Mitan, Midi - Chap.27/29:Ā āCāest la vieā
āAfter a French notary contacts Rey to inform her sheās inherited a house in the DrĆ“me (France), she decides from one day to the next to quit her job and move there.
The house is pretty secluded, thereās no service, no internet, no way to reach other people aside from the landline in the living-room.
Ideal conditions, by her standards, as those theoretically should allow her to be perfectly alone.
Chap.8: Chaton (There is a God)
Chap.10: People donāt overcome anything alone
Chap.12: A big, fucking surprise
Chap.14: Things can get a lot less fun, fast
Chap.17: Nobody denies the existence of cannibals
Chap.18: The sea retreating
Chap.19: The sun is going to die
Chap.22: āFunny storyā
Chap.23: āThe weather is cloudy here too, sometimesā
Chap.24: āA shot to the head and a shot to the heartā
Chap.25: āThe road isnāt flatā
ā The sun is on the horizon when Ben takes the pathway from Reyās house to the one way road.
The night will have fallen completely by the time he gets to the store.
Earlier, just seeing the house causes his hands to shake. Still he goes on weak legs, around the house by the back, and get to the French doors.
If sheās on the couch, sheāll see him. He counts on the fact that he knows her enough, and that sheāll be sleeping.
Breaths short, he slowly lets the plastic bags down by the door, careful not to make any sound.
Is that the right thing to do?
Heās too edgy to look inside through the windows.
He turns around immediately, and leaves.
Never in his life has he felt more helpless about a situation before. Heās not sure of how to proceed.
Not that heās really known what to do about anything in his life.
Itās just that heās not used to care -about himself or anyone, and about what happens in general.
In the past, heās in fact really done all he could not to care.
Wasting his life at jobs he hates, never getting to form any real friendship; hearing that old friends from high school got married, have had children, got divorced, got remarried.
Pretending that thereās no problem is one way to protect yourself. Maybe not the best way, but one of the ways.
His mother never comes to visit him. He drops out of high school. He loses his job. He has to move out of yet another apartment.
Every time Ben swallows, purses his lips, shrugs. C'est la vie.
At twenty just like at thirty, his heart is in his throat when he thinks about his life as a whole. He doesnāt know where heās going, even less why heās going there, just that he must keep going.
Searching for purpose in life is a luxury he must leave to the people who can afford it.Ā ā
If you feel like it, hereās my ko-fi account - thank you for reading <3
