text: Oliver's soul must be broken -- he's sure of it. No matter what he does, he laments, or what life may give him, he can't seem to be happy. He is laying in his bedroom, awake, and still in school uniform. He didn't turn on the light when he got home, so the only forms of illumination in his room now are the thin bars of light cast through the small gaps in his window blinds. Oliver groans loudly and thinks about the extensive amounts of homework he has to do that night. Oh, It's also his turn to cook dinner, and he has to remember to do the grocery shopping tomorrow, and he'll have to clean all the dishes that have piled up, and the list goes on. It was the same last night, and the night before; just an endless line of things he needs to do. The whole thing overwhelms him -- he's tried taking breaks to ease the pressure; listening to music or drawing (hell, he's even tried stargazing), but they've never worked. He always gets filled with guilt over not doing what he's supposed to do, or filled with dread over what he still has left to do, and he ends up not enjoying it. On a more fundamental level, he worries that these hobbies he used to enjoy may not bring him joy, at all, anymore. He's worried he'll never be happy. Oliver wills himself to get up and begins to pull his notebooks out of his bag. Fast-forward fifteen days. Oliver sits at the desk in his room and writes the last word of his last assessment of the semester. He drops his pen onto the paper with a clack, and leans back into his chair, breathing a sigh of satisfaction. It's over, he thinks. He has nothing left to do -- nothing to be anxious about. There are still a couple days left of school, and still more housework, sure, but nothing too difficult. Nothing to stress about. Oliver stands up and peaks through his blinds. It's late, and the sun has already set. He rushes out of his house into the fresh air of his backyard, and he looks up. Above him sprawl the colourful stars of the night sky, iridescent upon the firmament. The band of the Milky Way arches above him, and Oliver can't help but smile. He lays down on the grass of a small knoll in the yard, hands on his belly, and gazes up at the sky for a while. He finds that he is at last somewhere where he is happy. But then a twinge of doubt hits Oliver, and he loses his smile. In two weeks, it will be back to school and back to that endless line of things to do, and he will be as miserable as before. That cycle of work and break will repeat forever. He knows it. Even if he found himself free of it, he would grow bored and unsatisfied still. Oliver is hit with a faint, melancholic sadness that even if there are between times where he can be happy, they will only ever be temporary. Temporary and transient. Oliver muses back to when he believed his "soul must be broken", and laughs at his past, melodramatic self. Oliver feels sad still, but he smiles again. Even if just for now, he smiles.