Short Story: Piss and Snow

The world was a nightmare hole, a place where nothing held meaning. Values that once guided my life were now relics, outdated and useless in the span of a decade. The world had shifted so drastically that I might as well have ceased to exist.

I wasn't old enough to be the old guard, nor young enough to be among the clueless. I wasn't a nerd with all the details. I was something in between, a stranger in a changing world. Criticizing others felt pointless, and trying to understand their perspectives felt like a betrayal of myself.

Words held little weight. People acted as they pleased, unchecked and uncontrolled. Yet, a single careless word could land someone in prison, ostracized, or worse. How was I to know which society I now lived in, with everything changing so fast? It hardly mattered; people did as they pleased anyway.

Anything was possible, nothing necessary. I didn't understand the motivations of leaders or followers. Opinions that once mattered now seemed like curiosities, strange in a world so chaotic. I searched for well-argued opinions, grasping for a feeling that was long gone.

The world I knew was fading, replaced by narratives that didn't resonate with me. Perspectives and backgrounds created bubbles that couldn't communicate effectively. No words could bridge the gap between separate worlds. Was the shared accumulation worth it? What was it all for?

Sometimes, listening to others, I felt a knot in my throat — a fear of how they could think so differently. How indeed.

I had thought of ending it all, but those thoughts seemed universal. Something kept me here, a value I couldn't quite explain. Maybe it was the body I inhabited, a disservice to end it. But why?

Behind thought, there was no rationality. Thoughts just kept coming, to be accepted or disregarded. In this state, others didn't matter so much. It was a relief.

Discussions were meaningless. Institutions weren't institutions, friends weren't friends, and work wasn't work. Goals were blocked, and learning was an excuse for status games. Friends were an excuse for jealousy, and work was an excuse for existing. How starved did one need to be to commodify nice words?

Freedom was an illusion. "Just pack up and leave," they said. But with nothing to your name, leaving meant a life on the streets. Years ago, I thought all I needed was a mentor, a caring teacher. Now, I knew there were no real teachers left. The smart people kept their heads down.

On the streets, the difference between friend and enemy was thin as broken ice. The world was a tough place where you either fought to stay alive or learned to live with the cold.

Despite everything, I still valued principles. Why? I wasn't sure. I wasn't certain I had kept to mine either. But I was less understanding of those who judged me. They needed formidable principles, not moralistic ones.

Moralistic principles belonged to a child. Few people had principles that lasted more than a few years. Ten years seemed like a stretch.

I took a sip.

The coffee was bitter, like the taste of a long night without sleep. I took a sip, feeling the warmth spread through me. The bitterness lingered, a reminder of the harsh realities that awaited, but there was a strength in it too. Each sip was a small victory, a moment of clarity in the face of the day's challenges. The taste was not pleasant, but it was honest, unadorned, and it grounded me in the present.

I thought about "legacy." Everything considered legacy was new and invigorating to those who didn't know about it. What was gained from labeling something as "legacy" or "modern"? It was all nonsense. In a hundred years, they'd wonder about the same thing.

Being popular or famous seemed meaningless. Who would care about you? Who would you respect? Even with a million followers, would you want to be friends with any of them? What was the point of charisma selling anything? If substance was secondary, what was it all for?

I had criticized AI and e-commerce for narrowing perception. Websites created illusions of size and presence. You couldn't tell how big an organization was from a website alone. The illusion worked both ways — you couldn't tell if everyone was there, or if it was just an echo chamber.

Text, audio, and video were all black holes. You put stuff in and hoped for money, happiness, or something worth living for. Maybe real humans were the same — black boxes you put stuff in, hoping for an outcome.

Drama and reality blurred into nothing. Year after year, you put stuff in, yelled, typed, produced things because that's all there was to do. I saw a vast emptiness, beckoning, a vast nothingness.

The snows melted, revealing an ugly truth. I no longer recognized anybody, their faces had changed. They were all foreigners now, each carrying their own burdens of belonging. I walked the piss-soaked streets back home.

A drone exploded somewhere in the distance, a sharp crack against the gray sky. I barely glanced up, my mind too lost in thought to care. The world was always this way, harsh and unyielding. I kept walking, one foot in front of the other, because that's all there was to do.

Acting was a form of dying.