Name’s Astrid Wallia

Is it preferable to become homeless and perish on the human-waste-soaked street, heckled and spat on by every passerby, or shoulder three jobs totaling 105 working hours per week?

Argh. No. What a total bother to have these hazy thoughts. I don't need more to think about; yesterday is enough. 

"But, Boss, you know it wasn't me! Have you heard the rumors about Astrid? Well, no matter, let me tell you-" My socialable coworker exclaimed and gestured.

Leave it to my supervisor to believe the fabricator of those very rumors' word over my own. That was twenty-five minutes of nonstop swearing and condemnations, and I still took the fall. I harshly nudged myself in the cheek and continued staring with my burning, blurry eyes into my office program.

The room is dim, and my stiff back can’t handle this cheap, miniature, plastic chair, yet whether I go down, straight, sideways, or slouched, something on my body still aches. It is not like I have other posture options. If I move my arm barely out of place, it's bound to slam into a metal cubicle wall. How likely is it that my chair is short, given I am average height? I want to complain, but I keep it inside. As a high school dropout, I’m lucky by all means to have this office job.

I craved a calm meal and a chance to consider something other than work. Important notions to some, my wicked schedule turned meaningless.

Clicking away, I accidentally noticed the computer’s clock was at 2 AM. Spoilers. I prefer to lose track of time on the job if I can.

Ok, just two more hours of office work I can barely keep up with, and then I can sleep for around two hours before taking a bus to my 6 AM construction shift that sorely lacks safety equipment and survival outcomes. This is one of my easier days of the week, so I can still do this. I am eighteen and I can’t die yet. It would make my family furious.

I live in Solar City, the brightest city in the world! According to the popular city slogan, a statement that is only true if you are wealthy and can get past the rampant corruption on all levels. The city is the second largest in the world and is a techno metropolis hell where everyone not gifted enough to work at a big corporation will have to work overtime every week to come back to a soul-crushingly overpriced and box-sized apartment fenced in by tens of others. Eventually, these workers will get married and promoted and get to move to a beautiful house in the inner city that’s safe from gangs and pollution filth.

Not even close, sorry. Just an apartment with one extra room. Don’t think about trying to afford a child.

Still, I yearn for that life. Taking off their shoes in their apartment, they could hear their favorite person’s voice echo.

“Welcome back home from work, honey.” Then they would wrap their arms around their partner's neck or be surprised by a feeling of warmth covering their own neck. Damn. I am overwhelmed by longing. What a pity, my parents don’t allow dating or marriage.

So all I have is my family for better or worse. My family that forced me to work three jobs since I was sixteen. If it were legal, I am sure I would have started earlier. I am the middle child with a prodigal older brother and brilliant younger sister. I don’t know how it was decided by my parents, but I work to support them fully. Maybe it wouldn’t be this way if I weren’t so hopeless in school, and with me naturally failing to get to know my peers and teachers.

Ugh, the past really frustrates me.

My parents told me that they have big expectations for me. Different from my siblings, but still present. They are special and get resources. It is my expectation to do everything to support them. I should be thankful just to have a place to live and two meals a day. Obviously.

I understand that if I were alone, I could never pay for any place in this city with my level of education and lack of credit. They knowingly remind me of this on the three days of the week I sleep at home. My father even said that I could start cashing in my checks into a personal account in eight years once my sister finishes college. That spending money is something to look forward to.

I’d wonder what it would be like to leave this city. The border is set to reopen next year after this tentative threat of invasion passes. This too is likely to be expensive.

On this cold, stained brown bench, waiting for the bus, I lay down. Under the bench, to my right seated is a homeless man with the longest and dustiest beard. He starts laughing at me with a healthy grin. I don’t respond.

An object of pity. A soul without a job. Can’t have a use in Solar City without one of those.

Before I know it, my exhaustion calls to me. Very easily, in fact. Midrest, there is this sickening feeling that I am dying with thrashing, breathlessness, and redness overcoming my vision. I revolt and attempt to flee upward using all of my body. Nothing. My entire body feels submerged under the thickest water, a pressurized ocean, yet the space felt intangibly above the land of Earth, like it was unfiltered space. My body had been cast away like an anchor without a chain. The dangerous instinct stops, and it is calm as I drift deeper into darkness away from golden light, with the rising bubbles getting smaller. Is sleeping in a lucid dream important to getting sleep in real life?

I try in desperation, but each time I close my eyes, there is the ever-present feeling that I am being observed by a dominant being unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

Nope! I stare out into the dark blue and void around me instead for what feels like a whole pointless day. At this rate, the pressure isn’t going away, and my ears feel thunder in dull pain while my body is getting increasingly numb. Underneath, I spotted what appeared to be an ocean floor. I’m saved. This dream should be finished.

Then it moved. The indentation on the floor opened to reveal a ravine-wide mouth with the darkest black space inside. The mouth's exterior had thick, grey lips modeled like those of a fish. I’m resigned to my immobility, and I fully expect to be swallowed whole by what looks to be an ocean beast.

As I pass, the mouth comes to life with a thundering clasp around my stomach, and it is squeezed with absolute force. Even in the dream, the pain is volatile. Then my full body was sucked in from the bottom like dust in a vacuum. The last image I saw before full-on darkness was the lip ceiling clasping closed so fully that it signaled that it could never be opened again.