It was the best of times,it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope,it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us, we had nothing before us…
In short, it was the early 2010s. A time when the First World was forced to contend, for the first time since WWII, with chaos and hunger, while the leaders of nations worked day and night in a futile effort to bring rejuvenation and hope to their dying lands. Three generations had grown up knowing only a bright world, only now to be thrown headfirst into the pitch black cistern of economic recession.
If this time in human history could be embodied in a song, it would have to be this one:
The unemployment rate stood at nearly 8 percent, a figure which should’ve been higher whenever one factored in the millions of despondent able-bodied persons, disillusioned with the broken promises of yesterday, who gave up altogether on the pursuit of work.
Others, however, were forced to work, straddled with burdens left over from their years of investment in their own futures, investments which had by now shown themselves to be for absolutely nothing. They were the ones cursed to have been born in the wrong year, destined for nigh-constant beratement from both their elders and their juniors, for the cardinal sin of being part of the Millennial generation.
He just was an ordinary man, trying to make ends meet for himself and for his family, in a cruel world that'll chew you up and spit you out. His name was Gunther Black. And this is his story.