Where You Were

It started with a click. Just one. An account opened, a world unlocked. Options trading, a world I knew nothing about, yet, somehow felt invincible in. Cautiously, I bought that first option, call it beginner's luck, or perhaps a cosmic joke, but in a single week, I made 30%. I couldn't believe it. I was convinced I had stumbled onto some secret that the rest of the world had missed.

Genius, I thought. A financial oracle in the making. It wasn't long before I began to daydream about the life this newfound talent could afford me. So, I deposited everything, everything. Savings, inheritance, rainy day fund, all of it. Threw it into FDGO calls. The expiration date? A week away. The potential payout? Astronomical. I was certain I had this in the bag.

But the market doesn't care about certainty. In the blink of an eye, it turned. One day, then the next, and the next, each one worse than the last. My genius was nothing more than reckless gambling dressed up in fancy terminology. When expiration day came, the only thing left in my account was a string of zeros. Everything was gone.

I didn't have the courage to tell my wife at first, and unfortunately, she found out the hard way, when our bills started bouncing. She left me before the ink dried on the divorce papers. The kids? They didn't want to hear from me. Not that I could blame them.

Work became unbearable. I'd show up late, if I even showed up at all. Drunk most days, crying in the bathroom about a life I ruined. It wasn't long before they fired me. A mercy, really. That was when I started working at Strunger's, flipping burgers, making change, existing in a fog.

Behind the dumpsters, I met a few guys who were in just as deep as me, maybe deeper. Crack helped numb the shame. I'd hit the pipe, and for a few minutes, the weight of the world lifted.

But now, as I sit here with a burnt-out pipe and no one left to turn to, I can't help but wonder: What was the question? Oh, right. Who the hell cares?

The days began to blur into each other, not that it mattered much anymore. The job at Strunger's didn't last long after they caught me cracked out on the counter. Didn't matter though, by then, I was already halfway out the door in my mind. The streets were where I belonged now.

Learning which alleyways are safe, which dumpsters have the best scraps, and who to avoid when the sun goes down. I found myself under the bridge most nights. It was dark and smelled like piss, but at least it kept the wind off. The others down there didn't talk much, which suited me fine. We all had our demons, and none of us were interested in sharing.

Wake up with the sun, or the rain, or the sound of some junkie screaming in the distance. Scrounge around for something to eat spend the day looking for shelter, for warmth, for anything that resembles what life used to be like, huddled close to a fire made from god knows what.

Sometimes, if I got lucky, I'd find a discarded cigarette or a bottle with a few swigs left. Those were the little victories now. I had nothing. No markets to worry about, no family to disappoint, no job to lose. Just survival, one day to the next.

The crack was still around, but it wasn't the crutch it used to be. Couldn't afford it most of the time. The others under the bridge? They'd pass a pipe around when someone had scored, and I'd take a hit just to remember what it felt like to escape, even if only for a minute. But those minutes were fewer and farther between.

As the months dragged on, I stopped caring about the past. The guy who lost his life savings, his family, his mind, that guy was gone. Now, I was just another face in the crowd of lost souls, drifting through the days, surviving the nights.

If there was a rock bottom, I guess I'd found it. At least down here, I knew where I stood.

I woke with images of my nightmare still clinging to my mind like smoke. For a moment, I didn't know where I was. My eyes darted around, taking in the dim glow of the computer screen, the small desk lamp casting shadows across the room.

I was in my office. Home. Safe. I glanced at the screen and there it was, the trading platform still open, the cursor hovering over the "buy" button. The FDGO calls were queued up, expiration date a week away. My hand had froze just before clicking, it was all a dream.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, the dream, the nightmare, had felt so real. Losing everything, my wife leaving, my kids turning their backs on me, the descent into addiction and homelessness. It was as if I had lived through it all in those few moments I dozed off.

But it was just a dream. A horrifying, fucked up dream. My life wasn't over. Not yet, anyway. I stared at the screen, the numbers and charts right there. That one option I had bought earlier was still there, still showing a 30% gain. It was real. The success was real.

I moved the cursor away from the "buy" button. Instead, I clicked "sell," locking in the gains I had made. It wasn't much, but it was enough. Enough to remind me that this game I was playing wasn't one I could afford to lose.

