It's stupid. I know. It's just... I wake up. And there's nothing. Literally nothing. Used to be the alarm, then the kids scrambling, breakfast, lunchboxes, yelling about shoes. And now? Silence. Deafening. My wife, she just sleeps. Or pretends to. We don't talk anymore. Not really. Little things, sure. "Did you lock the door?" "Need milk?" But not... not like before. Before the kids left. Before they went to college, off to their fancy new lives. And I'm just here. Twenty-five years. Same fucking factory. Punch in, punch out. Weld, grind, repeat. Day in, day out. Never thought about it. Just *did* it. It was... structure. I understood it. The rules. The shift. My job. Now it's the weekends that kill me. Saturdays, Sundays. Just stretch out. Endless. I used to look forward to them. Family time. Now it's just... time. To stare at the walls. To listen to the silence. My wife, she says I should find a hobby. A hobby! What am I, some kind of retiree? I'm 55. Still got years on the line. But what am I supposed to *do* with the rest of it? The town... it’s always been small. Always. Everyone knows everyone. Never bothered me. It was home. Now it feels like a cage. Everywhere I go, someone asks "How's the boy? How's the girl? Are they liking school?" And I smile. I nod. "Oh, they're great. Doing real good." But inside... I just want to scream. Like, what about ME? What about my "school?" What about MY life? It's like I'm just waiting now. Waiting for what? To be old? To die? Is this it? Is this all there is after all that? The quiet. The empty house. The strangers living in it. Goddamnit.