There was a saying that ‘a person is the protagonist of their own life’, but Ivan would much rather be a side character. A story centered around him would not be a very fun one at all. If his life were some kind of novel, then his hometown would be his prison, and the warden would be his own misfortune.
No matter how many times he tried to escape, the invisible shackles of fate would always drag him back home. Like a bird with clipped wings, the dream of flying the nest would only ever remain just that - a fleeting dream. It was a fact proven to him once again after he was kicked out of college in his second year, dragging his feet back to the cage of his childhood home.
Not even his parents were surprised by his sudden arrival. They too thought that such an outcome was the natural and inevitable conclusion. The fact that Ivan even made it to college was considered a miracle in itself, but his expulsion was the final rusted nail in the overburdened coffin of his parents'' expectations. Much like Ivan upon his return, it was ready to be buried six feet under.
Returning to his hometown was even more painful than he’d imagined. Growing up in a small town meant that pretty much everyone knew everyone, and they also knew everyone’s business. The luxury of secrets was not afforded to those with quiet streets and nosey neighbors.
Ivan’s status as the family failure wasn’t exactly new, though flunking out of school was a low even for him. He was sure half the town went up in flames of gossip as his car stuffed full of boxes burned its way down the street and into his parents’ cracked driveway.
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He shouldn’t have cared what other people thought, especially not nobodies from his hometown. But, Ivan quickly realized that he was also one of those nobodies now, having returned after failing to slip the leash, doomed to a life sentence alongside his fellow small-town prisoners.
He was no stranger to that sort of gossip, either. He had often been the focus of it growing up. The reason for that was his incredible luck. Meaning, of course, that his luck was incredibly terrible.
On the day Ivan was born, there was a meteor shower. Shooting stars streaked across the sky, weeping like rain, and everybody at the time took it as a good omen. After all, the stars were the symbols of the gods. If you saw a shooting star, it was often interpreted as a god’s answer to your desires.
A whole meteor shower on the day of a child’s birth! How could it be anything other than the gods’ blessing? But as Ivan grew older, those around him quickly realized that it was not a blessing at all. If anything, it must have been a curse.
After all, the stars were the symbols of the gods. A shooting star was just another way to call a star that fell from the sky. And how could a falling star mean anything other than bad luck? Ivan found it almost comical how easily people twisted interpretations just to suit their new agendas.
After people came to this realization, many of them started to avoid him. They called him the “cursed child” or the “child of misfortune”. So, at the end of the day, what was some small-town gossip compared to the titles that had already burdened him for so long? If anything, Ivan was just meeting their expectations. In a way, it was comfortable.
Of course, if it were up to him, he would have overcome the burden he was born with and lived a normal life. He would have finished college and gone off to work in some faraway city, leaving the heavy shackles of his childhood behind and never looking back.
Unfortunately, in his own life, Ivan wasn’t that kind of protagonist. If only he were a side character, he could have lived a happy, unremarkable life. But since the gods were the authors here, he could only be pulled along by the puppet strings of fate. He had long since accepted that destiny was entirely out of his hands. Ivan just wanted to know which divine author was so hell-bent on his misery, that way he could beg them to leave him alone.