Chapter 32: Normalcy.

Paper-thin superficial shit, generated by drones, some that would never convince me, was resonating in my desert-weary mind. No, I wanted normalcy because I couldn't find explanations elsewhere. A bad poem written on a post-it couldn't be the reason.

In the following days, they offered me a salary slightly under six figures. And a bit of equity. I wasn't really in for the money, but it would have felt bad if I didn't come back with a counteroffer. Throughout the interview, they had been subtly justifying such a salary —far lower than the average, and than what I expected. Those excuses were the typical ones, all deriving from their self-definition as a struggling start-up on the search of a series A funding round. Really dubious claims considering the growth they had experienced. They wanted to sell success with a backdrop of uncertainty: of course the equity would multiply incessantly, but they were poor in terms of liquidity.

I disregarded their wall of lies —pretty common lies, many of which they themselves believed in, being indistinguishable from their business hopes and their wishful thinking.

Well... I had my own set of lies and expectations. I didn't know how long I was going to stay with them. After having tasted the dry and mad freedom of the desert, I couldn't promise that I'd be able to adapt to the strict regime of the city.

After they accepted my counteroffer, I was set to start working for them as soon as they wanted. ASAP. The company would pay for a short-term rental for a month —while I searched for a place to live.