Chapter Text
Prologue
Have you ever wondered if the people you see sometimes, that are worse off than you ... that maybe deserve it?
You know the ones.
In the streets or the underground or doing an invisible job that you hate but need in your day to day no less.
Blank haunted stares, trying to come across unaffected but also refusing to fully engage.
It's ok if you do.
I guess I also felt like that too for a while.
We all do it.
We maybe see someone homeless or someone in a job we consider 'beneath us.'
We think - God not me. Please never let me get to that place.
And we wring our hands and we shake our heads internally, and then we get distracted by a Food Chain, or a Beauty Shop, or our friends pointing out that new Boba place that also doubles up and does the really great sandwiches.
And any thoughts of the less fortunate are out of our heads.
We don't worry about what leads someone to get to that place. We don't worry about how to avoid ending up there.
Because it's so far fetched.
They must have done something wrong after all.
No one ends up in a bad way without some amount of blame.
And we don't want to consciously...
But we judge.
We think... I'll never be where you are.
I'll never be that low.
I'd never get there.
Someone loves me. They'd take care of me.
They wouldnt let me fall down that far.
And usually they'd be right.
But here's the thing.
All of that security?
It's an illusion.
You could be where I am at the drop of a hat.
It just takes one person.
One successful, well-connected, crazy generational wealth, person with a vendetta to decide you’re not worth shit.
And that's it.
The world suddenly agrees.
And there's nothing you can do to claw your way back up when he decides he likes seeing you scrambling at the bottom of the pit.
I wish I could tell you that was a joke.
God, how I wish it were for myself.
But that would be wishing Keaton had never existed.
And I'd stop bothering to wish for that a long time ago.
Now I just tried to survive.