5th March 1985

She woke up to the ringer of an old alarm clock on her side table. She wished to harm that clock for waking her up every morning.

'Life was so tedious', she thought.

Over the past years, life had been a rough journey for her, living alone in this dilapidated rented house, paying her bills on her own at this age of her life, earning her own meals and spendings seemed too much for a teenager to take.

She was way too mature for her 17 years of life.

Envy got built in her heart when she would see her age fellows spending a thriving life with their kinsfolk, she wanted to be like them too! Easy lives, tough supports along, people to hold their hand when they fall, people who laughed with them in their happy moments.

‘If you weren’t the moon of this dark night, you wouldn’t have stood alone’

She sometimes thought that her mind speaks to her in unusual ways. Her mind was way too closer to her than herself. There were answers contained in it to every question of her.

The phone rang in the very emergency tone like always, she ran to receive.

“Hello, Miss Murphy.

Your presence is required in the Chairman’s office in the evening time before your duty hour, we have some major things to discuss”, a voice not so happy was on the caller side.

“I get this Sir. But is everything okay?”, Murphy asked in an unsettled tone.

“We’ll talk about this”

The line hung immediately.

Murphy sighed with dismay. It was her third job which she was working at for a living.

She got fired from the first one because the boss's admirers weren’t happy with her presence around.

‘You aren’t suitable for this job, we are looking for someone more presentable’

That was because she couldn’t make good sales over the counter. After all, she wasn’t able to make customers engaged. 

The second job that she got was of packing material for supplying, where she got into a catfight with her colleague, and both were given the sack for misconduct.

Life really became grievous and pathetic after losing that one hope of living.

There her educator introduced her to a low charge position of a caretaker in a shelter home. That was easier for her to carry because she had been in one after the demise of her parents.

Her parents had died in an accident, a very unfortunate day that had been, which left its effect on Murphy's life forever, 

That place was similar to the one which raised her to this day.

She felt home with all those innocent souls around. Who probably needed someone to carry them through this phase of life.

People would say that she is a misfortune bearer, but she seemed to be with a constant fight against those labels on her, for her murky past had no control of her over it.

The doorbell rang, pulling her out of her irksome thoughts. The postman has probably brought her the monthly bills.

‘Yeah, definitely. What else can I expect’

She went to keep that in her bedroom and had a glance out of the window.

The porch seemed way too messy, that needed doing she thought.

The garden was overgrown with wild blades of grass and unwanted weeds. The grass seemed so eager to grow again, it had been hardly two weeks that she has mowed.

She went to look at the heightened blades. The dense cover of it over the soil made it almost difficult to step on it.

Her brows furrowed as she stepped on some hard surface below the grass.

‘What is it?’

She kneeled down to inspect the ground, removing the grass covering it.

‘Roots of some tree?’

‘How come have I not noticed it?’

She peered intently over the blades to see the maple tree over a distance. The tree seemed so involved to spread its roots over a large empire? She shrugged her shoulders in surprise as she saw the roots covering her entire garden almost!

‘Ahh! Sam, I need you again’

She picked up her phone to get Sam called,

“Hello? Sam there?”

“Hi, Murphy! What’s up at this hour of midnight?”, said a sleepy grave voice on the receiver.

“It’s noon! Get up you lazy creature!”, Murphy yelled in a friendly manner.

“Ohkay Sir! On your command. What’s up for me now?”, Sam sounded in a jocular mood.

“I want to book your time for tomorrow morning, we need to do some mowing of a lawn, it’s way too unmanageable by me alone.

We’ll have lunch together then.”, Murphy submitted her petition.

“Okay then! Tomorrow it is. See you”

The phone hung.

Sam Leone was her only companion along the journey through life. Though they were far from being related to each other biologically, but their milk kinship bore them a steady relation, which was the strongest bond among none other relation left in this world for her.

They were fed by the same Nanny in the orphanage in which they were raised. 

She was more than a mother to them now, as she bore all the responsibility of raising them, the respect and love they had for her was beyond any blood relation.

The orphanage was far from the city and located in the countryside at Norstrenbor.

Sam with whom she shared her childhood, her Nanny, and most of all, all life events that could probably occur or hit her.

They made a good team in Marshal art classes, which were compulsory for every child to learn, as for the need of time.

Over this duration of kinship, they had known each other to the very core, a pure unconditional bond they shared. Perhaps, his role in his life was like a brother, more than a friend!

In the falling of the world, one person she was aware of to save the day was, SAM!

He was a brave and witty person. Dauntless, perhaps a bit daredevil.

Calmer than a rock but furious like a beast.

He was her confidante and the pillar of strong support.

They made a good bond for a reason, they were like filling voids of each other's life.

Though the past stories which brought them there were different, their present was alike, somehow their future seemed connected too, .

Where they had no one, but each other, that world of them seemed sufficient.

. . .

As she stood before the glass door of the Chairman’s office, waiting for the news flash that was going to disclose to her, she could hear a distant tension in communication between the authorities.

‘We cannot pay wages to all of the workers anymore, we are running out of funds’

The door creaked open and told her to enter, she walked in and took the nearby chair facing the panel.

“We have some important bulletin about the crisis we are facing due to the scarcity of funds for our foundation lately”, said the Chairman in a fierce voice, “we need to fire some workers based on merit, which was made on education and previous exposure, as well as work hours and requirements of services to our foundation”.

“We’re just trying to make sure that you are aware of things being unfolded and that you are in agreement with it”, added a person sitting next to the Chairman in the panel to clarify things more.

She felt down in the dumps after the news flash and she could anticipate the upcoming words of her being laid off from work.

“So, miss Murphy Martino, thanks for your services over here, but it’s the dire consequence of hard time that we can no longer offer you more hours of the paid job here,” the Chairman concluded, “nor we can generate enough funds to pay workers wages on which our workers can subsist on”.

He gave an affirmation look to the panel on which everyone agreed and nodded back.

The termination letter was on the table which was certainly pre-discussed.

There was a long pause in the air before Murphy can gather around her wits and respond.

“Okay, alright, but I would be certainly not . . . . .”, without finishing what she has begun to say, she got up and went out with a hopeless dullness in her eyes.