สั้น Emotional Realism เรื่องและนวนิยาย

My little sister, Maya, got into a car crash. I put her in a high-end recovery center. Her injuries were bad. Progress crawled. They kept extending her treatment, one phase at a time. Early this morning, the manager called. Said the card wouldn't cover the next phase. That's when it hit me—peak season at the company. I'd been slammed, barely breathing. I hadn't topped it up in forever. I told her I'd transfer the money. She shut it down. Said I had to show up and sign in person before they'd extend anything. So after work, I rushed over. Straight into rush hour traffic. Then she called again. "Ms. Keyne, your balance hit zero three minutes ago. We're terminating services. This is a premium facility—we don't do free care. The patient tied to your account has been removed per policy."

"Quinn, I accidentally hit someone when I was driving earlier. I think… I think it was your son!" The day after my friend, Owen Jolin, gets his driving license, he insists on driving to the kindergarten to pick up his son by himself. I advise him to spend a few more days practicing his driving skills, seeing as that road is always packed with trucks. But he just rolls his eyes at me. "Don't worry about me. I'm super good at driving, you know!" After that, he stomps on the gas pedal and speeds away in his car. But a short while later, he calls me on the phone, and he sounds extremely frightened. He tells me that he has hit someone outside the kindergarten. He said the child is completely drenched in blood, and he somehow looks like my son, Elliot Shelby. I'm stunned, to say the least. Elliot has come down with a fever today, so he's skipped school for the day. Then… who on earth did Owen kill?

I was born with a genetic disorder. My father left as soon as he found out, and my illness quickly drained all my mother’s savings. To afford my treatment, she moved me from one stranger’s home to another, until she chose to have a child for money. After giving birth to a baby boy and receiving twelve thousand dollars, she was about to leave, but the man asked her to stay. He promised to raise me as his own and cover my medical expenses. She agreed. They married soon after. She told me I would always be the one she loved most. To prove it, she rarely held my brother and almost never smiled at him. Until the day he accidentally swallowed my medicine. As she frantically tried to save him, she broke down and screamed at me, “Why are you still alive?” I watched them rush to the hospital. Then I went back to my room, picked up the scattered pills, and swallowed them all. Mom, I wouldn't be a burden to you anymore.

When I was six years old, I became an actual dummy after playing a silly game with my older sister, Hannah Hubbard. My mental age is stuck at six years old. Because of that, my grandma receives a huge shock, causing her condition to deteriorate. Since then, Hannah has completely transformed into a brand new person. Thanks to her scholarship and her efforts to collect and sell trash, Grandma and I are able to survive under her care. Hannah is such a prideful person, and yet when her classmates call her stupid nicknames, she doesn't get mad at them at all. But if anyone is to call me an idiot, Hannah will seek justice for me no matter what. That night, Hannah gathers me in her arms while crying soundlessly. "My Oliver isn't an idiot at all. You just haven't grown up yet. Oliver, promise me that you will never leave me, okay?" I just nod blankly. For the next three years, I cling to her like glue. That is, until Blake Mueller appears in our lives. When I'm done playing with the mud, I forget to wash my hands, so I accidentally soil Blake's white shirt with my soiled hands. That's when Hannah suddenly breaks down emotionally and kicks me out of the house. "Oliver Hubbard, you've dragged me down my whole life! Are you going to cause trouble for Blake as well? Can you please be more understanding and stop causing more trouble for me?" Finally, an idea sparks inside my dim-witted brain for once. It turns out that my existence brings nothing but misery to Hannah. So, I hide inside the casket Grandma has custom-ordered for herself. There, I close my eyes and begin counting down quietly. Three, two, one. Let the game begin.

