It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning flashed once, and like a scalpel cutting into flesh, the sky opened up and spewed its contents onto the ground. I turned my collar up against the cold rain that was trying to slide down the back of my neck, and shivered a little. I pulled my tattered rain coat a little closer to me, and squeezed back into the doorway a little further, trying without luck to draw a little warmth from the dark and rundown building. I reached my hand out and grabbed the bottle of Jack I had sitting on the sidewalk and tipped my head back and drank. The warmth shot through me quickly, but I knew it wasn’t going to last, and I resigned myself to spending another cold and sleepless night on the streets.
It was my own fault of course. I didn’t have anyone to blame but myself. But that didn’t make it any easier.
Once upon a time, I had it all. A beautiful wife, three kids, a house in the suburbs. I even had a boat at the marina. I was working for a magazine as an editor and making very good money. As all things go, I was outsourced to a job overseas.
I couldn’t find a new job. So I decided to “make my fortune online” – and joined the ranks of the hopefuls who don’t have a clue of what it takes to build a successful online business.
It didn’t take long until I was dead broke. I couldn’t pay my bills, let alone put food on the table. My boat was repossessed, our home went into foreclosure.
My wife stuck it out as long as she could…
But eventually she got tired too. And she took the kids and the dog, and moved back home with her folks. I was too ashamed to go with them.
So I ended up joining the ranks of the homeless. Never was much of a drinker and for awhile stayed away from that life and lived in the local mens shelter. But, as all things go when on a downward spriral I soon became just another one of those nameless, faceless bums on the street, begging for work so I could get my next bottle. (And eventually just begging for money so I could get that next bottle.)
I knew there had to be a way to make my living as a writer online – if I could just get past all the lies, the hype and the garbage that’s out there. I was at the end of the tracks, my train had left the station without me and I was totally destitute.
But it turned out not to be the end of the line after all……….
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