Who Am I?

A Short Story by John Carpenter

I hate my life. Every day is a carbon copy of the last. I wake up, I eat, I do little else, and then I sleep again.

I am Fred or Freddie as people often call me. I live with a woman who I have little in common with and rarely see. I am her personal assistant, at least that’s what I call myself. I’ve lived with her, Beatrice, for almost eight years. Eight years I’ve stayed in this job, a lifetime in my mind. I’d leave but I can’t. I’ve no useful skills or qualifications and if I didn’t live here and work with Beatrice, I wouldn’t be able to eat and I’d be right back on the streets as I was before Beatrice. I should be grateful, I often am but still, I hate my life.

I long for freedom, the ability to go far far away. To see all the places I‘ve never seen. To live a life worth living, but I can’t. I can’t ever afford to leave, not even for a day. Beatrice needs me around almost all the time, even if I don’t see her for most of the day. She works in the city and we live in a small country home, far away from everywhere else. I go stir crazy every other day. I almost never leave the house. Beatrice doesn’t like it when I stray too far from my work. Sometimes I go for walks at night., I’d walk for hours and see little more than empty lonesome fields. Every walk I’d try and go further than the last, to peek beyond the precipice that little bit more.