Name’s Astrid Wallia

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

No. What a bother to have these hazy thoughts.

My supervisor gave me a final write-up on my productivity just two days ago. I punched 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, miniture, plastic chair, yet whether I go up, 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 will 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.

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. 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 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 two and a half 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 because I was hopeless in school with no friends.

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.

If I were alone, I could never pay for any place in this city with my level of education and no 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.

On this cold, stained 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.

I feel bad for him. 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 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 day. At this point, the pressure isn’t going away, and my ears feel thunder in dull pain while my body is getting increasingly numb. Underneath, I figured 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. Its exterior has overly 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.