since he had first had sex with the lady, he was visited by the kitsune who once again woke him up. The middle aged man tried to speak but no words would come out. He swore he saw the kitsune smirk. The creature came to thank him, as it explained that unbeknownst to the middle aged man, he had accepted the lady despite having heard her story. As a result he freed her from her burden. The kitsune also told the middle aged man that he would never see the lady again, that each person he freed of their burden went and committed suicide. The burdens tied people to the world and that made both the burdens and the person suffer. When the middle aged man severed the burden from the people, the people could die without regrets and went to do so before a new burden formed. The middle aged man felt as if he had somehow been tricked by the kitsune into freeing the burdens so they could inhabit the world. Resigned to his fate and the guilt of his actions, the middle aged man tried to speak again, to ask if the kitsune really had no idea what his burden was, but he couldn't. At some point during the night the kitsune had left and the middle aged man was able to move again, but the middle aged man laid there, as if he was paralyzed, and silently wept till morning.

When morning came, the middle aged man dragged his fatigued body around town in search of the lady, when he couldn't find her he went to the bar, but never found her. The middle aged man broke down, he knew deep down that the kitsune was not lying, he would truly never seen the lady again. When he got home, the middle aged man grabbed a bottle of wine and reached for the bottle of pills only to find that they were empty. Laying down on his bed the middle aged man made a mental note to get more pills. As he began falling into a deep sleep he thought about the ordinary lady he'd come to love and how he wished he had remained an ordinary man, unaware of the world burning and breaking way around him.