Since my favorite basketball player is hosting a meet-and-greet, I've ordered a VIP seat that comes with the benefit of interacting with the player in advance. When the time comes, I follow a staff member to my designated seat. I'm about to sit down when a man walks over and takes my seat instead. "This is where I can watch the meet-and-greet the best. I shall have this seat, then." I just stare at the man, completely speechless. "Sir, this is my seat. Please get off the chair." What I don't expect is for him to dig out a stack of cash before hurling it at me. "A peasant like you has no right to meet basketball stars! I'm buying this seat from you right now! Take the money and scram!" Seeing that I refuse to leave, the man continues haughtily, "I'm Wilbur Collins, the assistant of Jade Pearson, CEO of Pearson Group! Everyone in this city knows who the Pearsons are! Are you trying to push your luck here?" Jade Pearson? Isn't that the fiancee who my dad has betrothed to me? I pull out my phone and call her right away. "Hey, your assistant has snatched my seat from me in a basketball star's meet-and-greet session like the hooligan he is. You'd better give me a good explanation for this!"

In the third year after I've run away from home, my parents finally remember my existence. But the reason is that the fake heir, Jayson Norman, is displeased with his marriage partner in the upcoming marriage alliance. That's why my parents instantly think of getting me to replace Jayson in the marriage. When Mom sees Katrina Cobb, the woman whom I've eloped with, rummaging through the trash in a wheelchair, she feels extremely satisfied. "Back then, Joshua refused to stick to his role as the heir of the Norman family. He even went as far as to push Jayson down the stairs just so he could elope with this wretched woman! I bet he must be riddled with remorse by now!" With hazy eyes, Katrina mutters, "Yeah, he was filled with remorse. He regretted going back to that place you call 'home' with you." Dad lets out a cold huff. "Well, that's enough tantrum on his part! Tell him to get his ass home for the marriage alliance, and we'll consider the past water under the bridge!" Having noted Katrina's silence, Dad wastes no time in kicking her wheelchair over. "You wretched cripple! Where have you hidden my son?" I can only float in mid-air as I gaze down at Katrina, who's wailing in pain on the ground. At that moment, I feel as though my soul is getting ripped apart. "Mom, Dad, I've been dead for three years. How am I going to take Jayson's place in this marriage alliance?"

I have a rule that I stick to at all times. Every year, I will only host three livestreams. I accept and welcome everyone who joins my livestream. I don't care about the variety of requests made. On top of that, I don't charge anyone anything. As long as I agree to one's request, I'll definitely fulfill it no matter what they want. For the past three years, I've stuck to this rule, and I've never broken it. Because of that, every time my livestream starts, hundreds of thousands of viewers will instantly join my livestream. It's the third livestream this time, marking it the final livestream of the year. As soon as I begin the livestream, numerous comments begin filling up the comment section. The user who's lucky enough to score a chance to communicate with me on my livestream is a woman in her 40s. Her sideburns have already gone gray, and her eyes are sunken. She can be seen holding up a child's photo. "Connor, my son has gone missing for 20 years. Please help me find him. I'll sell my house. Heck, I'll do anything you say!" The comment section instantly goes wild. "Oh my god! What a pitiful mother!" "She's willing to sell everything she has just to find her child! Connor, you must help her!" "If you refuse to help this woman, who else are you going to help then, Connor?" I stare at the woman's face for three long seconds. That's when I feel an inexplicable chill running down my spine. Without hesitation, I close off the communication portal from the woman. "I refuse."

I've been working for five years now. This is the first time my mom takes the initiative to call me to go home for the holidays. So I travel home with heaps of luggage. Still, I manage to free one hand to produce an envelope filled with cash and give it to my mom. A grin blooms on her face instantly. But when she realizes that there's only ten thousand dollars in the envelope, her grin starts to falter. "Oh, it only makes sense that you're the most manipulative out of the bunch after all these years." I pause momentarily as I'm about to go through the front door. "You've been working for quite a few years now, and yet you only bring home ten thousand bucks. Meanwhile, Sabrina gave us 100 thousand dollars in her first year of working a nice job. Having a bachelor's degree definitely pays off a lot!" Upon noticing how stunned I look, my mom yanks the gifts over right away. "Don't go around looking as though we owe you a life debt, Regina! See, Sabrina has better grades than you, and she doesn't have the intention of hiding anything from us. The gifts she always brings us are top-end supplements, so you should stop bringing us cheap stuff like this." I can only grip the hems of my shirt tightly. But the thing is, I'm the one with better scores back then…

