Fall From Grace

“The room was messy” does not do justice to the state this particular room was in.

The room was littered with scrunched-up bottles of water, some still containing water and slowly spilling out like the last breath of a dying waterfall. Cups of instant noodles joined the discarded bottles to make the floor a sea of plastic. Disposable black spoons were strewn across the sea of plastic, with some impaling the ramen cups like a demon being impaled by spears. The solid bits of spice that were condensed after being exposed to the air resembled blood and stuck to the sides of the holes and the end of the spoon, which added to the whole setting.

White sheets of tissue were balled into a sphere and thrown around the bed. The mix of black and white gave the sea a monochromatic feel and added to the depressing state of the room.

The curtains in the room were not drawn despite the time being past noon. The windows have never been opened, evident by the web of spiders and rust of iron that had accumulated in the lock. What the owner of the room even breathed then was a mystery.

The sink contained unwashed dishes with solid remains that had decayed into something that would mosaiced out were it to be shown on a screen. There were flies buzzing around the whole kitchen using the undisposed water accumulated under the sink as their breeding ground.

The foul smell that it gave off was enough to knock an elephant out of their senses. Add to it the smell of marinated farts, unchanged bedsheets, stinky breath, and a body that has not showered in a while, the whole room smelled like a cesspool of all human waste.

The owner of that tiny and cramped apartment was sleeping on the bed. Amidst all that mess, he did not look a single bit out of place.

His eyes fluttered open, with the heaviness as if the fate of the whole world rested on his shoulders. This could have never been any farther from the truth. The man could not even take responsibility for himself, much less the whole world.

He woke up. With practiced steps as if he were used to walking in that pile of garbage, he made his way to the restroom. He washed his face and brushed his teeth. He felt a sudden itchiness in his armpits.

He took out a pair of undergarments from the closet and took a bath. He hated taking baths, but dealing with itchiness was something he hated even more. He took a bath after god knows how long.

Feeling a little fresh and awake, he went to the kitchen. Ignoring the smell and the buzzing of the flies, he opened the refrigerator.

“Ah, damn.”

He was out of beer. He looked at the cabinet right above the fridge where he kept his instant food materials. Even that looked empty. He suddenly remembered that he had eaten the last three cups of ramen and two bottles of canned beer yesterday before sleeping.

He was hungry, and his stomach demanded immediate attention.

Disgruntled, he put on a hoodie, took his purse, and stepped out.

The moment he did, the sun glared at him. Having not been out in so long, his eyes took time to adjust to the brightness outside. Like a vampire that despised the sun, he held his hands in front of his face as he walked.

The apartment he lived in was one of those popular two-storey apartment buildings made mostly from wood and light steel work.

He went down the steel stairs, but he found that he was having a little difficulty walking. Maybe it was the fact that he was hungry that he did not have the strength to muster even for walking. He has been living on nothing but ramen and sushi for the past few months, he lacked the proper nutrition to support his body. Also, he had not moved his body a lot. The most he did was walk from the bed to the kitchen or the bathroom. His muscles were probably cramped. He felt like his muscle mass had decreased, and he also felt stiffness in his joints.

However, not going was not an option. He needed food and as soon as physically possible.

So, he pushed ahead toward the nearest convenience store.

The sun was high and bright. There were scarcely any people out. Adults were probably working heir butts off in their office while kids were having fun in school. The elders were probably too unbothered to go out in this heat. The only one walking outside at this time of the day was him. And he felt alone. Isolated. Nothing new, but he felt it all the same.

The convenience store was ten minutes away from his apartment. Located in a small square, it was adjoined to a bookstore and cafe to its right and an ice-cream parlor to its left.

Before he could reach the convenience store, he had to pass the cafe and then the bookstore.

He had made up his mind not to look at the bookstore because he knew what he would see there would only upset him. He has been disappointed and disheartened by this multiple times already. Today was the day he would give up on hoping. Despair only exists where there is a possibility of hope. Once you give that away, there is no despair.

But he couldn’t help himself. He was human after all. He couldn’t give up the one trait that made humans human. So, he looked.

Across the transparent blue window pane, there stood rows upon rows of books, stacked neatly in columns with big advertising banners on top of each of them. He looked at them. As expected, the one book he was looking for was not there. It has not been there. For a long time.

Delusional Distress - the debut book that was an instant hit among people. Bookstores would run out of copies in a week, such was the demand for the book. The writer who had struggled so long had finally managed to publish his debut book at the age of thirty. He was a new pillar of hope for those who thought that they were old and needed to give up their dreams. A guiding light of persistence and hard work.

However, it took less than a year for all of that to disappear. The pillar had crumbled, and the guiding light turned out to be a torch that had run out of battery. After his debut book came out, people had expected more books from him, similarly entertaining and engrossing.

Kaito Asano, the phenomenal debutant, however, had failed to deliver after that. He did put out a book two years after that, but it did not perform well. Not only did it fail to amaze people, but instead garnered him hate.  Critics called it a flop. People cited that it was uninspired, rushed, and lacked the emotional freshness his debut work had.

The same people who had prasied his debut work said that the book was an utter piece of shit. Despite these unsavory remarks from people, Kaito did not give up. From his college days until he published his debut novel, he had lived through many such experiences. He was not about to throw in the water now.

He preserved. And he published a series of short stories containing witty humor and satire. He had hoped people would like this, but the train of hate continued, and more people hopped on that train.

People started calling him names. He was a fraud, and his first book a fluke. People started saying that he was a one-hit wonder. With how bad the works he had produced after the debut were, some started circulating rumors that the first book was written by a ghost writer in his name.

The fans who had sent him fan letters via email started sending him letters filled with hate and disappointment.

Kaito started spiraling down after that. He became unable to write. He was afraid to write another story. Whenever he sat down and opened his laptop, the words he had heard and seen would dance across the screen in big, mocking font.

“You can never write anything good.”

 That was what they were saying. He started getting scared of people altogether.

It was fine when he was a struggling writer, when nobody knew him. But having tasted success and gained fame, then losing all of that and some made him lose his mind. When nobody knew him, at least he was not criticized to this degree, at least he wasn’t spat on so much. He had peace. But the kind of fall he had after tasting success destroyed what little self-respect and self-worth he had.

Even after all this, his first book was still selling. The number of stores that sold it started dwindling. However, there was one bookstore that still sold it even after everyone else had stopped buying it. This was the store he was currently looking at.

This store had also stopped selling his novel a year ago. The only flicker of light that kept him moving had vanished without so much as a poof. He was done for, metaphorically and literally.

That fragile tether to his former self was gone. No farewell. No warning. Just…gone. Like him.