Insouciance

Another day has ended and Samuel heaved a sigh of relief as he closed the lid of his laptop to keep it in his office cabinet. Crunching through the numbers made him particularly tired, but it was one of the many things that he had been hired to do, and given the current economic outlook, there was little that he can do except to quietly do what was given to him. Already turned down for three other jobs, this one was almost like a last resort for him, and with the rather meagre pay, he was at least able to make ends meet. Locking the cabinet with his key, Samuel was thankful of the job he had. Being single was also an advantage, for it meant that his expenses were significantly lower due to having no immediate family to support.

Samuel picked up his phone and plugged in the headphones and turned on the radio. It was almost like a daily ritual to him, to turn on the radio, and to just plug his ears with whatever the radio station decided to broadcast as he made his way back home aboard the crowded public transport, the radio acting like a talisman of isolation to keep him distracted from the closeness of all the other sweaty bodies of minimum wage workers just like him who were trying to eke out a living under the hyper-competitive market.

As he squeezed on the bus, he heard a news bulletin that he hadn't heard before.

``Our correspondent in Ukraine reports that the stand-off between the Ukraine army and the unmarked troops brought in from Russia has made a turn for the worse as shots were heard firing in Crimea. Reports have been mixed on who it was that fired the first shot. Witnesses near the region have described it as being a massacre as armed men from both sides engaged in a bloody urban battle. Many were injured when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired into a civilian building. So far, armoured vehicles have not taken part in the melee, acting mostly as barriers demarcating major zones of control. A Red Cross representative told our correspondent that humanitarian aid was lacking as aid workers are unable to enter the live fire zone due to the intensity of the fighting...''

Samuel sighed deeply and pressed on the auto-tune button on his radio to seek out the next radio station. Life was already depressing enough; no need to add more to it by listening to the plight of others.

The bus rumbled off from the road and headed towards the next bus stop.