Ok, I’m entirely convinced the matrix is out to silence me.
I can’t log into my social media accounts, and none of my vlogs or podcast episodes can be found on YouTube anymore. Even my website with the courses I put together is gone. It’s like every trace of my existence is just wiped clean.
People don’t want me to get my message out there. They know damn well that if I visibly demonstrate how easy it is to lift yourself out of poverty, it’ll completely destroy the far-left agenda that revolves around demanding handouts.
Of course, all they have the balls to do is use these underhanded methods to separate me from my resources. None of them have been man enough to confront me face-to-face, so what I’m gonna do is continue with the project and make sure people eventually see it.
Day 2:
With no social media I’m able to check, I get up at 4am and take a cold shower. While brewing my morning coffee, I check on my stock portfolio. They haven’t fluctuated much. I made a total profit of 13 cents, but these things take time.
I check my email. No responses from any of the employers. This must be the work of the matrix. There’s no possible way I could send this many applications and not get a single response. Perhaps I did get some responses, but I’m being blocked from receiving them somehow?
Perhaps my ops are using some sort of selective signal jammer. I decide to drive out of town to exit the radius (assuming my hypothesis is correct).
Somehow, I keep ending up back inside the town I’m staying in, and whenever I get off the freeway, no matter how long I drive, each exit I take brings me back to the same town. I’m really tripping out by this point. Just how powerful is the matrix exactly? What kind of connections do they have?
And if they have this kind of technology, why haven’t they tried to kill me yet? Could there be some strength or advantage I have that prevents them from doing so? Are they afraid of me?
Considering how influential I am, perhaps the goal is to break me. To get me to “admit” that our society is somehow unfair to the lower class.
Well that’s not gonna happen. I’m gonna find a way out of this.
While refilling my gas tank for the third time, I suddenly have an idea. I wait until 2am, and then get back on the freeway. Just as I hoped, it was mostly empty. After entering the freeway, I immediately slam the breaks and turn around. I fly down in the opposite direction, going as fast as I can in the wrong direction.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m the kinda guy who thinks outside the box. They aren’t expecting me to go down the freeway backwards.
Just as I hoped, I find an exit that leads to somewhere different. It’s longer than the others, and stretches out further than I can see.
Gambling on the chance that nobody’s coming up the exit (I guess technically it’s an entrance), I drive down it fast.
It gets narrower. A lot narrower, until the sides of my car are scraping against the concrete barriers. I slow to a stop and climb out the window.
“Trying to escape?”
The voice startles me, but I don’t show it. As tsun zu once said, “appear weak where you are strong, and strong where you are weak, therefore you will be able to trick the enemy”.
I calmly turn around to see the girl from the woods, standing on top of my car (it’s a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider).
“Fancy meeting you here.”
I say to her. She’s expecting me to freak out, demanding to know if she’s behind all this, but I already know the answer to that question. She makes a futile attempt to pretend she’s unfazed by my calm and relaxed demeanor.
“You’re not trying to take shortcuts are you? Nobody can simply drive away from poverty. Why not try pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?”
“You’re in no position to tell me that. After all that whining about how ‘unfair’ circumstances prevented you from advancing in life? Don’t make me laugh. What are you, some kinda vengeful spirit who punishes people for highlighting your own shortcomings?”
“Don’t think of it as a punishment. That’s a weak mindset. Didn’t you want to challenge yourself? Come on, show me, Welmund. Show me how far your out-of-the-box thinking will take you.”
Before I could respond, she snapped her fingers, and the world flickered. I found myself back home all of a sudden. Well, not home, the apartment. My car came back with me, thank god.
Brokey the broke ghost is pretty easy to read. She’s clearly someone who died of poverty and decided even in death to avoid taking personal responsibility. Now she feels the need to trap me in this town until I can prove I could make it on my own.
Day 3:
Since Brokey is still preventing my application responses from going through, I guess I have no choice but to get work the old fashioned way.
