The Promise

The Last Piece

The next months went very slowly. Every day waking up, eating breakfast, walking around the empty house, eating lunch, again walking aimlessly, dinner, and then back to bed. Sometimes the birds came to the back porch, giving me the only company, I can expect. I had no one to talk to, no one to call, no one to visit. The only time I went out is to get the monthly groceries, which mostly consisted of frozen pizzas and Coca-Cola. At one point I realized I had to get a job if I wanted to keep my head above water.

I started applying for every job that came in the newspaper. I never went to college since I joined the military to support my mother after my dad died. So, it quickly became clear to me that finding a job will be harder than I had initially thought. Amidst all of this, one day my bank manager called saying that my savings had run out repaying the house mortgage. That night I cried. I cried for a long time. I lost my squad, my wife and son left, I had no job and now I was about to lose my house. I cried myself to sleep. From the next day, I started searching fanatically for any job. For some reason, I could not even land the job of a janitor. Within a few months, I didn't even have enough for buying my monthly rations. I had started to take mental preparations for saying goodbye to the house. This house was one of my last possessions. The last piece of my life that had been with me through the toughest of times. But our journey together had come to an end. Within a few days, the court battle started. I did not even try to defend and the court swiftly gave the verdict. By the end of the month, I had shifted from a big empty house to a big busy road.