An Author's Struggle - What Lies Ahead

Ch 12 - Struggles

A sealed biodegradable container. That’s all his friend amounted to. 

A bored employee handed him the package and some papers over the counter. That was all there was to Nella’s departure. No different from picking up a package from the postal office, he signed off the cremated remains and went home.

“Is this the value of life?”

Holding the container in one hand, he found it shaking again. The ashes themselves were almost weightless, but the guilt was heavy like lead. He had to use the other hand to steady it, but there was nothing he could do about his broken heart.

He wept. This time in the open, unashamed at the quizzical glances directed his way. 

He was so done with the world, he didn’t even bother to want to hide in that instant. 

It was only when his ride arrived that he snapped out of it, and in another dazed flash found himself home again. Ascending the stairs with weak limbs, he sighed, but found no relief in that either.

Just as he came up to the door, he stumbled on a legal note pinned to it.

[Eviction Notice]

“Cher Murphy, 

“In light of a noise complaint we’ve received on 29/07/2027, we have decided to terminate our rental agreement.

“You have 31 days to vacate the residence, or we will be forced to contact the authorities.”

Staring blankly at the note signed by his landlord, Murphy broke in a fit of curses. 

“Conard!” he spat venomously, “I always knew you wanted to get rid of me, but to sink so low…”

Having signed a long term contract a decade ago, he enjoyed a pretty low fee on his apartment. But with the sky-high inflation rates, the landlord wasn’t making much off of Murphy anymore. It came to no surprise that he gave him the boot as soon as he got the legal opportunity.

‘What use is there to complain now…’

Resigning himself to the reality of the situation, Murphy retired to the apartment and penned down a letter. At least, he tried to. But, try as he might, he couldn’t muster a single sentence.

What words could he possibly use to tell a father that his only daughter is dead? That the only remains they managed to scrape off a pavement were burned and amounted to nothing but a shoe box?

“No way…” he ultimately gave up and crumpled the paper in his fist, “The least I can do is send you home.”

Standing up, he discarded the postal package, deciding to return her remains personally. 

But first, he had to find a new place to live.

[One room, 1700 euro monthly, charges not included]

[Apartment, 59 sqm, 4200 monthly, charges included]

‘What the fuck are these prices!?’

Changing the website, he looked up another one. And then another. Unfortunately, they all showed the same results. 

When he compared that to his bank account, he groaned in defeat. He could at most afford another three months of rent in Paris, and then he would run a huge deficit.

His author contract wasn’t bringing in nearly as much as it used to, not with LACIE taking over the leaderboards. 

‘What to do…’

With a defeated sigh, he closed his laptop after two hours of pointless surfing. He didn’t magically stumble on a lucky property, and it seemed like the only option was to go out there and fight for a job, literally.

The people were in such a dire need, that physical conflicts were no longer uncommon. They fought with fists over the mere opportunity to get into an interview.

‘No way,’ he dismissed the idea immediately, ‘I could never go back to that life…’

Mulling over the idea until dinner, he still failed to discover any solutions. 

Before long, his alarm rang. It was time to continue the grind. 

- —    ✎    — -

Cluj-Napoca was a picturesque city in the North-Western regions of Romania. Lingering at the edges of the Carpathian Mountain range, it was also named the unofficial capital of Transylvania. 

The historical region didn’t exist in anything but name, of course, but it still gave birth to a plethora of legends that lived to date. None more popular than Dracula’s story, the Impaler, drinker of blood.

At least, that was what Murphy expected to see when he landed in Nella’s hometown. 

What greeted him instead were ugly blocks of cements and glass, adorned with thousands of neon advertisement signs. The skyscrapers lit up like christmas trees around the year, but it did little to conceal the distasteful dystopia seeped into the city’s heart.

After a popular movement by eco-activists, the European Union shot themselves in the foot and foreclosed on millions of properties across the continent. 

Farmers were pushed out into the city to scrape a living, no longer having the option to idle by in a village as their forefathers used to.

As an indirect result, cities had their populations skyrocket in a matter of months. Unable to keep up, the government took a page from the Saudi’s Line project and cobbled together massive structures they dubbed NeoBlocks.

There was little invested in aesthetics, and instead every effort was put into maximizing efficiency. These cages sprung up like mushrooms after rain, alleviating the crisis. But at what cost?

As he sat in the train, Murphy examined the locals and their conditions.

“Damn, and I thought I had it bad.”

[Treasure City - Metropolis of the Future - Rent or Buy Now!]

An advert flashed repeatedly across the city, the agency going into overdrive to promote their obvious lie. Their fancy tag-lines and videos of happy customers would never trick him, though.

He would rather live in graveyard…

[Starting at just 39,500, you can own your own…]

‘I’m in!’ he stood up and prepared his wallet, ‘Shit, Nero, that’s all you had to say!’

I guess he was moving to Romania…

Tricking himself with a joke, he found a distraction from the mounting pressure as he drew closer and closer to her home.

Double checking the address, he took a very, very deep breath, then knocked gingerly on the door. No one answered, so he went to knock again with more force, but it opened in that instant.

“Who are you?” a man scrutinized him suspiciously.

Murphy hadn’t had the best month, so he was disheveled and unkempt, not much different from a street bum. 

His long black hair fell just short of his shoulders, and his beard grew out somewhat out of control. The clothes he wore weren’t much to write home about, either. A pair of jeans, a thin shirt and a rugged backpack was all he had on.

“Well!?” the man prodded him when he failed to answer.

“Mr. Nicolae?” Murphy finally mustered some power to his voice, “Are you Nella’s father?”

“What of it? Did that lass finally start dating? Why would she pick this waste?” the man started on a tirade, more so talking to himself than Murphy, “Well, I don’t consent to her marrying, so shove off!”

Seeing as the man was about to slam the door, Murphy had no choice but to spit out the cruel reality. In retrospect, he should have prepared a nicer way to word it beforehand.

“She’s dead, sir… Your daughter is dead.”

Rummaging in his backpack even as the man froze on the doorstep, Murphy retrieved the box of ashes with a trembling grip.

Seeing the man dazed and in shock, he found his blood stilling as well.

“I’m sorry,” he forced the light package in his hands, “I’m so sorry…”

What more could be said?