There’s a few houses close to my apartment complex. I start going door to door, asking neighbors if they’d like any yard work done in exchange for money.
Most of them decline, saying they couldn’t afford my hourly rates. Some people give me a strange look. I guess they’re not used to seeing someone with this kind of agency, since kids these days don’t really do this anymore.
After lowering the price of my services all the way to $20 an hour, one man finally accepts. He has me pull some weeds for him, since he’s not able to do it himself due to back pain.
While pulling weeds, another neighbor takes notice and approaches me.
“Do you do pressure washing as well?”
“I don’t have a pressure washer yet, sorry.”
It’s a good idea though. Pressure washing is a pretty decent side hustle. I make a mental note to buy a pressure washer asap.
Unfortunately, pulling the weeds only takes me about 30 minutes, so I don’t make much.
The second person to accept my offer is a man named Alan. He has me mow his lawn for him. This takes me about an hour and a half, but after I put the lawnmower away and ring his doorbell, I get no answer. After standing outside, ringing Alan’s doorbell for almost an hour, the door finally swings open.
He starts yelling at me to leave. I demand the payment for the work I did, and he says he’s “not giving me jack shit”.
I immediately call the cops, informing them of the situation. Long story short, I end up staying there an extra two hours just to be told that there was nothing they could do.
The asshole neighbor lies through his teeth the whole time, telling them he mowed the lawn himself.
The police aren’t even willing to check any security cameras that might be nearby, even though it’s the only thing that could prove he was lying.
This fucker. I swear to god I’m gonna make him regret this.
After being told to leave, I get into my car, drive a block away, and frantically scroll through my contacts. I can’t find my lawyer anywhere. Was he removed as well? Fuck!
I look up lawyers in the area, but their fees just to do a short consulting session are ridiculous. Sure, there’s a few that offer free first consultations, but in the long run, I’ll go into debt if I don’t have a job already. I’ll need to get employed first.
I look at power washers online. The cheapest one I can find I roughly $48. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem for me, but I currently have about $60 left.
I try checking my normal bank accounts again, the ones I used before coming to this town to do this project. I still have no luck with those.
I look at the price again, and how much I have left. 60 minus 48…. That would leave me with a whopping $12. My stomach drops at the realization.
Can I afford to make this kind of risk? Of course I can, no risk no reward! Right? But what if it gets damaged during the shipping process? How long would a replacement take to get here? What if some kind of emergency happens while I only have $12?
I begin to sweat as I think about the potential consequences. I can’t do it. There’s risk taking, and then there’s being flat out stupid. I can’t do that, I need to be more strategic.
Suddenly, there’s a knock on my door. I cautiously look through the peephole, ready for a direct confrontation with the matrix.
It’s just my landlord, Adrian. Thank god, a fellow hustler. It’s nice to finally talk to another businessman like myself. I open the door.
“Adrian, what’s up brother? What can I do for ya?”
“Welmer, was it? Hey listen man, I don’t know what was going on with Alan earlier, but I can’t have you making that kinda commotion in or around my neighborhood.”
“Oh, my bad sir. You see, Ala-“
“Yeah I wasn’t asking you for an explanation. If you disturb the other tenants, that lowers the value of my property, makes it seem unsafe with all your yelling and whatnot. You make a huge spectacle like that again, we’re gonna have an issue. Do I make myself clear?”
“Alright sir. Won’t happen again.”
“Your rent is due on the 1st.”
Deciding the conversation is over, he walks away before I can get another word out. Oh well, no need for me to take it so personally. It’s just business. He probably deals with low-value tenants all the time. I bet most don’t even tip him!
Eventually, my worth will start to become clear to him. Unlike Brokey the ghost, at least this guy has a reason to be upset.
I sleep easy that night, knowing that even if she does try to sabotage the challenge, my friends are bound to come back for me any day now.
Until next time, peace.