In a world like ours, where everything depends on norms and in a society that is conservative in its traditions, being different and outside the standard becomes a fault, or worse, it's as if you've failed in life.
This is the experience of our mai...
What's so wrong with me? Everything, maybe. I wish I knew more. Never had the idea to ask someone. Should have, maybe. But who could I have asked? Ironically enough, I don't have any friends. Nor do I have any contacts. Maybe I am the person everyone calls "socially awkward".
I've never deliberately talked to anyone. Not that I lacked of courage, I just didn't feel like it. What the point, when I didn't feel interested in talking to anyone, nor did someone went up to talk to me. And I liked it that way.
At the train station, where I'm standing with my cardboard box in my hand, there are a few people I can talk to. I took a glance of each one of them. Only elderly seniors, young mothers with their babies in prams and delinquent teenagers skipping school, would be waiting for a train at this hour, in this cold season.
I shivered slightly as the glacial wind passed. I was freezing. The train is late, as usual, and it's getting colder. I held my scarf tightly with one hand and sighed. My legs were getting numb, so I decided to walk home instead. It was a crazy idea, as my house was an hour's walk away.
The pavement was so icy that people were sliding instead of walking. Some lunatic kids were having a good time skating on it, and I thought that it was a good idea to break your bones by falling down. Luckily, I had decent boots. Even though they were old and made crazy noises, the soles were still strong enough to hold in the sliding snow.
As I was walking down a street, I felt my hands turning into ice. The box was getting heavier, even though there was nothing big in there. I looked at my finger, which I didn't feel anymore. They turned purple. I looked around, and saw a bench. With a deep sigh of contentment, I put down the box and sat down too. The bench was bitterly cold, which didn't stop me from shuddering.
I looked around me. There was nothing special, just sad grey houses and snow-covered gardens. A few children seemed to boast of their white spaces by presenting snowmen, almost disfigured, with crunched or half-eaten rotten carrot noses. And a few blocks away, sandwiched between two large houses, stood a small bakery. The lights were on and it was still open, even though it was past noon.
Suddenly craving for something sweet, I made up my mind to go there. Apart from the times when I used to go there as a child to lick the window displays of the most finest delights, I've never been in a bakery before. Maybe today I had a sudden urge to do something I've never done in the past?
Is this the price of getting sacked from my job? Maybe I feel more liberated and less suffocated now that I don't have to write a 6-page report in 2 hours.
I got up, and was about to pick my box up, when I thought "Oh well, might as well leave it here. Not like I was about to keep these, anyway". And left the box there, on the bench. Although I seemed indifferent, deep down I hoped that this useless box might be of use to someone, at least for something.
And with that, I tucked my scarf in tighter before slipping my cold hands into the large pockets of my coat as I made my way towards the small bakery, its light flickering like a bright star in the middle of the dark, stone-cold, winter night.
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