text by Gaja Frece, photo by Mateja Bricman
Flowers sitting on dusty shelves, cupboards covered in clutter, bras and socks laying on the floor, towering cups and plates stacked on the desk. The peaceful mess somehow leaves you with a nostalgic feeling that lays heavily on your chest and makes your mind wandering back to the carefree days.
A few rays of sun make their way through the slightly lifted blinds, lighting the paint-stained wooden floor. A pile of clothes sits on the far end of the bed, it must have been there for weeks as there is a visible dent where the cat sleeps. The rest of the bed is covered in books, pens and half made notes, holding pages upon pages of useless knowledge, mostly forgotten by now. Beside the bed there is a collection of bottles, a true collection of spirits, each of them marking a month of loneliness. Pictures on the wall are the only reminder of what life used to be before melancholy and grief filled the empty spaces.
A truly otherworldly sight ruined by the bright blue light is coming from the computer screen. The empty eyes staring at it are all that is left of what used to be a person. On the screen twenty-five other pairs of eyes, waiting for the next assignment to send down through another dark hole. The hunger for knowledge that used to be there is now absent, motivation lost somewhere between the second and third bottle and the only thing keeping them from completely giving up is the fear of disappointing someone…
We are not growing up we are just burning out…