I closed the trading platform. I stood up, stretching out the tension that had built in my muscles. Maybe it was time to step away from the screen for a while. Go outside, breathe in the fresh air, appreciate the life I still had. I wasn't a financial oracle, and that was okay. I was just a guy, trying to navigate this world like everyone else.

And that was enough.

The cold seeped through my thin jacket, pulling me out of sleep. My eyes slowly open to a gray dawn, I groaned, the sharp ache in my back from the concrete I slept on.

It was a vivid and surreal experience where I had somehow woken up in my old life, just before I ruined it. I could still feel the relief of stepping away, of making the "right" decision.

But that was gone now, nothing more than a cruel joke my mind had played on me while I slept. I was still under the bridge. Still broke. Still a bum.

The others were still wrapped in their filthy blankets, the empty bottles scattered around the fire pit, the stench of unwashed bodies with the odor of stale urine. This was my reality, not the tidy office or the neat stack of savings that existed only in my dream.

I slowly sat up, every muscle protested that movement. The taste of old cigarettes and cheap booze on my tongue, another reminder of how far I'd fallen. I wasn't waking up from this. There was no desk, no warm bed waiting for me, no second chance to rewrite the mistakes I'd made. The life I'd dreamed of wasn't real, it hadn't been for a long time.

I reached for the worn out bottle beside me, needing something to dull the sharp edges of disappointment that cut into me every time I woke up. But it was empty. I tossed it aside with a sigh, my throat dry and scratchy.

I couldn't afford to get lost in dreams anymore. There was nothing left for me in that world. This was it now, and the sooner I accepted it, the easier it would be to survive.

With a grunt, I pushed myself to my feet, feeling every bit of the exhaustion that clung to me. It was time to start the day with my search for the next drink, the next bite, the next place to lay my head. It wasn't much of a life, but it was all the life I had left.

I hadn't actually eaten in days, not since I managed to find a half-eaten sandwich from a dumpster behind some fast-food joint. Water was even harder to come by. One tiny choice. One click of a button. That was all it took.

I needed to find something, anything, to keep me going. I knew where the nearest soup kitchen was, but they'd stopped letting me in after the last time I showed up drunk. Maybe I could try again, but I couldn't afford to waste the energy it would take to get there if it meant nothing in return.

There was the shelter a few blocks away, but it was overcrowded, and the chances of finding anything there were slim. Still, it was better than nothing. Maybe I could find something, a scrap of bread, a leftover can of soup, anything. What's done is done. All that mattered now was surviving, one more day, one more night. I didn't have the luxury of regret anymore.

The air inside was cold, but I kept forward, ignoring the glares from those who recognized me. They didn't say anything, though. We were all here for the same reason, after all. A volunteer handed me a bowl of soup, and I held it close. I found a spot by the window, the farthest table from everyone else. It was quiet there. The soup wasn't much, just a thin broth with a few vegetables and some chunks of bread, but it felt like a feast.

As I ate, I let myself relax, the world outside the window seemed distant. Snow began to softly fall, covering the streets in this thin white blanket. For a brief moment, I felt at peace. The dream of my old life still haunted me, but here, in this small, warm room, I could almost pretend it didn't matter anymore.

I finished the last of the soup, leaning back in that creaky chair, feeling more comfortable than I had in a long time. My eyes drifted back to the window, watching the snow. The city seemed so still, almost peaceful.

And then, without warning, there was a flash of light. It was so bright that it burned into my vision, leaving an afterimage I tried to blink away. The peaceful snowfall outside the window froze in time and a loud sound followed, shaking the very ground beneath us.

Our eyes were locked on that flash and a mushroom shaped cloud rising in the distance. My mind struggled to comprehend what I was seeing and what it meant.

The war we had all been trying to ignore, the tensions that had been on the boiler for months, it all hit like a physical blow, there was really no escape, no second chance. Everything was about to be wiped away.

In those final moments, as the shockwave raced toward us, I found a strange clarity. That single choice, that one click of a button that had brought me here, seemed so insignificant now. All the regret, the loss, the endless suffering was about to be erased in an instant.

The windows shattered, and the last thing I saw was my world being torn apart by a force so powerful, so final, that nothing else mattered. The comfort, the warmth, the fleeting peace, all of it was gone, consumed by the light and fire that engulfed us all.

And then, there was nothing.