Fortune favors the bold

   Every piece had fallen exactly in the place she had wanted. Every single one of them represented something she had been looking to achieve for a long time and now, she was finally able to reach every single goal she had ever wanted to attain. She was merely hours away from all of it and the only thing she could do was looking at her laptop and then at the city from her balcony and then again to the screen, where everything should appear at the right time.

 She had decided to be alone for that moment. The idea had never been to share this monumental achievement with anyone else, but to celebrate it alone in a very personal way. She had a bottle of her favorite champagne at hand, her most comfortable and loved clothes on and she was in the most private place she could ever be able to get to: her own home. Everything was just as she wanted and she had insisted on disappearing for that night, avoiding people constantly in order to have a few hours all to herself.

 It’s not like she was going to party hard until the next day came. She was not as young as she was when everything had started and, even if she felt younger, she had never been one to do that sort of thing. She had achieved her goals because she had been so focused, taking care of every single thing from the moment she had decided she would stop being the person she was during her youth and start her transformation into the woman she really wanted to be. It would take time but it would all be very much worth it.

 And it was. The sole feeling of being there, in that beautiful apartment, nestled in the mountains, with such an amazing view of her preferred city in the world, could not be topped by anything. She had everything she had always wanted: not only objects such as clothes and jewelry or furniture and the proper décor, but also things that no one could never buy with money. Things that only experience and intelligence could teach a person their worth and the real position that every single thing and person had to have around them.

 She had been patient and very controlling of it all, and it was worth it. Only minutes away from the awaited time, she poured some of the champagne into a tall glass and opened a box of fresh strawberries that she had picked up herself from a local farmers market. The smell was sweet and luscious, the perfect thing to go with the night she was having. She felt as if tears would start coming down her face in any minute, but she had also learned how to prepare for that: just open her eyes wider, smile and let the waves of good energy enter her body. When the clock on her laptop struck the hour, a shower of pyrotechnics covered the city.

 Champagne disappeared in a moment. She poured herself another glass and then another one after that. She saw the bright lights over the city and felt as she had never felt before. It was then tears begun pouring down her face and she didn’t bother to wipe them out or do anything about them. She wanted to cry and scream and to whatever she wanted because, when time had come, she became who she had always wanted to be and it was something that had never been guaranteed, so it was an understandable reaction.

 She remembered how, in her first years in the company she now ran, many people had tried to make her feel as if she didn’t belong there. They made comments very often, about her parents and her siblings, about their house and her clothes and a truth they claimed to be irreplaceable: that no girl from a background like the one she had would ever be able to achieve anything in such a competitive world. Everyone was against her and she had to take it all with patience and care, always thinking about the future.

 Every time they slammed her with horrible words, she would deflect them with indifference and, with time, she learned to outwit them at every turn, making them feel that the girl they had seen coming into their company was not the same they were standing in front of years later. She became much more certain of her choices and even dared to share her past life with no regrets whatsoever. Contrary to her enemies’ beliefs, she gained a strong following because of that choice. People regarded her as a true beacon of light to look up to.

 Power could be gained easily, or so she thought, if she followed her well thought plan from the beginning. That had started years before, when she had decided to save for school doing horrible and menial jobs. But she got to the point where she could study and also work, and she did. By the time her bosses understood she could not be so easily “taken care of”, she was almost untouchable because of the support of the people that worked under her. They knew that if she left, they would leave after her and sink the company in the blink of an eye.

 That power grew exponentially until she made it to the top ranking of the company. She made it to the board of directors before she turned forty years old and, by then, most of her competition had either died out or moved on to other endeavors. She ultimately took over completely and then, it was impossible to pretend she hadn’t achieved something that seemed impossible. The former owner was still there, but she had become the face of the company they had owned for so many years and there was no way they could live without her. And she knew it very well, even if her plan still had some stages to be accomplished.

 The night of New Year’s Eve, the one when she celebrated with champagne on the balcony of her elegant home, she fifty-six years old. She had effectively ended her plans, the ones she had designed from the age of fifteen. She had executed every single stage of the whole thing and she celebrated the fact that she had won. No one in the planet could argue with her that, after so many years, she had been the one to come on top and not him. Not Anthony Klein Volker, the man that was supposed to own all of it once his father died.

