Desparate Attempts

The Failed Writer

Aro was born into poverty.

His father died young, leaving behind debts and a cracked house where rain leaked through the ceiling. His mother—frail, aging, and slowly losing herself to dementia—was all he had left.

She repeated the same dream every day:

“One day, my son will take me to Tokyo. We’ll live in high towers, eat until our bellies are full, and dance under the city lights.”

Aro never corrected her.

Dreams were cheaper than medicine.

He worked endless shifts at a dead-end job. Every coin vanished into rent, taxes, and survival. But at night, when the house fell quiet, he wrote.

He wrote with rage.

With hunger.

With shame.

For five years, he carved himself into a novel—every insult he swallowed, every humiliation he endured, every night he came home empty-handed and still smiled for his mother.

When he finally finished, he showed it to a friend.

The friend stared at the pages, stunned.

“This is gold, brother. A masterpiece. You’ll make it.”

For the first time, Aro believed.

Publishers accepted the manuscript. Contracts were promised. His collapsing house was repaired. Doctors were sent to examine his mother. People spoke to him kindly for the first time in his life.

He thought the world had finally opened.

Then he read the contract.

Hidden clauses. Ownership of future work. Silence agreements.

The lawyers waved it away.

His friend smiled.

“Relax. It’s normal.”

Aro signed.

The laughter came instantly.

“You’ve sold yourself,” they said.

“Your book. Your words. Your future. Ours.”

Aro turned to his friend.

“Why…?”

The friend cried. Then stopped.

“I was tired of my life,” he said coldly.

“I wanted money. You were convenient.”

They made Aro kneel. They made him lick dirt from their shoes.

“People like you don’t climb,” they said.

“You stay where you’re born.”

Aro walked home in silence.

He didn’t cry at first. He just sat beside his mother while she talked about Tokyo—about lights she’d never seen, food she’d never eaten.

That night, he told her everything.

“I failed, Maa. I tried. I really tried.”

She cooked his favorite childhood dish with shaking hands.

“Eat,” she said.

“The world may call you a failure, but to me, you are my greatest pride.”

For a while, that was enough.

But dementia is cruel.

Some days she looked at him with disgust.

“Why are you still here?”

Other days she didn’t recognize him at all.

“My son will come back,” she said.

“He’ll take me to Tokyo.”

Aro kept working. Kept writing, even though the words no longer belonged to him. He tried to survive.

Then one night, the rain wouldn’t stop.

He found her on the floor, shaking, struggling to breathe.

The thought entered his mind—not out of cruelty, but mercy.

He raised his hands.

She looked at him with sudden clarity.

“Whatever you do,” she whispered,

“remember… I love you.”

Aro collapsed, smashing his head against the wall, begging himself to disappear.

She watched him suffer.

And made her choice.

Bleeding, she reached for his face.

“I am proud of you,” she said.

“In every life, I would choose you.”

She died in his arms.

The world called Aro a failure.

No one heard his story.

Years later, a little boy read a book to his father and asked:

“What happened to the writer?”

The father replied:

“He survived as long as he could.

When hope vanished, the world became quiet.”

The writer was never recognized.

But he lived—and died—inside his story.