Without wasting a second of his precious time, because of his family's arrival, a confused Glenn was already at the base of his work organization the next day. The main base was located in the middle of a central county, with several smaller ones at various points around the country. The modern architecture of the large building attracted the attention of ordinary passersby, thus forming a whole procession of citizens demanding social assistance. In addition to keepers, the base also employed a number of secretaries, contact centers, and guides.
Glenn, having access to the entrance to the room (archive) for documents (questionnaires), searched for the available questionnaires that suited his tastes. In this room lay only recently printed questionnaires awaiting official acceptance from the organization. As he looked through the sheets of questionnaires like "social assistance," he quickly ran his eyes over the headings, flipping through the ones he didn't like.
To be honest, he was confused by the small size of the fonts in the text, and involuntarily brought the sheets close to his eyes. In fact, all the texts were in regular font. The archivist next asked how long it would take for the guy to finish. Glenn asked her to wait a little while, still standing at ten full shelves of papers. Eventually, the young man flipped through more than ten new applications, but when he found one that seemed odd, he stopped there. Glenn froze in place as he read the description and name of the person requesting assistance.
After signing the order, the employee wished him a glorious job, and added, "Still, I still can't get used to you having free access to the archives." Glenn remained silent.
As he crossed the roads and crosswalks, his ears were literally muffled with bewilderment, making him unable to hear the sounds of cars passing by or people whose gaze went unheeded. His bewilderment was caused by the strange questionnaire he had accepted for execution. Glenn entered the house, unscrewing the key from the front door twice. When he saw his mother and younger sister sitting in the hall room, he approached them with an anxious look, letting his mother who had noticed him know of the seriousness of the soon-to-be conversation.
"Glenn?" his mother smiled, sitting on the couch. "Why aren't you in school?"
Glenn was dressed in his school uniform so that when he left his mother would not ask unnecessary questions. Opening his briefcase, he pulled out a questionnaire and showed it to her.
"Mom, what did you need this for?"
Guessing what her son meant, she smiled again.
"I guessed you were working in social services."
"You also noted that you wanted me to be the one to take part in the help. Answer me: are you serious?"
"I thought it would help. But why, son, do you have to work in this kind of work? You told me, looking me in the eye, that you don't work there."
Glenn put his hand down, adding that it was his personal decision, not one that required the family's discretion.
"Son…" grieved his mother, "...Do you really want to help people? At your age, when your mind should be surrounded by education and schoolwork… Of course, I would try to understand you, for your father has had a great influence on you and your outlook, but you are wasting your precious time on this!"
Glenn averted his eyes to the side, pressing his lips together.
"Tell me, what was the purpose of your entering this job…"
Collapse.
The guy suddenly felt a painful rush of blood in his throat, a headache, and a fever. Oh He lowered his head and covered his mouth with his hand, barely allowing himself not to cough up blood in front of his family.
"Glenn!" the mother shouted, seeing his murdered eyes. "What's gotten into you?"
"Choked," he said and ran to the bathroom.
Lilia, looking at him perplexed, decided to follow her brother with interest. Closing the door, Glenn ran up to the sink, and grabbing it, blood splashed from his mouth. He opened the water faucet to maximum, and, unable to restrain himself, fell to his knees. An unrelenting pain clutched his head every time he coughed. Without the ability to react sensibly, Glenn was left with only more air to sigh at.
Soon, his mother gathered him to the table and revealing a serious look, asked:
"Why didn't you tell me about your illness!"
Lowering his head, he awkwardly mumbled: "There was no occasion."
"There was no occasion?! Do you realize how important the fact of your illness is? Son, that disease your — father had it. Is it a hereditary disease? My father had it chronically — with no possibility of a complete cure… This disease was destroying his health over time, condemning my father to a hopeless death."
"I understand."
"But if you developed the disease as a teenager — God, it's a lot worse than it might seem from the outside! Without proper hospital prophylaxis, your life is in imminent danger!"
Silence. Glenn was not about to interrupt her speech, disregarding his opinion in this regard. Lilia, on the other hand, sat at a loss, withdrawn in her thoughts.
"We must send you to treatment immediately," said the mother, doubting her certainty.
"Anyway," Glenn replied, with a cold look, "the first symptoms appeared about two years ago, but I didn't pay attention to it, thinking the disease was just a common cold. Now, looking at the facts, it will take more than a few tens of thousands of dollars and several painstaking years of my life to treat it effectively. Mother, tell me: do we have enough money for such sums?"
His words brought the mother into a state of carelessness that made her shoulders tremble. This was the situation with her husband, and the prices for treatment were a fabulous hundred thousand dollars. At that time he told her that he wouldn't take the treatment, because instead of preventive care, which took several years, he could save over hundreds of people from serious illnesses in those few years. So she left the money to the family.
"Do you really want to do what your father did?" she rose from her chair, gritting her teeth.