 Anthony was her prime target and the one she really wanted to get with all of her scheming and plotting. Of course, Lavinia and Arthur, Anthony’s siblings, could not be left out of it all. And not his mother Clara either, or his father Jonathan. None of them were going to be left alone until she got what she wanted and, what she really wanted more than anything in the world, was to have every single thing that belonged to them: every property, all the money, their precious company, their transports and even their pets. She wanted it all.

 And although most people loved her for being who she was and became, some hated her. Most of them sided with the Klein Volker’s because they had business with them or because they knew the truth and were the kind of people that hated when someone brings out the shit that has stained the carpet and is making everyone ask themselves why there’s such an awful smell in the room. Of course, they knew, she could clearly see that in their eyes when they tried to scare her out of making one of her bold moves.

 But she moved. She moved because Anthony had been the one that had assaulted her one night, after he had seen her in one the company’s open picnics for children in need. The oldest of the Klein Volker’s raped her and his father Jonathan, instead of vomiting when he saw what his son had done, he rewarded him with objects and ordered the girl to vanish, forcing her into a life of prostitution, a life she would never be able to leave. They thought she was weak and that she could be punished into compliance, shutting her mouth forever.

 And she did, for a while. She did work as a prostitute and saved money that way. Then she got another job and then another and she started school and education became her best weapon against everything that had ever happened to him. When they saw him, they didn’t recognize her at first.

 But, after a while, they did. But it was too late to say or do anything. She had them right where she wanted them and she claimed revenge in a myriad of ways, in every single one of them because they all knew what had happened and had all collaborated in her destruction. Yet, fortune favors the bold.

Boxing wounds

   Curing the knuckles had become something of a tradition after each fight. His gloves had to be removed carefully, or the pain would drive him furious if he had lost or would have ruined his moment if he had won. The Hammer was the nickname chosen by the fans to refer to him and he certainly had some thing reminiscent of that object. Not only was he overwhelmingly strong, he was also taller than most boxers and would always use that in his advantage, in very clever ways.

 Carefully, some pure alcohol would be applied to his hands and to the rest of his body, wherever he could have scars. This was done after he showered himself thoroughly. It had been known to happen that he was so weak after a fight that someone went into the showers with him in order to help him stand and use the soap. That normally happened when he had lost and it wasn’t a nice thing to witness. He would always be furious those times and it wasn’t great to be near him.

 The Hammer had started fighting very early in his life. He had been a bully back in school but, thankfully, his religious upbringing had helped him seek an exit from his ways through a sport and boxing had always been very popular in that neighborhood, one of those parts of town where every single person has their family working in some store or factory. Boxing saved The Hammer from becoming a butcher, a machine operator or even a cashier. His future was slightly brighter.

 He started in fights celebrated behind closed doors. He was still underage so it wasn’t legal to make him fight but it was the only way to properly use his skills. He had such rage; such need to be fighting other men. It was fantastic to see him use his fists, one, two and then both almost at the same time. His legs were fast too, so he had it all to be the very best boxer ever, in the world. And he knew this, so his ego started to grow each day, like a weed. It just got into his head.

When he reached adulthood, everyone in the boxing circuit knew exactly who The Hammer was. His techniques and legendary way of finishing his fights was very well known and he had received acclaim from every single part of society: the poor, the rich, the workers, the owners, the old and the young, as well as from men and women. That was in part his undoing, or the moment he started going downhill. When he lost for the first time, the felt everything that had happened before was just forgotten by everyone else. He thought he was going to be ostracized.

 However, that’s when he met Howard. He was a guy his age but not physically fit like him. He wasn’t fat or lanky but just not someone as big and powerful as The Hammer. He was shorter and had shown the way of words and books. Recently returning from his stay abroad, he had gone to the university and learned quite a few things around there. He was well known once he got back to the neighborhood because he had chosen to become a nurse instead of a proper doctor.

 His parents were not pleased by his decision and it was clear everyone in that part of town had their opinion about Howard. But he simply did not care. He had lived there before and he knew people would respect that, even if they spoke behind his back. And they sure did: in the supermarket and on the street, pointing and giggling and laughing out loud. It was especially the youngest ones around, repeating their parents behavior, who shouted word to the man, with no response heard back.

