To Stand Resolute

I don’t even feel like a visitor, I feel like the village in the valley below doesn’t even exist. The window might as well be a TV screen that’s just showing me the Slovakian mountains every night.

Of course it sounded too good to be true. “Winter break job overseas at a beautiful European resort, no foreign language experience needed”. It didn’t tell you that you will have no real interface with the country, you just get pushed around by a sociopath boss for less than minimum wage in order to provide American tourists with the simulation of another culture without scaring them with a language barrier.

We were here through a contract, if we broke the contract we forfeit pay. It was a cheap labor scam with the only promise that you can sorta lie on your resume saying that you have “Experience working overseas”.

She handled it better than I could, but then again she had actual experience in the restaurant and care industry. She knew all the tricks to survive between eternally angry bosses and customers, those tricks being recreational drug abuse. Her back pocket was a pharmacy and she made no attempt to hide it. Unlike me she seemingly knew exactly what she was getting into, or at least she handled it better.

“What’s your favorite, what’s your cocktail?” She would ask slyly, daring me to challenge her expertise.

I caught her of guard when I told her I had only ever taken Ritalin, and that was back in high school.

“Not even weed?!” she asked in hushed tone.

This was the first time I’d seen anyone genuinely worried about my lack of drug use. That’s when I knew this was going to get worse than I thought it could.

The ability to control my panic became worse and worse as guests would throw tantrums, expecting me to fix their problems, give them refunds, do all sorts of things that are way out of my capabilities. She would handle it in stride with an unflinching smile, able to forget about everything when she clocked out.

As time went on my temper became harder and harder to control when my boss would order me to be multiple places as once; complain that I couldn’t match his work ethic, or just belittle me whenever he felt he could get away with it.

It all rolled off her like water and it was terrifying.

Every amount of abuse, any length of exhaustion meant nothing as long as the chemical catharsis existed at the end of the day. She knew she was being taken for a ride as much as I was but it almost seemed like the pain made it sweeter.

I was a rat stuck in a loop, working for an increasingly worthless piece of cheese. My reaction probably shouldn’t have been as bad as this but I couldn’t help it, I could feel the anger rising, I was becoming increasingly bitter and resentful towards everything around me. One day a particularly bad guest pushed me to the point where I dared to yell back. My boss followed me to the back completely red in the face. I wasn’t ready to hear it, I needed silence, I needed a break; but while the clock was running I was at his mercy according to him.

I passed a windows with a nice view of the mountains. God how I would love to be out there, anywhere but here. And that’s when I took my fateful step out the back door. The long road that led to the village rolled down the hill before me.

I was able to breathe easy and the stillness of the cold air was soothing. I didn’t want to turn around, the idea of going back in made me nauseous. I turned around and saw my boss standing near the doorway, I could tell by the look on his face that he had given up on me, he assumed I had permanently walked off the job; and to be honest that sounded incredibly tempting.

She stood behind him, she just happened to be there when I had stormed through. She turned away quickly but I knew that look, she had the formula drawn up for me already. What pill would erase negative thought, which one would replace shame, and which drug would just make everything brighter; the equation to keep your spirit alive indefinitely.

My boss shut the door, I didn’t know if he expected me to come back but I’ll take that as him not wanting me back. I began walking down the hill into the village.

The village was beautiful. Everything was foreign to me but it felt more welcoming and familiar than the American holding pen on the hill. I felt so much better but I couldn’t shake the persistent feeling that I’ve made a mistake.

I kept walking until I came upon a frozen pond near the edge of the village. I sat on a bench and watched the wind sweep the snow across the ice. I thought about this pond and how long it’s probably been here, how little it has changed in what might be hundreds of years. What a tragedy would it be if it did change, if it were to be the product of a will not it’s own.

I found solace in the still nature of the pond. I sat there in solidarity, both of us resolute against the world.