After enjoying a moderately good tasting burger and fries, Paul headed home.
And his good mood immediately plummeted, settling as dread in the pit of his stomach.
The situation at home wasn't something he was happy to go back to, but it had been this way since his father left when he was still a baby, so he didn't question it anymore.
It was just another reality he couldn't do anything about other than simply accept it for what it was.
He stood in front of the door, hesitating to enter.
His hand hovering above the doorknob without ever actually touching it.
The inner conflict tearing him up inside.
Logically speaking, home is the place you go to at the end of the day or so he told himself.
However the dread gathering in the pit of his stomach told him to turn around and leave. To spare himself the disappointment that he knew was coming.
Paul took a deep breath and then expelled the air in his lungs with a heavy sigh. In and out, another breath and then another.
Attempting to calm nerves that refused to settle down.
After a while he noticed, that it hadn't worked. Instead it seemed to make things worse. His bad feeling was increasingly becoming more and more overwhelming.
'No choice then, the usual. Jump head first in the cold water'
He thought to himself.
His muscles tensed up and very intentionally turned the doorknob so that there was no way back.
The door opened with a creaking sound, announcing his entry.
He already know the hinges needed oil, he knew that if he didn't do it nothing would happen.
However with everything that happened, a minor problem like this escaped his mind.
"Huh? What was that noise?" A male voice came from inside one of the apartments' rooms.
"Oh, no. Paul came back" A female voice answered with slight panic.
"What the hell? Didn't you said you lived alone?" The man complained "So who the hell is Paul?"
"Oh, that's … nobody" The woman responded in a shaky voice.
Paul stood at the entrance when an unknown man burst out of his moms' room, wearing nothing but his underwear, he stood there his body posture clearly expecting a fight.
"Who the hell are you bastard?" The man screamed at him angrily.
"I'm her son" Paul said in a calm voice, his tone flat, the expression on his face was careful to not show any emotions. Although he didn't show it, the man seemed oddly familiar to Paul, as if he had seen this man somewhere before.
The man recoiled at the statement, his shocked gaze alternating between Paul and his mom.
"Why did you come back now of all times?"
His mom screeched at him before the man could say anything else.
"Because I pay the bills" Paul answered, as he walked past the almost naked man.
"Then you should have said something before coming in" She continued screaming, while pointing at the door.
Meanwhile the unknown man picked up his clothes and put on his pants.
"Maybe I should … I'm just going to … I'll let you two …"
The man murmured, looking extremely uncomfortable and quickly leaving the apartment and shutting the door behind him.
"No, wait. I can still …" His mom rushed after being in her underwear herself.
Paul walked into the living room and set down his bag. He maintained his calm posture, despite the slight trembling in his shoulders telling a different story.
Outside he could hear his mom arguing with the man for several minutes, before coming back.
She closed the door and leaned against, before sitting down on the floor. Her hands covered her face as her crying spread throughout the apartment.
Paul ignored it all and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. His movements looked completely natural, practiced to perfection by someone who who seen enough over the years. His face an unfaltering mask, as if nothing happened that would require his attention.
"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT"
She looked up, her face covered in tears and makeup running down her face.
"DO YOU HEAR ME?"
She threw a shoe at him, that hit his back, when she noticed him ignoring her.
Paul stopped for one second and decided that he didn't need that glass of water after all.
He turned around and headed towards his room without saying a single word.
But that didn't stop his mother from continuing her rant.
"You should have just left … just like your father" She said in a broken voice.
That sentence made Paul stop again and finally open his mouth.
"I'm not dad and neither will they. No matter how many you bring"
His tone so low and quiet, that it sounded like a whisper. Nonetheless his mother heard him and began crying even louder than before and as the tears continued, he enter his room and silently shut the door of his dark room.
Where no one could see the expression on his face.
The next morning his phone rang and woke him up against his will.
"What the hell? What now?" He murmured half awake.
He looked at his phone and saw a missed call from his boss, along with a new message.
"You have to come in today and correct some mistakes you made in yesterdays papers" The message said.
"That can't be true. I made sure to double check the documents"
He got out of bed in a hurry, frustrated and in a hurry, he got ready to leave before his boss made this problem into a bigger problem.
It merely took him 5 minutes before he was out the door.
Once he reached the company he saw his boss standing in front of the building, smoking and holding several papers in his hand.
"Paul, come here" He waved his hand, asking him to come closer and handing him some documents "This is your job, get it done by midday"
Paul took the documents and a closer look quickly revealed something shocking.
The papers included documents he worked on the day before, but there were parts where the handwriting obviously changed. The parts that were marked as wrong.
'This … piece of shit'
He couldn't believe it. Could this really be true?
Was his boss truly so petty that he wouldn't even allow him a day off?
"This time don't make a mistake" The boss added in the end.
A vein popped on Pauls' head, his hands balled into fists.
"What? You got a problem? You?" He provoked Paul once more.
But Paul wasn't listening anymore.
He had heard something crack inside him and though he was unsure of what that was, he simply couldn't care less at that moment.
Again this conversation, this moment he remembered it from somewhere but that didn't matter anymore.
Last time he had accepted it like always, but that was then and now was different. Now he wouldn't simply looked down at the ground and pretend not to see the unfair treatment. Like his stomach hadn't transformed into a boiling pit of rage.
His body moved on its own.
Before any logic could intrude, when consequences were an afterthought.
His fist whistled through the air and hit the boss in the middle of his smug face.
Paul heard a disgusting yet somehow satisfying sound, just before he blacked out.
His eyes opened slowly and the first thing he noticed was the ground beneath him.
It wasn't the concrete that was expected, but rather a rugged and uncomfortable rocky terrain.
Even the air felt different. Cleaner and saturated with the smell of nature.
He forced himself to stand up and what she saw left him speechless.
Staring down he saw the small hands that despite their size, signified so much for him.
"I'm back"