Flight of Fancy

He was not a particularly happy man. I mean he had a solid life and a caring family.

So why did his life feel like shit anyway?

The biggest problem had always been money.

Fucking money!

He hated the bloody thing, the whole concept of it made him sick to his stomach. If only you could live happily without it. But no, you had to go to work, make a living, potentially doing something you hated just to provide for your family, and in the end possibly resenting your family in the process. He felt he hadn’t come to that point yet. He could never resent his family anything. They were the one bright point keeping him sane in a society that appeared designed to make you go crazy, or at least seriously ill.

If only it wasn’t necessary.

However, it seemed even living off the grid was no longer an option because governments would want their taxes for land that was yours in the first place, sometimes by birth.

What a crazy world!?

It seemed every potential employer sensed his disdain for the entire situation and disenchantment for attaining material possessions. Something was just off about him and the employer jackals could sniff it out just as well as vampires could sniff out a menstruating woman. They could smell him from a mile off and no amount of faking could help him. God knows he had tried.

His wife was full of understanding. She was no fan of money and attaining status in the world. He had lucked out there. But she had to eat and live, and he would not have her go hungry or without the bare necessities.

After years and years of changing jobs that he sometimes wasn’t even paid for, there was nothing else to do. The job interviews were getting scarcer and even the few and far between he did get invited to would amount to nothing.

They had to move.

The decision to move to his parents’ house wasn’t an easy one, but there was nothing else to be done. The money had run out, rents and bills could no longer be paid, nobody really fancied being thrown out on the street. They were lucky enough that the parents invited them in with open arms.

Even though his parents were lovely people, he had still anticipated the move with a sense of dread. The village they lived in was dead and in the middle of nowhere, so the few friends they had would surely dwindle in time, especially with no finances to see them.

Also, parents tended to be meddling creatures, even if their best intentions were nothing but noble.

As we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.