Life 404: Success Not Found

Chapter 1: The Lifelong Intern

"Name?"

"Freza."

"Age?"

"Twenty-two."

The interviewer, a man with a shirt that was too tight and a haircut that was far too neat, squinted. He looked at the file in front of him, then stared at Freza.

"Twenty-two?"

"More or less, sir."

"It says here you graduated in 2021. If it’s 2024 now and you’re twenty-two, that means you graduated college at nineteen?"

"I was in an accelerated program. Since I was a fetus," Freza answered flatly.

The man tapped his pen against the desk. It sounded like the ticking of a wall clock counting down the remaining seconds of Freza's life.

"The requirement for this Junior Breathing Officer position is ten years of experience. You're only twenty-two. How does that make sense?"

"I’ve been breathing since birth, sir. Without stopping. Even while I sleep, I remain consistent in my breathing. I believe that’s a level of dedication rarely seen in other applicants."

A moment of silence. Freza could feel that the air conditioning in the room was no longer cold, but piercing.

"We are looking for people with passion. People who don’t just breathe to live, but breathe for the company. Do you know what we produce here at PT. Unlimited Motivation?"

"False hope?"

The man paused. He leaned forward.

"No. We produce the 'Atmosphere of Success.' We bottle the air from the offices of successful CEOs, then sell it to those in need of inspiration. The Junior Breathing Officer’s job is to ensure the air quality remains 'ambitious' before it's packaged."

Freza swallowed hard. "So, I just have to breathe in front of a bottle?"

"You must breathe using the Hustle-Lung technique. Every inhalation must contain ambition, and every exhalation must expel laziness. Can you do it?"

"As long as the salary is reasonable, I can be an oxygen tank if necessary."

"Salary?" The man laughed. His voice was dry. "This is an internship, Freza. You get a travel allowance of fifty thousand rupiah per week, free access to coffee that tastes like asphalt, and most importantly: Exposure."

"Fifty thousand? That's not even enough to pay for parking in this building for a week."

"But you’ll have a name on LinkedIn. You’ll be known as someone who breathed the same air as world leaders. Imagine the value!"

Freza looked at the ceiling. He imagined his boarding house rent, which was already two months overdue. His landlady wasn't the type of person who could be paid with exposure or ambitious breaths.

"Okay, I'll take it," Freza finally said.

"Excellent. You start now. Follow me."

They walked through a hallway lined with motivational posters. Work Hard, Stay Humble. Dream Big, Sleep Less. Your Only Limit is Your Mind (and Your Salary).

In a large windowless room, dozens of people sat in a circle. In front of each person was an empty glass bottle. They took deep breaths and blew them into the bottles with incredibly serious expressions, as if they were breathing life into clay.

"This is your department," said the man in the tight shirt. "Meet Satya. He’s been interning here for five years."

A man with eye bags the size of walnuts turned toward Freza. His face was deathly pale.

"Five years?" Freza whispered. "Why hasn't he been hired as a full-time employee yet?"

"I’m still waiting for a Senior Intern slot to open up," Satya said weakly. "The Lead Intern just died yesterday because he forgot to breathe while working overtime."

"Died? And then?"

"Well, his position was immediately filled by another intern who had been here for seven years. Here, you don't get promoted because of merit; you get promoted because someone dies."

The man in the tight shirt patted Freza’s shoulder. "Get to work, Freza. Remember, don’t breathe like a poor person. Inhale as if you own shares in this company!"

The man left, leaving Freza standing there, stunned.

"Here’s your bottle," Satya handed him a clear glass bottle. "Let's get started. Our target today is a thousand bottles of 'Optimistic Breath.'"

Freza held the bottle. "How do I know if my breath is optimistic enough?"

"Just imagine you just won the lottery, but the prize is an expired discount voucher. That feeling of being gut-punched while forcing a smile? That’s what they’re looking for."

Freza tried. He took a breath and blew it into the bottle.

"Wrong! That's the breath of an unemployed person!" barked a man who suddenly appeared behind him. His nametag read: Grandmaster Intern.

"Sorry, sir," Freza replied reflexively.

"Don't call me sir! I'm still an intern! Call me 'Intern-Senior'!"

"Sorry, Intern-Senior."

"Your breath was too relaxed. You need to look stressed but still grateful. Try again!"

Freza took another breath. This time he thought about his predatory online loans, his mother’s disappointed face, and the fact that he was a college graduate whose job was now blowing into bottles. He exhaled with a heavy heart.

"There! That’s it! The 'Resigned Corporate Slave' breath! That’s our best-seller this year!" The Grandmaster Intern looked satisfied. "Carry on. A thousand bottles before lunch."

"What time is lunch?" Freza asked.

"We don’t have a lunch break. Eating is for successful people. Us? We just inhale the aroma from the tenth-floor cafeteria. That counts as an office facility."

