Chloe Hardwick

Descent into Nothingness

My house is freezing as usual and I shiver in the doorway of my dingy studio flat in Corydon, waiting for the lights to finish flickering after flipping the switch. I take in the peeling walls and the grimy fixtures that are caked in limescale and mould and sigh heavily before opening my humming fridge to grab a beer. I sit on my alcohol-stained sofa and begin my nightly ritual of mulling over how much I've failed since I came to London ten years ago. I was 21 years old and fresh out of university with big dreams of becoming a successful lawyer for a well-known city firm, but I soon realised that my limited intelligence that had scraped me through my law degree wasn’t enough to get me through my LPC. With my unrealistic dreams shattered, I began a life of minimum wage retail jobs that drained the essence of my soul more and more each day and drove me into a life of heavy drinking and regular eviction notices.