u/OddApple33

Just wrote a scene where the guy murdered his wife, and I can't help but feel bad for her, even though she never existed, does this happen to anyone else?

(Originally written in Afrikaans)

In the pancreas of the bushveld lowland lies a heap of sand. Amid the natural beauty and the relentless heat, a person could easily overlook it — and most did. Truth be told, it was pretty much only the people who toiled and struggled around the heap of sand who even knew it existed.

Nobody could really remember anymore exactly how this heap of sand had come to be, but most suspected it had something to do with the big hole in the ground lying right beside it.

The people who worked there, however, never called it a heap of sand. To them, it was simply "the Heap" (*or the absence thereof). Nobody had ever properly explained why. Maybe there had been another name once, but like so many other things out there under that blazing sun, it got lost over the years. A person didn't exactly have time for names when they spent from early morning till late afternoon standing with a spade, trying to get sand from the bottom of the heap back up to the top.

Mad and greedy, spade after spade and wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, day after day, year after year, they toiled away at the heap with grim purpose — blissfully unaware that it never grew any bigger. They were forever finding new methods of going about it, but the more things changed, the more they stayed the same — and so did the heap.

Among the workers there were different roles to fill. There were people who pushed the wheelbarrows, and people who made sure the wheelbarrows stayed in prime condition (well, they tried to) — if one broke, there was serious trouble. Others worked the spades, and then there were people whose job was to keep watch and make sure everyone worked safely, and that no spade ever strayed too close to a wheelbarrow.

Over the years the work grew more and more specialised. Where a man had once simply looked after his own spade and wheelbarrow himself, later there were people for every conceivable task. Someone counted the spades. Someone else counted the wheelbarrows. And someone else again was responsible for making sure the first two did their jobs properly. There were even people whose entire job was to make sure everyone else had enough work to do. Nobody was quite sure who was supposed to check up on that last lot — but fortunately, there were other people responsible for that too.

One thing that never changed was that the rules had to be followed. That was, after all, what the rules were there for. Anyone who dared break a rule could usually count on disciplinary action worse than that of a red-headed stepchild. Transgressions were dealt with strictly, and discipline was, on the whole, swift and thorough. There were, of course, exceptional cases — there are always exceptional cases — but that wasn't for the ordinary worker to worry about. Usually.

The people here had one overriding priority in life (and in death): the Heap. Many a life had begun on the Heap, and many a spade had been hung up there for good. The Heap outranked birthdays, Christmases, and sports days. The Heap was their whole life — and their happy misery.

*Heap is Afrikaans is "Hoop" which is also the word for hope

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For me it's Unshaken By D'Angelo in Red Dead Redemption 2

For me it's Pink Skies by Zach Bryan

When it is all said and done should:

A) they just die

Or

B) Become human again and be part of the modern world and see if they survive a 9-5?

I can see Smiley working at a Starbucks...