Satya nudged Freza's arm. "Don't ask too many questions. Just blow. If you faint, a Medical Intern will give you CPR, and then the bill will be deducted from your travel allowance."

Freza began to blow. First bottle. Second bottle. Tenth bottle. His head began to spin.

"Sat," Freza whispered at the fiftieth bottle. "What does this company actually sell? Who buys our breath?"

"Rich people who are bored with their lives. They want to feel what it's like to have 'passion' again. So they buy these bottles and inhale them in their luxury cars."

"And they actually get passionate?"

"Who knows. Maybe they just feel better knowing there are people suffering more than them just to sell their breath."

"You’re incredibly sarcastic."

"Five years interning here will turn you into either a philosopher or a psychopath, Fre. Take your pick."

Suddenly, the door swung open violently. A woman dressed in designer brands from head to toe walked in. Everyone immediately stopped blowing and stood up straight.

"Who’s that?" Freza asked quietly.

"That’s our CEO. She never breathes for herself. She always carries a special tank containing the breath of Nobel Prize winners," Satya whispered.

The CEO walked around, inspecting the filled bottles. She stopped in front of Freza.

"Is this the new hire?" Her voice was high and sharp.

"Yes, Ma'am... uh, Intern-CEO," Freza answered, trembling.

"Why does your bottle look cloudy?"

"Maybe it's because I only had antacids for breakfast, Ma'am."

The CEO took Freza’s bottle, opened it slightly, and inhaled. She closed her eyes.

"Hm... there's an aroma of pure despair. A sharp hint of cynicism. And... wait, what is this? The scent of a lie?"

Freza froze. His heart hammered in his chest.

"You said you were twenty-two?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Liar. Your breath smells like a twenty-five-year-old who just realized their degree is useless. This is a quarter-life crisis breath!"

The room suddenly went silent. Satya distanced himself from Freza as if Freza had just been detected carrying a deadly virus.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. I just really need a job," Freza confessed, defeated.

The CEO smiled. Not a kind smile, but a predatory one.

"Good. The aroma of a belated confession is very expensive. We can sell this as a limited edition: 'Millennial Regret Breath.' You’re being promoted."

Freza’s eyes widened. "Promoted? To a full-time employee?"

"Of course not. You are now the 'Senior Intern of Regret Specialization.' Your job is to blow two thousand bottles a day. Without a travel allowance."

"What? Why no travel allowance?"

"Because now you have a 'Specialist Title.' Specialists are paid in pride, not pocket change. You should be proud, Freza. Not everyone can be a representation of their generation's failure like you."

The CEO walked away elegantly. The Grandmaster Intern approached Freza and gave him a thumbs up.

"Congrats, Fre. You just broke a record. The fastest intern to lose his transportation rights."

Freza stared at the empty bottle in his hand. He saw his dull reflection on the glass surface.

"Sat," Freza called out.

"What?"

"If I die here, please label my last bottle 'Futile Final Breath.' Please sell it at a high price."

"Don't worry, Fre. Here, even your death will become motivational content for the next intern."

Freza took a long breath. A very long one. This time, not for the bottle, but to hold back tears. However, just as he was about to exhale, the Grandmaster Intern shouted.

"Hey! That breath is a company asset! Don't waste it! Put it in the bottle!"

Freza hurriedly pressed his lips to the mouth of the bottle and exhaled forcefully. In that windowless room, under the flickering neon lights, Freza realized one thing.

He wasn't working. He was being slowly drained, until he had nothing left to give—not even a single breath.

"Well, Fre? You still want to continue?" Satya asked while continuing to blow into his bottle.

Freza stared at the mountain of empty bottles still piled in front of him.

"What choice do I have? It's scarier out there, Sat."

"Why?"

"Out there, I have to breathe for free. Here, at least my breath has a price, even if I never see the money."

Satya chuckled, the sound like breaking glass.

"Welcome to the working world, Freza. Take a deep breath, because your internship journey is still very, very long."

Freza went back to blowing. One more bottle. One more empty hope. One more day toward the age of twenty-six that he claimed was twenty-two.

The world might keep spinning, but for Freza, the world was only as wide as the diameter of a bottle mouth that he had to fill with the remnants of his life.

"Bring a lunchbox tomorrow, Fre," Satya said again.

"Why? You said there's no lunch break?"

"It’s not for eating. It’s to sniff the aroma when you feel like you’re going to faint. So you don’t die too quickly. The company doesn't like it when interns die before the daily target is reached. The funeral procedures are a mess; they have to dock the salaries of the living interns just to buy a casket."

Freza could only nod. He kept blowing, ensuring every bottle was filled with the "Atmosphere of Success," which was actually the scent of a human being slowly giving up.

The neon light above him flickered once more, then died, leaving them all blowing in the darkness, illuminated only by the fake ambitions displayed on the walls.