I've founded a company that doesn't encourage overtime shifts, pays everyone on time, and doesn't impose performance evaluations on the employees at all. My employees are free to bring their pets to work. All of their applications for leave will be approved immediately. Heck, they have unlimited leave as well. I originally think that my employees will like me a lot thanks to these benefits. But I never expect my company to be featured on the Internet one day. It even gets labeled as a sweatshop, much to my shock. "Guys, I can't believe I got hired by a sweatshop company. The boss is extremely stingy who pays us low wages while pretending to be a nice guy this whole time!" My company is then shown in the video. The narrator's voice has been edited, so I can't tell whose voice it is. As I stare at the tranquil office scene in real-time, I find myself falling into deep thought. Meanwhile, the video is still going on. "Let me tell you how evil my boss is. Every other company tends to distribute gifts during the holidays that like food and luxury items. But my boss doesn't bother giving us any of the gifts. He uses the excuse that our company is a very flexible and humane company, so we don't do any gift-giving at all. As if! "He also claims that we don't have to undergo any performance evaluation. In other words, that means our wages aren't transparent at all. Maybe he's been secretly docking our pay behind our backs this whole time! "Being paid thousands of dollars for this job is already bad enough! To make things worse, I'm forced to listen to my boss boast about everything in the world! Do I look like I have that much time on my hands to listen to him blabber? I'm not his mom, for crying out loud!" Everyone in the comment section doesn't hesitate to lash out at me. "Holy shit, I can't believe such soul-sucking companies still exist! Poor you!" "Why are you still staying in that stupid company? Hurry up and leave! If I were you, I wouldn't be able to stay there for a minute longer!" "That's right! That boss of yours is an evil capitalist! He deserves to die!"

A young woman showed up at my door, saying she wanted to become my wife to repay me for saving her life. She drove my younger sister out of the house and wanted to transfer the family property to her parasitic parents in my name! I immediately reported her. How could someone be so bold as to commit robbery right at my home in a society governed by law?

My boss, Grant Whitlock, removed every table and chair from the operations team's area during the company's holiday party. Then, he placed one stainless-steel dog bowl in the middle of the stage. "Ops is basically the company's guard dog," he announced. "And dogs don't eat at the table." The top sales guy laughed and scraped his leftovers straight into the bowl. After that, Grant threw a black trash bag over my shoulders. "From now on, you're our walking trash can. Make yourself useful." The room exploded with laughter. I didn't say a word. I just tightened my grip around the master access card in my hand. What they didn't know was that the building's emergency utility approvals, maintenance access, and property management favors all went through me. They were all living it up because of this "dog" they loved looking down on. I had had enough. So, I dropped my employee badge into the dog bowl and walked out on them. I thought, 'After the holidays, no one will be cleaning the mess on those two floors. Let's see how well they survive without me.'

After I was betrayed by my boyfriend, Cole Chapman, five years ago on New Year’s Eve, we reunited at our college reunion. Everyone pressured us to play Truth or Dare. Cole lost first. He picked Truth. Someone asked him, “What’s the most satisfying time you turned someone’s power back on them? He glanced at me mockingly and said with a sense of superiority, “I drained my ex’s savings to pay for my PhD. The day I got my permanent residency, I reported her for illegal work, which got her deported.” The crowd went wild. They thought I would break down crying. However, I just smiled and spun the bottle. When it was my turn, Cole asked me, “Do you have any secrets your ex never knew?” “Yes.” “What is it?” he asked with a smile. I smiled back and replied, “I was working illegally back then because my family cut off my credit cards after I refused an arranged marriage. “Just yesterday, my dad bought the multinational corporation that hired you as my wedding gift.”

