The Rejection

“I loved her… no I still do…”

The glass made a clunking sound as it hit the table. The ice cubes clattered. Sad piano music played in the background. With his left hand the man at the table reached to a bottle of whiskey and poured himself another glass.

“But of course, she doesn’t love me. How could I have expected otherwise? Not even I love me, so why should anybody else…” he muttered as the drink neared his mouth.

With one big gulp the man finished the glass and immediately filled it up again.

He asked, “Do you love me, Bob?”, as he was looking at the round eyes that stared at him from the other side of the table. But Bob didn’t answer. Because Bob was a goldfish, floating in the small Aquarium, with two plants and a little solitary rock in it where he lived since the man was just a boy.

“Thought so…” sighed the Man and emptied his glass again, only to refill it right away.

“Why did my life turn out this way? I was so full of hope in my teens. Thought, I’d go to University, get a master’s degree, maybe even a doctorate, and landing a nice job. I didn’t even care that I never got a girlfriend, experienced love, or had any romantic encounters physically or otherwise, like everyone else around me, or like you find in all those teenage romance storiese…”

Half of the next glass of whiskey went down the man’s throat.

“My university life was still before me… Thirty seemed so far off back then and I was sure to have finished my studies, found a sweet girl and maybe even got married by then…”

The rest of the golden-brown liquid vanished inside the man’s mouth. The bottle was already half empty as he poured another glass. Some tears welled up from the corner of the man’s eyes and began to trail downwards over his cheeks into his long beard.

“And look at me now… over thirty, still not finished with my master’s degree, even wondering if I should quit. Doing some odd jobs on the side to earn at least some money and not just depend on my parents. The only romantic experience I gained since then was a kiss on the cheek from a good friend. But it wasn’t even romantic in any way, because it only meant something to me and I went and fell in love with her. My first love. Near the age of thirty… kinda pathetic, huh Bob?”

The man emptied the next glass of whiskey. Bob didn’t answer, because he still was just a goldfish.

“And what’s even more pathetic is, that it took me years to finally muster up my courage and confess my feelings. Years in which she became one of my closest friends what made it even harder for me to tell her. I tried it in a lot of different indirect ways, but my plans didn’t work… they never do… and when…”

The man paused to wipe the tears from his face before he gulped down a big swig of the bottle.

“And now when I finally told her directly, the outcome was as I expected… It was only I that wanted something more…”

The voice of the man cracked a bit. More and more tears started flowing into his beard. Bob still floated silently in the aquarium and watched as the man wiped his face and took another big swig of the bottle. There was only a quarter of the whisky left.

“Why did my life become like this? I know that this is mostly my broken heart talking… but I feel like such a failure. I don’t have anything in my life to show for. My social anxieties have just gotten worse with my age, and I just lost my motivation for anything. I don’t even want to go out anymore…”

The man took another swig of whiskey. The alcohol started to show signs, as he began to slur his words and sway a bit in his chair.

“I… I just feel so lonely sometimes… I can’t get rid of this loneliness inside of me… I don’t know… I can’t… And what do I do? Sit here and drown in self-pity and self-hatred. While it seems to be impossible for me to change anything about this, about me… I’ll just complain how shitty everything is and afterwards fall back into the same old routines I’m stuck all these years. Feeling bad about myself and distracting myself with all the fantasy stories I can find, while doing nothing to change the situations.”

The man put his face in his hand and rubbed his forehead. Like that he sat for a while before he shook his head and looked up again towards Bob.

“Argh… fuck it… this is all so pointless… it’s just so pathetic! This is getting me nowhere… I have to do something,” said the man with a raised voice and took another swig of whiskey. The bottle was now nearly empty.

“What would all those heroes in the stories that I love to read do?... yeah, that’s right! From tomorrow on, I’ll try to do better! I can’t change what has already happened, so there is no reason to let it get to me too much!... Yeah… easier said than done…I just want to be the main character of a story sometime… I feel like such an insignificant and unimportant character, even in my own life story…”

The man started with an enthusiastic voice only to shrink down in his seat at the end. He looked at the last of the whiskey swirling around in the bottle.

“How nice would it be to be the protagonist of a story for once, but I doubt I would make a great main character… Who would want a story about a pathetic guy always second guessing himself…Man, I like to go on an adventure, but I’m too afraid to do so… I just wished I could live in a fantasy world like in those stories…”

He muttered as he drank the last of the alcohol.

Suddenly a strange voice said, “It will be as you wish.”

The man took the last sip, raised his eyebrows and look around confused. Then his eyes stopped at the only other pair in the room.

“Did you just… talk… Bob?”

The big black and unblinking eyes of Bob looked at him. The aquarium began to emit an unnatural light.

“Try your best,” said the strange voice. The man blinked.

“I should drink less…” he muttered as he closed his eyes and fell into an alcohol-induced sleep.