 Two days after he had returned to the city, his sister decided to take him to a boxing match. She wanted others to see how Howard was a real man, and such a sporting event would be the perfect way to make them realize all that was said about him was a lie. When they reached the venue, they sat very far from the ring but were able to see perfectly when The Hammer lost, again, against a huge blond man who seemed more like a refrigerator than like a real human male.

 Each punch, each swift move, hurt Howard deep inside. He was certain that was not the kind of sport he liked to see and he didn’t want to see that ever again. And then more punches came and some stitches blew open. Blood was all over the place and The Hammer was soon announced as the loser. Howard was so affected by what he had seen, that he just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. However, his sister had to go to the bathroom and took especially long that day.

 As he waited, he saw the refrigerator man passing by. He seemed more like a robot than anything else. And then came two guys, holding The Hammer and trying to take him to his dressing room. He was badly beaten and it was obvious that place didn’t have a proper infirmary. His need to help kicked in and Howard helped the men carry The Hammer and take him to a sofa in his room. There, they waited for the nurse they had brought but she seemed overwhelmed by the blood and she lacked most of what was necessary. Howard jumped in, not thinking.

 The woman and the men helped him get what he needed to patch The Hammer up. His face was severely swollen, he couldn’t speak at all. Alcohol was rubbed all over, carefully not to burn the fighter. Howard himself took off the gloves and the shorts and the shoes. Everything had to come off in order to help properly. It took several hours, effort and supplies, bought from a nearby pharmacy by the boxer’s friends, but he was eventually saved from further damage.

 Howard’s sister had left, so he decided to join The Hammer and his friends to his house. He still lived with his mother, near the melting plant. He was carried by the men and left in a mattress on the ground, which was apparently his bed. He slept on a room downstairs, by the kitchen. The men, thanking Howard, asked him if he wanted to have something to eat. His stomach ached, so he accepted. So they all left to buy some fried chicken and he was left alone with his patient.

 He changed some of the patched done and tried to clean the man’s face with a moist cloth. He carefully washed every single centimeter, trying not to make him feel any pain. However, The Hammer woke up as Howard was cleaning his neck. He wasn’t anxious at all, or nervous. He moved his swollen lips and Howard realized he was thanking him for his help. Howard smiled and the boxer tried to do the same. If anyone had been there, they would have told the male nurse that Hammer never smiled.

 They stared at each other and no sound was made. The Hammer wanted to say something else, to try and pretend he was feeling fine. But every single bone in his body felt like it was bruised. He could stand it but he didn’t really know what else to say. Out of nowhere, Howard resumed his task of cleaning the sportsman, finishing his neck and then moving on to his hand and forearms. He finally cleaned his feet, which made the boxer laugh and then yell some curse words because of the pain.

 Howard tried not to but he couldn’t hold the laughter. He tried to apologize but he couldn’t. When The Hammers laughed to, apparently ignoring his own state, he realized there was nothing to fear about his reaction. Laughter was definitely needed.

 When the laughter subsided and just moments before they could smell fried chicken, the boxer grabbed one of Howard’s hands and told him his name was Kevin. They both smiled. Afterwards, they all ate and new relationships began to blossom, slowly.

Waste of space

   Every day was almost exactly the same. He would wake up, have something to eat, then shower, look for a job and then lunch. After that, it would be hours and hours of basically nothing until dinner. At night and in the morning he would exercise a bit and before going to bed he would watch something, like a movie or whatever was available. That was life like for him, even after he had decided it would be different. His decisions in life had amounted to nothing and he didn’t know what to do.

 He had been living there for almost a year and nothing had happened, nothing at all. Not a single change since his arrival. He tried to keep it different by distracting himself with movie or by going out to walk around the city, but that didn’t change anything either. It was a perpetual movement he was trapped in, a series of actions he repeated every single day, every week and every single month, no matter the little differences like weather or things like that. Things didn’t change.

 He had tried to change them. He had really tried but he soon realized that one person couldn’t really change the world. Whoever had said that in the past was wrong. A single lonely human couldn’t change a thing in this world. Every major shift had to involve lots of people with a common goal and a certain organization. And he didn’t have that at all. He was alone and he depended on his parents for survival. They weren’t happy for him or anything, but they felt they couldn’t refuse him help.

