I Felt Like I Was Dying

Click. My eyes wandered to the next field to fill in, although I no longer knew what I was looking at. Click. The numbers merged into one. I even forgot what the settlement I had been fruitlessly working on for hours was about. Click. The phone was lying next to me, but there was no notification on it. There was no point in taking it in my hands, as part of some short break, since I didn't even have anyone to reply to. Click. Maybe I should look something up online to wake myself up more, since it was getting harder and harder to keep my head upright. Click. Among the islands of desks, only my desk had a light on. If I had someone close to me, I could talk to them on speakerphone. Some chance that work would go much better, but in the meantime, it was just click, click, click.

I don't know where a huge wave of frustration and anger suddenly appeared in me, which unfortunately one of the arrows on the keyboard had to accept. I stood up with no idea where to let it out. Still, I couldn't grab my jacket, backpack and go home; I had to finish my report. In my mind, the monitor was smiling at me maliciously, so I grabbed something from the bag of supplies and sat on the windowsill. The city seemed calm, in contrast to my head, which clearly couldn't cope with the tiredness, monotony, and overwhelm.

The hiss of the can's cap being opened forced me to look at my hands. Was I going to drink this? How many cans of coffee was it today? Maybe I should eat something instead of pouring another dose of caffeine into myself? I was probably stuffing myself with it only out of habit, because it didn't make any impression on my body anyway. When was the last time I enjoyed a warm drink or ate a cooked meal instead of a reheated one? When did I meet up with friends, even for a moment? I doubted whether any of them would have time for it. Some of them started families. Others, like me, lived from shift to shift, eating ready meals, too tired to do anything on the weekends other than catch up on sleep and maybe tidy up the apartment a bit. A few had some kind of success, but you could still talk to them on equal terms.

I wished I was like them - determined, brave, and hard-working. Instead, I preferred to stay in the safe bubble of mediocrity, hoping that things wouldn't be so bad. Meanwhile, they were living for real, or in the evenings they had someone to kiss on the forehead and wrap up in the duvet goodnight. And I was sitting alone in the office at one in the morning, but at least I had a can of coffee and a few more snacks. What more could I ask for? I shouldn't complain; my health was good, and I could only spend money on my own needs. A great prospect for a twenty-nine-year-old! I raised the can to my reflection in the mirror.

"Cheers, Kyo! Down to the bottom, and let's get back to work," I muttered without enthusiasm.

Forcing myself to sit down in front of the monitor again was harder than getting up from it. And yet I returned to a state of concentration for a while, and a little hope crept into my heart that I would finish soon. New energy entered me; a little more and I would have a well-deserved rest! As quickly as this surge came, it was extinguished by clicking. I did not think that this sound could have a sleep-inducing effect. With each subsequent click, my eyelids and head became heavier and heavier. I did not know when I gave up and fell asleep.

I didn't dream about anything specific. The reflection that I made on my life, staring out the window, continued as if in my subconscious. If I told someone later, I would joke that at that moment I was dying, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and before that my whole life flashed before my eyes. My childhood and the disappointed faces of my parents when my friends and I did all kinds of stupid things. And yet full of some kind of joy that most people, including me, lose when they enter adulthood. Youthful dilemmas, first loves and heartbreak, more than once, but at least I had someone to share these teenage difficulties with. My class at that time was very close-knit. With the end of education, the girls shed a sea of ​​tears, but we pretended to be tough guys because it wasn't right for us to cry, but we took advantage of the fact that emotions took over, and our friends hugged us too. Beautiful, almost innocent times. Studies were no longer like that; in addition to studying, you also had to work, so there were some limitations anyway. And then it only got worse, until finally I found myself in this place and not another.

In all this, I saw many faces, but none of them stayed with me for long, neither my parents nor my first love, which supposedly has such a great impact on our lives. Apparently, this feeling was not as strong as I always thought, although later no one turned my head more. I didn't set the bar of requirements so high, since I myself was not perfect in terms of both character and appearance. And that doesn't change the fact that I didn't want to be with anyone by force, but I was bothered by the lack of someone permanent. A relationship probably wouldn't be the easiest with the lifestyle I led, but maybe it would give me the strength to change.

The light became clearer, and it was as if it was asking if I regretted anything. There would be a few things, but most of all, that I always avoided changes and didn't even try to find the strength to make them. The gym, healthier eating, talking to someone I liked, starting a dating app, a new job, moving out... I could go on forever, because I was pretty good at complaining. Everything seemed to be fine; I seemed to have no reason to really complain about my fate, but nothing really suited me. I just didn't do anything about it. That's my problem, and I regretted it. If I had another chance and I remembered all of this, I would probably have led the script of my life in a completely different direction.

That thought convinced me that I was probably dying from overwork, lying on my desk at work. Pathetic. Couldn't it be some heroic act of courage to save a child or a kitten that suddenly found themselves in the path of a speeding white truck? At least my death would bring something good to someone else and not traumatize the first person who comes to the office in a few hours. I don't want to be in anyone's dreams, at least not in nightmares. If I haunted someone's dreams because they had a crush on me, I could bear it, but I'll never know if they even existed.

I didn't think that famous light at the end resembled the blinding sun. I wanted to raise my hand to shield my eyes from nothing, and then I felt myself flying, or rather, falling uncontrollably down. Is this the next process of dying? Or have I already died, only to die again seconds later? Awesome.