Freelance Illusions

Zornitsa had always believed that the internet was a kind of escape hatch, a parallel universe where the rules of her fragile body and failing health might not matter. If she couldn’t run to catch buses, sit for long hours in offices, or withstand the noise of open workspaces, then maybe she could sit quietly in her room, laptop glowing, and still earn a living. The dream of freelancing became her secret medicine—the hope that she could rebuild herself outside the visible world.

It started innocently enough. She signed up for platforms with cheerful names promising freedom: freedom from bosses, freedom from rigid schedules, freedom to work “anywhere.” The word freelance itself shimmered like a banner of independence. She imagined herself crafting designs, writing, creating digital products, all while the illness remained hidden behind the screen. No one would need to know that she was dizzy while answering emails, or that she typed lying down on her bed when sitting upright was unbearable.

The illusion was intoxicating. She spent days polishing her profile, uploading samples, writing about her “skills” as though she were a confident businesswoman. She created logos for imaginary companies just to showcase her portfolio. She even bought a new set of headphones, telling herself this was an investment in her future.

For a while, it felt like progress. Small projects came in—cheap logos for strangers halfway across the world, a few hours of editing work, an online shop owner asking for a WordPress tweak. The payments were tiny, laughable almost, but to Zornitsa they were proof: “I can still be useful. I can still belong to the working world.”

But the cracks soon appeared. The platforms demanded endless energy. Clients wanted impossible deadlines, revisions without end, miracles for five dollars. They spoke to her as if she were a tool, not a person. And if she dared protest, the ratings system punished her. One angry review could destroy weeks of effort.

Zornitsa began to understand the trap. Freelancing was not freedom—it was invisible servitude. She was chained to her laptop, refreshing the job board, desperate for opportunities. The work was unstable, the competition brutal, the payments insulting. And yet, she clung to it, because the alternative—admitting defeat, admitting she could not work at all—was unbearable.

Some nights she stayed awake until dawn, chasing contracts, sending proposals into the void. She told herself she was building something, that patience would pay off. But in truth, she was exhausting herself, worsening the very symptoms that had driven her online in the first place. The screen became both bread and poison.

Her family did not understand. “At least you can work from home,” her mother said with a tone that mixed encouragement with impatience. Friends, when she mentioned freelancing, imagined it glamorous: pajamas, coffee mugs, flexible hours. They didn’t see the sleepless nights, the exploitative clients, the absurd reality of negotiating over two-dollar payments.

There were good moments too. Once, a kind client from Germany paid her triple the agreed price, writing: “You deserve more. Excellent work.” She cried after reading it, not because of the money, but because someone had finally seen her value. It reminded her that she was not just a body failing her; she was still capable of creating something meaningful.

But those moments were rare. More often she dealt with the cynical side of digital marketplaces—clients who disappeared without paying, scammers who demanded free “samples,” projects canceled without reason. Freelance promised independence but delivered dependence on faceless algorithms and ruthless strangers.

The deeper illusion, Zornitsa realized, was not in the platforms themselves but in her own heart. She wanted freelancing to be salvation. She wanted it to cure not only her financial worries but also her loneliness, her fear of uselessness, her need for identity. She asked too much of it, and it collapsed under the weight of her hope.

Still, she could not fully abandon it. What else could she do? The thought of returning to an office was impossible. Her body would not obey. The dizziness, the fatigue, the unpredictability—they would expose her within days. She would lose the job, and with it, whatever fragile dignity she still carried.

So she persisted in the digital hustle, trying to balance reality with illusion. She created a blog, writing about design and inspiration. For a few weeks, traffic spiked, and she dreamed of earning through ads, maybe even selling her own templates. She pictured herself as one of those online success stories—the girl who turned illness into opportunity, who built an empire from her bedroom.

But reality bit again. Traffic dwindled, algorithms shifted, enthusiasm faded. She stared at her analytics like one stares at a dying plant, willing it to grow but unable to force life into it. The internet was not generous. It devoured content but rarely rewarded creators.

The cycle repeated: hope, effort, disillusionment. Each round left her weaker, but also more aware. She began to see the patterns clearly. Freelancing was a mirror of her illness: invisible, misunderstood, dismissed by others, yet consuming her days with relentless force.

She thought often about freedom—the word she had chased at the beginning. Was it freedom to sit at home and struggle for scraps of income? Was it freedom to hide her illness while silently collapsing behind the screen? Or was true freedom something else entirely, something not sold on websites or promised by job boards?

One evening, exhausted from revisions for a client who kept changing their mind, she closed the laptop and stared at her reflection in the dark window. Her face looked older, her eyes dim. But beneath the weariness there was also a flicker of defiance.

“I am not just a freelancer. I am not just an illness. I am more than the illusions I chase.”

The thought startled her. It felt like a seed planted in dry soil, fragile but alive. Perhaps the illusion had served a purpose. Perhaps she needed to pass through the glittering false promises in order to recognize her own deeper hunger—not for jobs, not for clients, but for meaning, for a sense of self untouched by ratings and revisions.

Still, bills needed paying. Life was not built on philosophy alone. She reopened the laptop, resentful yet resigned. The illusion continued, because survival demanded it.

But in her notebook that night, she wrote: “One day I will build something outside these platforms. One day I will create from truth, not desperation. One day I will work not as a servant but as an artist.”

The invisible illness had already stripped away so much—her stability, her trust in her body, her place in the visible world. But maybe, just maybe, it had also stripped away illusions, leaving her raw but honest. Freelance was not salvation. It was a mask, a temporary stage. And behind it, Zornitsa was still searching for her real face.

She closed her notebook and whispered to herself in the quiet: “I will not drown in illusions. I will find the real freedom, even if it takes me a lifetime.”

And though the night stretched long and the dizziness returned, she felt, for the first time in months, that she had not completely disappeared. She was still here. She was still writing her story.

 

from "Zornitsa – Swaying on the Edge of Time"