 The money he received as an allowance was used very carefully to pay for the apartment, the bills and the food. Those were the normal expenses. He sometimes used the money for distractions, going out and that sort of thing. In those instances he would have to remember that he was taking money away for his food. He never minded. Besides, it wasn’t something he did often; on the contrary, he managed his money in the most careful way because it was just enough to survive.

 But that was the thing: he had been thinking for a long time if it was worth it to keep on living as he was. He was draining money from his parents every month, he was sitting on his ass doing nothing, except getting older and older people have a harder time getting a job. But no one was giving him a job, not now or before. Not when he was recently graduated or after his various years of studies all over the place. They had never acknowledged him as a nothing more than a man that could pick up a phone or move boxes from one place to the other.

 The money he earned for such jobs disappeared very fast. Most of it was taken away by the health service they provided, which he never used. And the rest was used to pay debts or bills. Nothing remained. Those times, whoever, he could grab a little more from his parents money in order to have fun, even for a short period of time. He would get drunk, go out and party and just forget about everything in his life and who he was. He lost himself every time or at least he tried.

 He loved going out to dark places with loud music, wherever they could have alcohol. He even tried drugs a couple of times but it wasn’t his thing. The point of it all was forgetting his life, which was pathetic and sad. He was a leech and a waste of space. He remembered that expression once and it had gotten stuck on his head since then because it described so well what he thought of his place in life. He did feel as if he was a waste of space and would have loved it to be different.

 But it wasn’t things are as they are and one’s blind optimism cannot change that. People want every single person in the world to think blindly that everything is going to be ok but the reality of life is that probably nothing will be ok. The world itself is more and more violent, not a hospitable place for actual life to develop. So why should people be blind to that? Why should be people avoid the truth, instead of embracing it and maybe then find a solution for whatever the problem is?

 Many times, he looked around his house and carefully planned his last day on Earth. It was kind of like a game he played with himself when things where a its lowest. He would imagine cutting his wrists on the tub and having one of those almost artistic deaths, with the blood tainting the water slowly and also spilling gently to the floor. It looked almost like a romantic thing inside his head. But it would take too long and that wasn’t something he was very eager about.

 He imagined many other outcomes for his life. Some more admittedly violent and graphic but others were even more subtle that the one in the tub. He had a great imagination, which he used laying on his bed, waiting for someone to respond to his calls looking for one of the many menial jobs the world had to offer. He had realized a while ago that no one was going to give him a good job where he could feel like a real person. He was apparently built to be a slave and he had decided he didn’t mind at all, it was his destiny all along and that was settled.

 Sure enough, he had two jobs latter on: one as part of the cleaning crew in a hospital and another one in a supermarket, doing basically the same thing. He would break his back for a pay that was laughable but there was nothing else to do. However, he decided one day to ask his parents not to send him any more money. They did ask him “why” but he never answered, so they just did as they were told and the subject never came up again, in telephone conversations or when he visited, which was rare.

He had decided he would survive with whatever he had. His meals were greatly reduced and he had to move to another apartment, one even smaller in a much uglier part of the city. He sold some of his belongings too, in order to pay for the first couple of months. He tried to set aside something every month for pleasure, such as alcohol or whatever he would be in the mood for. Those small moments were not of joy but of quiet and a certain peace, which he still enjoyed.

 After some months living his new life, he got very sick with the flu. He stopped earning money for almost three weeks. When the disease didn’t kill him, the lack of food almost did. He actually had to be rushed into the hospital but he escaped it as soon as he could because he didn’t have the money to pay for a hospital bed. He just bought bread and medicine and hoped for the best. He was fired from the hospital he worked in but kept the supermarket job, where they raised his salary a bit in order to make him do more stuff.

 As always, he didn’t really mind. He got better, or just about, and start working harder every day. The hours were longer than before and this time he had to work every single day of the week but at least he was distracted by something. He didn’t have time to ponder or think about what could have been or what the future may hold for him. Those were empty questions now and no one care about the answers. He had lost the will to rebel in any way. He just lived, if that’s what it’s called.

 He was eventually fired from that job too. Not long after that, he decided to jump off a bridge that passed over a highway. His parents had nothing to keep from him anymore, as he had sold almost everything except and old notebook he had kept from when he was young, Inside, he had written a number of stories and he had also drawn lots of characters and abstract figures. They took one look at it and then stored it away somewhere. The man became a memory and, after his parents died, it was as if he had never existed on this Earth.