The Transmigrated Empress

WALKING AIMLESSLY ALONG THE STREETS, Ree felt how hopeless she was, coming from her 10th failed job interview. “I’m sorry, but there seems to be a mismatch between the position you are applying for and your credentials. We believe there are other companies out there who would be very much willing to take you according to the field of work you are well-experienced with,” said the woman interviewing her. It was not as if she did not try to apply to companies similar to her previous one. It was just that she was somehow well-known in her area of work that she was ashamed to let her colleagues know that she was fired. She knew she was already desperate, but she has pride. Her pride won’t let her be humiliated again. Her previous boss already did so much. She was a career woman, a workaholic, a hard worker. She gave it her all and more for her previous job. She had several connections and made several friends and acquaintances out of it. She was liked by everyone and thought she was living the life, but things were not what she thought they were. She was a hard-working employee, yes. But her boss tired and drained her to the bones. She went beyond what was expected of her but she found out that she was not deemed valuable by her boss and co-workers as she thought. “I’m sorry, Ree. I know you have been very hardworking, but there is nothing I can do about it. The company decided to lay off thirty percent of its employees as they decided to cut back on costs. You know the economy is not doing well because of the pandemic,” her boss said. “Sir, but why me? You said I’m the most hardworking employee here yet why are my co-employees who are always laid back the ones being retained? If they were deserving, you would not hear a single word from me, but they are not. You know it yourself,” she said. “You see, they have been in the company longer than you, and they have…” “What? They have influential people behind them and I do not? I cannot believe that connections in this company are treated with high value more than hard work and dedication. There is no need for you to explain anymore, Sir. You did not fire me. I am quitting.” She ended up being unemployed. She thought she had friends. But she realized, they were her friends when she had everything. One by one, they slowly disappeared. “Hey, do you have time now? I really need someone to talk to. I might end up going crazy,” she asked her co-worker and also her long-time friend. “I’m sorry, but I’m busy with work. You know, we are NOT THAT LAID BACK as people think we are. We also have to work hard,” she heard her friend say. She did not know how she got a hold of what she said to her boss, but she ended up being hated upon by her friends at work. They did not truly understand her and her circumstances. Instead, they turned their backs on her and left her to mend for herself. She was just a work-home type of woman that’s why she did not have that many friends except for her colleagues. However, she could not rant her problems to them, can’t she? Especially those from other companies, as it would humiliate her to death when they discover that she was fired. She is a woman of pride and she could not allow herself to be humiliated again. That’s why she just isolated herself from the world. She thought everything would still be okay. She has her family. But she did not expect them to look at her with unconcerned eyes. As creditors started hounding their home, her family chastised her for losing her job. “Of all the times you choose to be unemployed, why now, Ree? Just why?” her mother angrily asked. “Who would pay those creditors? Your dad had left so much on my plate already when he died. Why are you adding up to my problems? How are we going to have food on the table now or pay our bills when everything I’m going to earn would be paid to those loan sharks?” Ree did not answer her mother and just went to her room. She could hear her mother still complain about her, but she just had enough of everything. Did her mother even listen to the reason why she was fired? It was not as if she asked to be unemployed. But the only information that stuck into the mind of her mother as that she was unemployed, and not she was unfairly fired; that it was out of her control; and that she could not do anything about it. Everything was just falling apart but she knew she had to keep it together. That was the reason why she started applying for jobs, but who in their right mind would accept a woman in her 30s as their new employee? She was a mess. She felt like she was living but not really living. She felt dead inside like she was just floating on a huge ocean motionless, lifeless. With no real friends nor a man to turn to and call her own, a family so disorderly and stuck in debt, and her recent unemployment, she saw her whole life crumbling before her very eyes. If people heard what she was thinking, they would probably pity her and think that the next thing she might do was commit suicide. But no. Even if life failed her, she values her life and she cannot just take her own life for the reason that she had enough of it. No matter how hard it will be for her, she has to live. Whether she was willing or not was not the question, but how to continue living. She was still lost in her thoughts when she saw a young boy running with a balloon in his hand. She suddenly felt envy of the child. She wished she could just go back to the past when she was of his age, free of problems and innocent of the harsh realities of the world. As she stared at him, she saw everything happening in a blink of an eye: the balloon flying away, the boy running after it, and a car speeding in his direction. She immediately rushed towards the boy and grabbed him in the nick of time. The car passed them, but both of them tumbled to the ground and began to roll towards the slope. She hugged the little boy close to her to protect him from getting hurt. She looked at where they rolling off and was alarmed to see a cliff at the very end. Just as they were about to fall off the cliff, she pushed