For the past 3 months, I have been rejected from every job I applied to. I tried everything from going to job seminars in hopes of making connections, to even going to government programs to help people get jobs. Every interview is the same, they look at me like I'm a lost cause. Just because I broke my leg and hip doesnt excuse them to pity me like a damn wounded animal. After my accident, it's been hell. With no job, the only means of income is the monthly 600 I get as compensation for my injury, which feels like a scam.
I got never-ending worry cramping my from all sides, and it feels like the walls are slowly crushing me from all the stress.
First is the I am now legally known as a cripple, then it when i found out that my long time girlfidn was cheating on with the fucking hipser Issic. Then my car is taken away because i couldn make payments, and now I cant even find a job to pay my rent and close to being homeless, a cripple homeless. It feels like nothing is going the way it should, like a big fuck you from the universe.
Then one day everything changed.
It all started with a walk. I noticed that out of food and I didn't feel like cooking that day. So i decided to go out and eat. There's this place near my apartment called Deli Cuisine, I love their food, its own my a marraird cople from indea, and there food always makes my happy and forgot my shitty day everytime time i go there. I got dressed and made sure to lock up my apartment; learned that lesson the hard way. I made sure to hurry downstairs to avoid getting the landlord's attention. Something I'll never got use to was the shity smell in the neingerhood. I swear, these junkes find it there person mission to make the streets there own personal bathroom. While Deli Cuisine was about a 10 minte walk from my appeernt, i devised to take the longer route to avoid the local gang, if you can call it that buit im not one to start any confortions espesskly in my current predicament. It took about 30 minutes to make it there but i know is worth it.
When i walked in I was greatyed my the owner, the only person i consider a ture friend. I know, how fucking sad.
“ Iven, its good to see you are in good health again” he said.
“ its good to see you too, Priya. How Rhea doing” I repled, i haven been in here for weeks, really missed there food.
“Shes good, can i get you anything” he asked
“ just the usual” I said. I knew Priya for aboujy 4 years. Both and his wife came from india and started this restaurant when they came here 16 years ago.
About 15 minutes later, Priya’s daughter, Isha, came out with the food.
“did someonje piss in your ceral or what?” Isha asked me. Isha and I have a wriord releamtipon ship. We hooked up once when I moved in this neighborhood, but then decided it was better to be friends than lovers.
“No, just a shitty day I guess, how are doing?” I asked
“Is the reason you're in a bad mood because nobody’s hiring you?” she asked
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Isha knows so well that she can read me like a book, well, I guess she can read anybody well, considering she goes to Yale for her psychology major.
“Yeah,” I said, why lie at this point, not like it's gonna matter, my pride is already shattered into a million pieces.
“Well, I’ll leave you to mopping. if you need a job, my cousin is hiring for his moving company, I don't know if he will hire you. coinciding your leg, but i can let him now if you want”
Brutally honest as always, but I need a job so I put my shattwerd pride 6 feet under and asked fr her help.
While eating, i hear the tv turn on to fox news. Another thing hate is the news. Everytime i see whats happing in the world, it puts a damber in my mood.
“Well, I can tell you this, Nicky” the man i presume to the guest on Fox News today says to nicky, the ancker to to the news channel. “ Qatara has the right to defend itself”
About fifteen minutes later, Priya’s daughter, Isha, came out from the back, balancing my order in one hand and holding her phone in the other.
“Did someone piss in your cereal, or what?” she asked, dropping the bag onto the table in front of me.
That’s Isha. No filter. No patience. And no time for emotional fluff.
We have a weird kind of friendship. Hooked up once when I first moved into the neighborhood—one of those “we’re both lonely, so why not” situations. Didn’t last, obviously. We decided we were better off as friends, though sometimes I wonder if she still sees me as that broken guy she once pitied.
“No, just a shitty day,” I said with a tired half-smile. “You know. Same shit, different level.”
She slid into the chair across from me, arms crossed, studying me like a case study.
“Let me guess… another job rejection?”
I sighed. “Bingo.”
She knew me too well. Psychology major at Yale—apparently that means she can dissect a person's mental state in five seconds or less. But honestly, she didn’t need a degree to see I was spiraling. Hell, anyone could see it.
“Yeah,” I added after a pause. “Guess there’s not a big market for broken men with one good leg and a chip on their shoulder.”
“No offense,” she said, brushing hair from her face, “but you kind of walk around like you’re two steps from punching the universe in the face. That might scare off HR departments.”
I laughed. For the first time in what felt like days. “Yeah, well. The universe started it.”
She gave me a small grin, the kind that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “If you’re really desperate—and I know you are—my cousin’s hiring for his moving company. Not sure he’d go for it, with your leg and all, but I can talk to him.”
I blinked, unsure how to take that. Part of me wanted to be angry. The other part—the quieter, defeated part—just wanted to say yes.
“That’d help,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t make it weird,” she replied, standing. “You ask for help like it physically hurts you.”
“It kinda does,” I muttered.
She laughed as she walked off, yelling something to her dad in the back. I stared at the takeout bag for a moment before pulling out the container. My “usual”: spicy lentils over rice, naan bread, and some mango yogurt. Warm. Comforting. The kind of food that makes the world fade, just for a bit.
While I ate, the old TV mounted above the counter flickered on. Fox News, of course—Priya’s go-to background noise whenever the place wasn’t busy. I tried to ignore it. I hated the news. Always made me feel like the world was on fire and no one had a hose.
A silver-haired anchor with a tight smile spoke into the camera.
“Well, I can tell you this, Nicky,” said some foreign policy expert, “Qatara has the right to defend itself. The recent strike was a justified retaliation.”
Same nonsense. Different day. Countries bombing countries. Talking heads debating how many lives count as “acceptable losses.” It made me sick.
I tuned it out, focused on my food. But something was off. There was a low hum—like a pressure in the air. I glanced around, but no one else seemed to notice. Not Isha, not Priya. Just me.
My head started to ache, sharp and sudden. I winced, grabbing my temple. The lights in the diner flickered.
“Hey, Priya—your lights are bugging out,” I called out.
He didn’t answer. The hum grew louder, like a storm building inside my skull. My vision blurred for a second, then sharpened—too much. I could suddenly see the tiniest crack in the glass counter. The flickering of the fluorescent lights slowed down, like time itself was dragging.
“What the hell…” I whispered, heart pounding.
The headache got worse and i decided it was time to go home. As i started to get up the whole world felt like it was spinning, i couldt tell which way up or down. Then i felt something break, like a rope snapping, or a shell cracking, i could tell what it was but i knew somehow that whatever happened was bad because the pain was the just the precursor it felt like my whole being was set on fire, my mind felt caged, i was unable to do anything, couldntt move to help, couldn’t scream to alert someone that i was dying oe felt like dieing.
Priya noticed me on the floor twitching and rything in pain and rushed to call the amplase before checking on me. The next few minus felt like pure hell, as every part of my body from my nail of my toes to my hair felt like it was being burent, stapped, and punched all the same time. I begging god to kill me at the momment, hoping for the sweet realse of death. And then i blacked out.
