Castle In The Air

By Esther Chen

Average Bill, a teacher loses his job over a mistake at work. He decides to throw in his lot with a couple of colleagues Hank and Joey to invest in a property. How is he going to find the money to pay for all of this? Find out the schemes he gets into and the encounters he experience as he struggles with himself and his surroundings to improve his lot in life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Esther Chen
• Release date: Sep 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310235443

Esther Chen

Esther Chen lives in Singapore, a South East Asian country with one of the World's highest cost of living. She also major in Science and has taught in Singapore schools.She is interested in Life and Science, and also life planning and management.She works in the day and writes in the nights.Her focus is on education and study guides.Occasionally, she writes about teaching and other miscellaneous works including poetry, short stories, and children's books so enjoy her writing as it teleports you into another World.

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Castle In The Air

Esther Chen

Copyright 2014 by Esther Chen

Smashwords Edition

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Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

About the Author

Other Works

ONE

‘When debt comes knocking on the door, you want to hide under the sheets and pray it goes away.’

The ringing of an alarm in the background wakes him up. Groaning and flapping, a hand searched wildly over the bedside table for the alarm clock. Finally locating it, a button snaps and the ringing stops; a man rolls onto his back with a sigh. Just one, no, ten minutes, he tells himself and snuggles into the warmth of his blankets. When his blood pressure finally rises, he stumbles out of bed, eyes barely open. His entire body aches, and he can’t help but feel like he has been run over. Going through the motions of his morning ablutions, and getting his breakfast into his mouth is a daily chore. Rushing down the steps from his rented apartment, he dashes across the road before the ongoing traffic to arrive at the bus stop a few blocks away just as his bus pulls up along the curb. He pants heavily and gets up behind an old man with heavy bags, cutting the lady in the queue behind him. He ignores the angry look she sends him as he pushes himself deeper into the carriage.

The morning buzz of early commute and the rattling gears of the bus under his feet fade to a dull hum in the back of his mind. A cloud of exhaustion hangs over him and his heart grows heavy with apprehension of yet another day spent working on things he does not enjoy. Another day of dealing with screaming bosses, uncooperative colleagues, defiant students and angry parents.

The bus starts to get packed with people, half of them the students of his school. Many faces etched still with the marks of sleep, packing into the bus like sardines. All trying to get on the last transport and reach school before the late bell.

The moment he manages to get a seat on the bus, his eyes slam heavily shut, trying to snatch a few minutes of rest before the madness of the day begins. Yet, he dare not fully drift off to sleep for fear of missing his stop; it has happened many times before and the effort of back tracking just makes his day more exhausting.

Too soon, the bus pulls over at his destination and the students file out of the bus, forming a small procession towards the school. Some students break off from the main group, going in the opposite direction. He is too used to this to bother asking where they are going off to; probably skipping.

He enters the side gate, glancing at the road as parents let their children off at the curb. A long procession of Mercedes, Volvos, and BMWs, with the occasional Toyota, Nissan, and Honda lined the road side. The morning traffic jam near the school gets worst as the student profile attending the school gets wealthier. Five years ago, most of the students walked or took public transport, now they have chauffeurs and maids attending to them.

A frisson of irritation runs through him as he considers the difference in social status between him and his charges. How can he as a working adult live a lifestyle that is worst off from them? After struggling through school, college and teacher’s training, the sum total of his efforts did not even yield a lifestyle comparable to these children.

He groans silently. What can he do about it? He did not have the luck to be born in a wealthy family, and is now stuck in this job for the foreseeable future as he struggles to pay for his mounting bills. In a sense, he felt cheated. All his life, common propaganda has sold to him the idea that the only way to improve his social status is to get good grades and a job after graduation. The idea is still being widely touted. However, he realises very soon that graduates have become a dime a dozen, and his social status has not changed at all.

The morning assembly went on as usual, both students and himself gazing off into space as the announcements were made, his mind