the little boy away from her. She ended up the only one falling on the cliff. As she was falling, she recalled memories of the life she lived. What a wasted life, she told herself. It was indeed true that when the time of your death comes, one would experience flashbacks to let you recall the kind of life you lived before your last breath comes. She did not know if it was for the better that she died. Her family would be devastated, knowing no one would help them pay for the debts her father left. Her previous boss and her friends-in-good-times, what would be their reaction when they come to know of her death? Would they feel guilty for abandoning her? Just as she was about to laugh about her silliness, she felt her body go numb when it hit the ground with a strong impact. She immediately felt light-headed as she could feel blood oozing everywhere from her. If she could live again, she promised herself to treat herself better, to live a simple life without complications, and find genuine people to accompany her through good times and bad times. Why did you choose this place to meet up? HE: "My passion and field of work surrounds around music. Places like these are one of the reasons why we are so successful as we are right now. Our music is being showcased to every person passing by through these places. Meeting someone who probably looks at music as a big influence in her life and to have that in common with her makes me think that we could be compatible, other than just having the same preferences. I want to hear about what her views on the current music trend are. I actually don't like hearing people say that they just enjoy listening to music because music is more than just fun. I would like to find out if she also thinks the same as me." SHE: "I enjoy music a lot. It's one of the reasons why I took a course related to it in college. Probably, if that someone choose that place the way I did, I think he probably enjoys music as well. He might be someone who makes music or probably is a big fanatic of a certain singer or band. I might find it not that difficult to talk to him since we have something in common. I look forward on asking him the singers and songs he like and we could probably share our opinions about it. Wait, what if we like the same type of songs? Oh my gosh! That would be really great!", she squealed in anticipation." What dream is this? What was she hearing? Who are these people, she thought to herself. Have you ever had a moment in your life where you suddenly question what you thought and believed was true, was genuine? Life has really a funny way of setting us straight. It'll drop you a bomb—the one that will crush you to the bones just to tell you to wake up and stop daydreaming. The circumstances I had to go through, the tears I cried, the effort and the things I did that I thought would matter, I really hoped it wouldn't all come crashing down around me—but, of course, it did. It's funny how I'm always the one who's giving, the one who's understanding but when I beg for compassion, all I got was hurt in return. Impulsion? Pride? Defense mechanism? Their words were like daggers stabbed straight into my heart. While I was undergoing some hardest times in my life, you just had to pull the trigger. This would be the last time I will be crying. This would be the last time that I will break down and allow someone to crush me into pieces. All alone in a dark room, I'm swallowed by hollowness. Where do I go? How do I leave? Why do I feel like I'm slowly withering, Dried out with my insecurities and fears? Strange—isn't it? Those faces I've seen, Held no warmth for me. They seem to listen, they seem to talk. But all I see are critical eyes, All I hear are muffled voices. How do I face the now? How bleak is the future? Where do I go from here? What am I living for? With these final thoughts of hers, she breathes her last breath. - - - How people get to meet by chance or through an accident and why certain unexplainable circumstances occur are just one of the many questions that are still left unanswered. Why do people experience de ja vu and jamais vu at one point in their life? The world revolves and people are constantly moving around the circle, walking from different directions. In a leap of faith, one will bump at another and will come to know the existence of the other. People say that we are under an unexplainable force which appears or is thought to control events. Others believe that it is just because of one's will that he is able to control his surroundings. Either way, we can't deny that there is still a mystery lying in between. Some say we are all connected to a string of life and at one point, one string will intertwine to another or to even more strings but, I believe in something more, something that the mind nor our senses can't explain, something called FATE or DESTINY. Life is crazy. Unexpected things happen everyday. But the question is, does unexpected things happen for a reason or is it because of the choices we make? Most of us choose to be where we are, to be doing what we're doing. But, we are mentally incapable of predicting everything. MOST things happen regardless of our choices or preferences. Things sometimes happen regardless of what we say or do.When we say, Things happen for a reason, there's a fatalistic thing about it. Something will happen that will justify it in some way. Even if we don't know what it is, even though it'll take an eternity before we learn those reasons and even though bad things continue happen, they all happen for good reasons. Many people touch our lives in different ways. Some come for a while, others stay for a season and show their magnificent essence for a purpose and then leave and there's the people who'll stay, which ultimately are the ones that count. The most unexpected person at the most unexpected time and sometimes for the most unexpected reason might just appear in our lives out of nowhere, giving us a big surprise but if we let things happen naturally, we'll slowly discover the great things that life has in store for us.