Chapter #7James by: Bloop   James Sullivan is an average 30 year old guy. He works at an unremarkable company doing boring office work, and has been feeling unhappy for quite some time.
When the invite came through from his aunt to meet for a family reunion he was thrilled, he didn’t have many plans these days as most of his friends had moved away or had found families to take care of now, and he always found it hard to make new friends, despite being a nice guy, he just found it hard to communicate with others sometimes.
Part of the reason he was excited to meet up with his family that lived across the country was because he hadn’t caught up with everyone in a couple of years now, and also partly because he loved hanging out with his younger cousins nieces and nephews, there was something about the simplicity of social interactions with his younger family members that was nice and easy for him.
Eventually the reunion was upon him, and after a two hour flight and a taxi ride he finally arrived at his aunt’s house. The place was HUGE, it had three floors and more bedrooms than he’d counted.
He didn’t know exactly what he aunt did for a job, as far as he knew she’d kept that quite quiet to most, if not all members of his family. There were rumours of a big lottery win, or some kind of underground business, but no one seemed to know for sure.
Judging by all the cars parked on the wide drive, James assumed that most, if not all of his family that were coming had already arrived.
He knocked on the door and after a few moments it opened, and he was greeted with the kind face of his aunt.
James’ aunt was a beautiful woman with curves in all the right places, and not looking a day over 40 despite being in her early 50s.
“James, you made it! We were starting to worry you’d missed your flight!” She beamed, pulling James into a big hug.
“Hey Aunt Emma, it’s great to see you!” James said from within the tight embrace.
“Please, come in! Everyone’s in the kitchen,” Aunt Emma said, taking James’ luggage and directing him to the kitchen.
James entered the large open plan kitchen/living room and many of his family were scattered about the two joined spaces, including his parents, some of his cousins, sister, nephews and nieces.
James greeted everyone and joined in with the merriments.
Very quickly however James felt his social battery was draining, and after a short while James retreated to the neighbouring room where his young nieces and nephews were playing.
Most of the children were babies and toddlers, between 2 and 5. It had been a few years since he’d seen them, and it seemed that they barely remembered him, but they were happy to let him join in.
After a while James’ sister came in to check on her 3-year old daughter, Amy.
“Still better at being social with kids than adults eh James,” she said, sitting next to him and giving him a playful punch on the arm.
James chuckled, “you know me, Sarah, I’ve always found being social exhausting. There’s something calming about playing with our younger relatives”
Sarah sighed, “yeah, I know what you mean… it’s a bit different when you’re the parent though, you can’t just be their friends or cool uncle, you have to lay down the law”
James smiled at that, kids had always liked him and being called a cool uncle was a great compliment.
“Try and catch up with the rest of us this weekend too bro, we’ve missed you!” Sarah kissed him on the cheek and headed back to the kitchen.
James played with the kids a little longer until they all eventually were taken to bed. James attempted to socialise a bit longer but eventually called it a night and went up to his allocated room to settle down for the night.
He lay on his bed and sighed. Over the course of the evening he’d realised he was jealous of his younger family members, not having to go to a boring job or fit into social norms. Part of him wished that he could be a young child again, just like them…   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
<<-- Previous · Outline  · Recent Additions © Copyright 2025 Bloop (UN: blooping at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
KitCat27 has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work within this interactive story. Poster accepts all responsibility, legal and otherwise, for the content uploaded, submitted to and posted on Writing.Com. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author