"Is that so?" John raised an eyebrow, his voice light but not without sharpness. "Then tell me, where are these dreams sold? I'll take a sack. Maybe two."
Gabriel didn't laugh. He leaned back, the cheap plastic chair groaning beneath him. His shoulders were stiff with exhaustion, the kind no sleep could cure. The corners of his mouth twitched—almost a smirk, almost a frown—but he said nothing for a moment.
Finally, his voice came out flat. "Wouldn't know. But I can tell you where they're not—buried under pallets and paycheck stubs in a warehouse with no windows and less hope."
John snorted into his drink. Gabriel didn't stop.
"They've got my sweat. My time. Whatever spine I haven't already ground down to dust. And for what? The promise that if I work myself into an early grave, someone might toss me a bone and call it a raise?"
John smirked. "Work hard enough, maybe you'll be promoted. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll be the manager of the warehouse. With your own car and everything."
He didn't believe it. The words were hollow, even to him, but he said them anyway—like tossing dried leaves into the wind just to watch them drift.
Gabriel laughed then—not a joyful laugh, but the kind that spills from a cracked heart, slow and bitter.
"That's a story for children," he said. "The kind told around campfires to keep fools from running."
John took a sip, watching the foam cling to the inside of his mug. "You speak like a man who's given up. Don't you want wealth? Comfort? A life without struggle?"
Gabriel didn't even blink. He didn't need to think. His answer had long been buried in the marrow of his bones.
"Not really," he said. The words dropped between them like stones into a well.
John frowned, half-playful, half-troubled. "I don't believe you. If someone handed you a fortune—no strings, no curses—you'd turn it down?"
"If it came without strings?" Gabriel shrugged. "I'd take it. Of course I would. Only a fool would spit on such an opportunity. I said I don't care to chase it, that I won't bow my back and chain my soul for the chance of some far-off reward. That's not ambition. That's slavery painted gold. That kind of dream eats men from the inside."
He took a slow drink, swallowing not just beer, but something older and more bitter.
"Most of our troubles—yours, mine—they don't come from some cruel fate or failing of the spirit. They come from empty pockets. No silver, no choices."
John tilted his head, the laughter beginning in his eyes before it touched his mouth.
Gabriel continued, ignoring it for now.
"Last week, my car died. Not wrecked. Just broke. No money to fix it. I walked to work. An hour in the sun, back and forth. Burned the skin off my neck, soaked through my shirt. Dead tired, I still had to endure. That's the world we live in; it's ridiculous. A broken engine, and suddenly you're back in the Stone Age."
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. "You think I'm joking?"
John shook his head, laughing. "No," he said, "that's why it's funny."
Gabriel tried to frown, to hold onto the irritation. But it slipped from him until something cracked. The corners of his mouth twitched, then rose.
And then they were both laughing, two weary men in a tired world, their joy forged from shared misery, not because their problems were gone…
…sometimes, when named aloud, misery sounds ridiculous.