After guarding the nation's border for ten years, I return home only to see my younger sister, Piper Wright, being trampled under someone’s foot. "Where did this country bumpkin come from? How dare you show up at a place like this?" The man in a suit throws an invitation in her face. "Take a look at yourself. What do you think you are? My sister is Velda Mercer, the top socialite of Hyporion. If you offend me, I will have your whole family thrown into the river!" I smash his nose with a single punch. I help Piper to her feet and dial Velda's number. "Velda Mercer, if it were not for me back then, you would still be begging for food. How dare you bully my sister?"

In order to secure the five-million-dollar business deal with a major client, I end up getting hospitalized from overdrinking. On the day I get discharged, I see a text message on my department's group chat. My manager, Robert Spradlin, has tagged everyone in the group chat. "Everyone must attend the celebratory afterparty tonight. We're celebrating the fact that our department has secured the biggest deal of the year!" As I stare at the screen, I feel a hint of warmth bubbling in my heart. Even though Robert is often stingy and loves putting on airs, I'm pretty sure that this is his way of acknowledging my efforts. I specifically go home and change into new clothes. Then, I arrive at the private room right on time. The moment I open the door, I feel a blast of hot air mixed with a strong smell of spice hitting my face. It's so overwhelming that I can't help but cough violently. "Sit, sit! I've specifically ordered these dishes for you!" Kristie Madison, the newly-recruited admin, gushes. But when I take a good look at the dishes, I feel my smile freeze on my face. Spice, spice, and more spice. Kristie has ordered 20 dishes, and yet I can't even stomach every single one.

After my beautiful boss, Violet York, starts a new relationship, I somehow end up becoming the other man. Her brand-new boyfriend, Cody Moore, shows up in a sweatshirt and a trendy layered haircut. He kneels in front of me and cries, "You're Vi's secretary, right? Please give her back to me. We're the ones who are destined for each other." I jump back in shock. Yes, I am Violet's secretary. But more importantly, I'm a national award-winning top scholar with both looks and brains. I have the company's core tech in my hands! And most importantly of all, there is absolutely nothing going on between Violet and me. I can swear with my life!

My mom is a woman who takes frugality very, very seriously. When I suffer from a high fever, she feeds me moldy chicken noodle soup. In fact, I can only wear my older sister's hand-me-downs since I was a little girl. After working hard for so long, I finally qualify for the final interview of a top-500 company. I keep telling my mom repeatedly to not cause any trouble for me. Alas, my monitor winks out when I've reached the most critical point of my interview. At the same time, the router has lost access to the internet. I rush out of my room hurriedly, only to see my mom flipping off the main switch in the darkness. "Why did you leave the lights on at night? Imagine how much money you'll have to pay! I've already calculated everything for you. If we turn off the lights, we get to save a few pennies per night!" Thanks to those pennies, I end up losing my job that can guarantee an annual salary of a million dollars. Later on, my older sister, Andrea Fletcher, is diagnosed with a kidney disease. In order to latch onto Andrea's rich husband, Kirk Herrera, my mom forces me to work overtime at a shady factory just to gather enough money for Andrea's medical bills. Even when I'm about to die, my older brother, Anthony Fletcher, and my dad keep blaming me. "You can't even get hired at a proper factory! You really are useless, Alice! Your mom went through all those frugal nonsense just to raise you for nothing!" When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day I'm about to attend the online interview. I just chuckle coldly as I look at Andrea, who has just found out about her kidney disease and is waiting for me to earn enough money for her kidney transplant. Then, I toss her expensive, specialized medication into the trash can. "What use is there for you to take the medicine, Andrea? What a waste! Mom already stated many times that being frugal is the way of life! "You should drink more water instead. Once your rich husband finds out how good you are at saving money, he'll definitely compliment us for knowing how to balance our finances!"

