When November Ends

Chapter 1"The Only Thing I Can Do"

    Life is funny, isn’t it?

    You’re born. You grow up. You die.

    My grandfather, he worked hard to earn money only for his money to be used in hospital bills. And my sister, she tried so hard to make her husband happy only for him to leave her.

    That’s life. You try to get the better out of it, but the results will be backwards. You’ll get the opposite of what you want.

    Growing up, all you could ever think about is getting that dream job. You work your ass off in school, get the best grades that you can, and put up with everyone else’s bullshit just so you wouldn't be alone on Graduation Day and yet it wasnt enough.

    In the end, you’re still alone.

    You may have graduated in flying colors but you have nothing. You can’t get that dream job because they wanted someone with better credentials. Someone they needed, but you’re not that someone.

    School can’t teach us half of the things we need to know so we could face life with all its hurdling difficulties and challenges. They measure your intelligence base on your scores, not because you learned but you were able to pass. If only life was that easy. If only it has a criteria, so we’d know how to pass this test called ‘life’ instead of wishing we could just pass away and leave everything behind. The latter seems easier, but it’s not the kind of choice I’d want for myself or for anyone.

    There must be a solution, a formula. Though it seems, no one has cracked that yet.

    I don’t think no one will ever find out.

    Well, I’ll have to leave that for someone else to worry about because I have a bigger foe to face.

    “Tomorrow,” I said, glowering at my cup of coffee. “November first. The start of yet another roller coaster month of terror.”

    “You make it sound like it’s the end of the world,” my sister said.

    “It might as well be.”

    Elora rolled her eyes. “Why do you hate November anyway?”

    I blew the steam from my coffee, the steam fogging up the lense of my glasses. I didn’t bother wiping them as I take a sip from my cup.

    “Because it keeps fucking me up,” I said.

    “How can a month do that?” she laughs, shaking her head.

    I smirked. “You tell me.”

    November is like 30 days free trial for ‘How Life Can Fuck You Up So Bad’. It’s an unlimited experience on how badly your life could get in a single month. It’s been like that for years.

    It was November when I first had my heart broken by a guy. It was also November when I missed a slot from a writing contest because I didn’t reply on their confirmation message (which wasn’t my fault, it was Gmail for not sending me a notification!).

    It was also November when we got into an accident, where we almost died.

    Since then, November has always been a month of pain. It’s filled of unlucky happenings. It’s a month that no single good thing ever comes out.

    Everything goes wrong in November.

    “Are you really leaving?” Elora asks.

    “Only for a month.”

    “Only?” she gasped. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to do this every year.”

    “That’s a great idea!”