My name's Therion Marvellian Duskbane.
Yeah, complicated. My father was a Tolkien fanatic; my mother lost a bet. End result: I carry around a name that sounds like it belongs in The Hobbit, not on some payroll sheet. Rare? Sure. Special? Never felt like it. Anyway, this is where it all started.
The bug hit us like a plague. Not a real one, but code that crawled into the system and broke everything in sight. Two days straight of firefighting, of staring into screens that felt more like abysses than tools. Debug, test, debug again. Coffee so bitter it felt like punishment. At last, at eleven in the morning, I walked out of the office—free, but emptied.
I was half-dead when I reached the subway. That's when I saw him.
A boy. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. Too old for pity, too young to already look that weary. Bowl in hand, dirt on his face, but his eyes—bright, alive, unyielding. I dropped some change in, expecting nothing. But he lingered in my mind.
On impulse, I asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
For a moment, silence. Not awkward—just heavy, like the pause before an answer in a philosophy class where truth feels dangerous. Then he said:
"I want to own a food truck and make amazing food, like my mother used to."
It wasn't the dream itself that stunned me—it was the fire in his eyes. His voice carried something mine hadn't in years.
So I pressed. "And how will you do it?"
He smiled. Not mocking, not shy—just certain. "I don't know. But one day, on that street, there'll be my truck. Don't forget to come."
Then he was gone, running to the next passerby. My train arrived. And like a well-trained cog, I boarded.
Everything in my life is like that: fixed. Which train to take. Which vegetables to buy. Which movie to watch before bed. Routine upon routine, a loop without spark.
It's not that I never had hunger—I once wanted the stars, an astronaut's life, galaxies and heroism. But as water extinguishes flame, time and society smothered that fire. Or maybe I smothered it myself.
And yet this boy—this nameless beggar—looked more alive than me. He had nothing, but he had a dream.
As I dragged myself home, I thought of Camus: "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart." Maybe that's why his eyes haunted me. Hunger gave him meaning. My comfort left me hollow.
By the time I got home, it was routine all over again. Bought my vegetables. Watched my movie. It sucked, of course. But it wasn't the film that stayed with me—it was him. The interruption.
Because here's the truth: I have everything. Parents who still exist, even if imperfectly. A younger brother. Friends—bastards, yes, but mine. A decent salary. A roof. Stability. Nothing lacking, except the only thing that matters: a why.
It's strange. For those who are starving, bread is God. For me, fed all my life, I starve for meaning. Maybe that's why I breathe fiction like oxygen. Superheroes, cultivation novels, Tolkien's worlds—they're not childish to me. They are survival. They are reminders of the fire I once carried.
But when that boy spoke, it hit me. It wasn't about food trucks. It was about the fact that he still had a dream. And I didn't.
Now it's 2:30 a.m. I should be asleep, but sleep won't come. So I write. A daily gibberish journey, maybe, but one that feels heavier tonight. Tomorrow the grind will start again. The loop, the repetition.
And yet, his words stay with me. His eyes. His certainty. His dream.
PS — 08/09/2025. The night of the blood moon. Spooky as hell.
I closed the laptop, switched off the TV that was still running Ironheart, and went to bed. But sleep wouldn't come. My head began to ache—the kind of ache that isn't just physical, but heavy, like thoughts pressing too hard.
And then, out of nowhere, I remembered something my father once told me when I was a kid, sitting beside him as he flipped through one of his old Tolkien books:
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Back then, it sounded like just a line from a movie. Tonight, it felt like a challenge.
My eyelids grew heavy. The hum of the city blurred. And slowly, against the ache, I drifted into "dreams".