To help my husband, Henry Carter, pay off a million-dollar debt, I clean windows and scrub toilets in an office building on Valentine's Day just for the triple pay. After I'm done with the windows, I am about to transfer the last 50 thousand dollars of the debt when a post suddenly pops up on my phone. The title of the post is, "What is something you see in real life that makes you feel sorry for someone, even if they are your enemy?" One of the top comments says, "The person I hate the most is my boyfriend's wife. My boyfriend pretends to be poor to spend money on me and cheats his wife out of over a million. That woman works day and night at a cleaning company just to make money for me! "This has gone on for eight years. That woman has been scrubbing toilets for eight years! Even if she is my enemy, I feel sorry for her." I freeze, and my fingers tremble uncontrollably. No way. It has to be a coincidence. I stare at those words, stunned and unable to recover from the shock. Then, a new comment appears, "Now, my boyfriend plans to fake an illness by telling his wife that he has cancer. He's going to trick her into giving him money to buy me a car." At that exact moment, Henry sends me a message. The instant I open it, I feel my heart skip a beat. It reads, "I'm sorry, honey. I'm sick—I have cancer. The doctor says we need to prepare 80 thousand dollars for treatment. I hate myself for this. Why am I even alive? I'm just dragging you down with me." The words "late-stage liver cancer" in the attached diagnosis report are painful to look at. I think in dismay, "Henry, you do not need to pretend to be sick. You are indeed in the late stage of cancer."

I sat in the driver's seat as the GPS chimed, "You've arrived at Northpoint Corp. Check-in successful." I looked up. Graves. Nothing but graves. My phone buzzed. My boss tagged me in the group chat: [Zane Zander, system says you checked in ten minutes ago. Where the hell are you? The whole company's waiting. Learned how to spoof your GPS to slack off?] Cold sweat slid down my back. I stared at the fresh headstone outside my window. My photo was on it. My hands shook. I tried to send my boss a video—no signal. Just dead bars. No service. So how did I check in? Worse— In the rearview mirror, someone in my exact outfit rose slowly from behind a dirt mound. Could it be... Was I already "dead"?

"Hey, what's your laptop's specs?" My colleague, Dexter Grant, pushes my laptop back to me with a deep frown on his face. I'm busy editing my blueprints, so I respond to him without lifting my head. "It's the latest model. The motherboard is i7 12-Gen, and I have a 64-GB ram installed in it. What's wrong?" "That's impossible!" Dexter shakes his head. "All I did was open Photoshop earlier, and yet the laptop was stuck for three whole minutes! Not even my own laptop, which has lasted me for three years, is as slow as yours! "Also, there are scratch marks left behind by a screwdriver on your laptop's casing. It's clear that someone has cracked your case in the past before installing it back on." My heart sinks at Dexter's observations. I quickly flip over my laptop and take a look at it. It's true that there are two fresh scratches near the laptop's vent. The edge of the casing was slightly jutted upward as well. The sight leaves me shell-shocked. The thing is, my laptop was still fine when my cousin, Joe Clinton, borrowed it from me three months ago…

My brother-in-law, Calum Russell, throws away the expensive New Year's gift that I buy. Putting a hand on my sister's pregnant belly, he tries to drive me out of the house. He says, "I pretended that I didn't know you were adopted because you used to help support the family's finances. But now that the house is about to be demolished, we will get a huge compensation for it. I have to kick you out, or you'll be taking my son's share!" I look at my parents and my sister in confusion, but none of them take my side. They just look at me with disgust and tell me to be grateful that they raised me for so many years. They demand that I sign the adoption termination agreement quickly and get out. I let out a sigh. Suppressing my anger, I sign it and leave. What a pity! If they had waited just a few more minutes, I would have told them that the demolition is fake. But what's real is that I have just won a lottery of 200 million dollars.