"I get paid more for this job than in regular jobs. True, it depends on my swiftness and overall reach. On the other hand, I was driven by a desire to see people happy. I have been working as a social assistant since I realized the phenomenon of my illness. I used to raise money, my mother — there was no other way."
"But.. .we could have figured something out!"
"You shouldn't be burdened with such sums on you alone, for you are not physically up to the task. You work tirelessly to provide for your family, and I envy you, Mother. You don't tire yourself out."
"Son, are we really short on money?"
"Before he died, Dad was saving a huge amount of money to provide for us. Mother, do you know more clearly how much in twelve years we have left?"
"Less than the calculated amount of the presumptive cure… in triplicate. Son, perhaps you have a different kind of disease? Have you consulted the doctors?"
"Father's disease had its own name, and were the doctors able to identify it?"
The mother thought seriously, and missed her son's question.
"Father became seriously ill a few years before I was born, but he didn't show it. He tried his best to beat the disease without intending to go to bed! My father decided to give his life to saving people by being a doctor."
Stopping to speak, he gently grasped the cross of his pendant. His hands trembled, waiting for the worst outcome, but he dared not overexert himself for his own good.
"But I'm not going to just drop my hooves," he said. "I have people I want to spend my youth with; I want to find companions in life that will accompany me. But I am not going to dream without purpose: right now, I want to survive, for if I fail, I will die, left in the shadow of the past."
"Your father," the mother covered her mouth, "he left me a hundred thousand dollars at the same time as everything else he had. We spent most of that sum to buy a house in Japan and move, which was directly your idea. You became afraid of Germany, after all, when your father—"
"In any case, until I become like my father — a kind, conscientious man — I refuse to die in vain."
"And if you count the money left over from my father and add the full amount of my rainy day money, it comes to about forty thousand at the most… Son, you haven't been collecting money?"
Nodding, Glenn replied that he hadn't spent any of the money he earned at work. Coughing, he continued: "I've collected $7,500, if you don't count the money you've been dropping on me: that's about nine thousand with it."
"That much money?!" Mom's mouth gaped. Lilia looked dumbfounded, too. "But how… especially in two years!"
"Working as a social assistant can be lucrative if you pour your whole self in. In particular, questionnaire status lasts from one to several days, and even through a measure of continuous work I have only managed to accumulate that amount. They give so much yen for completion that any teenager moonlighting elsewhere would have their eyes rounded."
"We can lend it out."
"Excluded: otherwise we will become limited. I will not allow my family to be financially dependent, providing only limited goods for themselves. Especially since we have two houses in two different countries — if we sell them, we will be left without a roof over our heads, acceptable for the life we have learned."
"For my son to survive I will do anything!"
"But Lilia won't be able to have a luxurious education, and I'll be incapacitated for several long years if I find myself in a critical situation. Also, you are called to serve in the job you, mother, have been dreaming of so much."
"How could this happen…" she touched her forehead, imagining the horror that might come to pass if Glenn died like her husband. "We can't do without loans. Even if we're doomed to a poorer life — nothing worries me more than your future."
"There's a second option — to work hard," he retorted, in a confident tone, and motioned for the exit.
"Son, you need to keep your health!"
"I am not at my most discouraged. As long as I can move, I should help you. You won't be able to change my mind."
Relieved, he went out into the entryway and locked the front door. My mother was in despair, analyzing what had happened and the news that had been brought in, and Lilia could not understand one thing: why the calamity was happening in their family, when the rest of the family was living a happy, full life, filled with multiple colors.
Persuading her mother was really pointless. Glenn had an endless source of aspiration inherited from his father. His goal was to secure not only an existence with his family, but to instill that same sense of purpose in his family, especially Lilia, who had the character of an unsociable girl.
"Mother…" Lilia said, fearing for her mother.
"It's all right, Lilia…"
"Is dear brother in poor health? Just like he was with his father…?"
"We'll manage. Your brother has his whole life ahead of him. We won't just give up."
From the outside, no matter how serene Lilia felt about her brother, family excitement could never leave the family, for she had been his sister since she was born. Their bond is eternal, even if they are not like each other. Lilia was distraught, wondering to herself why Glenn would want to go to the trouble himself, and why he hadn't warned her mother earlier. Eventually, the girl led herself to believe that her brother didn't want her to worry about him. The facts matched the assumption — Glenn really wasn't intrusive, but what he did, Lilia thought, was foolish and irresponsible.
In Glenn's case, he huddled against the wall in the entryway, wondering how unlucky he was. He couldn't physically avoid the negative consequences, and he thought to himself that while the students from the literary club, whom he might have considered real friends, shouldn't know the truth. Surely, after all, they were already in a heap of trouble at that point. He hoped they might have become friends during his absence, and as he took steps toward the elevator, he forgot about unnecessary worries.
"I have to keep moving."