Wednesday March 11, 2020
I awoke to shouting in the hall this morning. I got out of bed and went to the front door to see what the commotion was all about, I found a puddle of foul smelling water before my door, the sloshing squishing sound was a sign of a serious problem.
I opened the door and found a crowd of people shouting at one another. The neighbors across the hall were screaming at the people from upstairs.
“We have sewage raining from our ceiling!” The woman across the hall berated the people from upstairs.
To accentuate her point she waves at the paper towels that are amid the sewage water.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that the pipes couldn’t handle…” the woman from upstairs began but was cut off by the man from across the hall.
“Are you kidding me? A kid knows not to flush paper towels down the toilet! Jesus lady are you fucking retarded?!” the man shouted.
The entire hall smelled extremely unpleasant, as was the conversation by all parties. The man has a point, he’s just being a real asshole explaining it in the most vulgar way possible.
I have had enough. I walk back into my apartment to pack a weekend bag to head to a hotel. The university is just going to have to cover the expense because I was not going to be staying in my apartment tonight, with this sewage, the soggy carpet, and the shouting neighbors.
I pack a bag and reserve a hotel room about two miles from the apartment. I write a note and tape it to the door before packing up my cat and going outside to wait for my Lyft.
The living conditions here in 16-J were primitive to say the least. They are still on fossil fuels, they have a massive wealth gap, and they are still heavily into deforestation and climate change denial. It is like living among chimps, and I am no Jane Goodall.
My Lyft arrived shortly after I exited the apartment building.
“Frederick Alginon?” the driver asked as I approached the car.
“Al-gin-non,” I corrected his pronunciation.
“Alginon. Sorry about that,” he replied as I got into the backseat with Angelica.
“What is that, a dog?” he asked.
“It’s an Andorian Shih Tzu, very exotic, hard to find even during their mating season,” I replied sarcastically, though the driver seemed not to notice.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I hate it here.
Checking into the hotel was another disaster. The card the university gave me has a refillable balance, I’m not allowed to have another card here, nor would the cards I have from back home work in this reality, so I had to use the stash of cash that I have squirreled away, and they let me put my card on file for possible overages.
I hit the bed and just melted into the scratchy, overused but rarely washed, top blanket.
This place is disgusting.
It’s not just the hotel room, which… Yes, this is disgusting too. It’s everything here.
Angelica calls out for help from the carrier. Her soft shy meow is soothing and sweet. It reminds me of home.
When I let her out she springs from the carrier and starts familiarizing herself with the single large room I have checked us into.
She doesn’t approve. I don’t blame her.
I take up my smartphone and write a quick email to the university to reimburse my expenses, forwarding the receipt and a rational reason for why I need to rent a hotel room for the next two weeks. I am not setting foot into that apartment until they clean everything. I might have to live with these apes, but I don’t have to roll around in their shit with them.
When I woke up the next morning the news was all abuzz about Covid-19. It is finally being addressed and there is a lockdown that has been ordered.
“I could not have planned this better,”
I have my streaming device, I have my Chromebook, I have my cat and I am in a hotel that can no longer kick me out onto the street. Life is suddenly pretty damn good.
I have so many rules that I have to follow just to be on this field assignment. Those rules are extremely strict in about every aspect of my time here. I can only call Kaylin through the university networked phone that I was given when I took up the assignment.
Being able to cross from one universe to another was the adventure of my lifetime. I think given everything that I am currently dealing with, I might have reconsidered the decision to take the job.
It isn’t like you sign up for universe 16-J with the backwater priorities of a society probably a good hundred years behind my own world.
No. When you agree to the job, they send you through a good dozen different scenarios with the same general idea. You are in a society that is alien to you, you need to blend in, and you need to take regular notes about the historical events you witness, but you aren’t allowed to interact in any major event.
I have to report each day.
Today, it is Covid-19 day. President Trump finally declared that the plague that has been running through the country like a wildfire, is real. On the last trip home they vaccinated me for an illness that had been discovered about five months ago. They also called it Covid-19 and likely it will keep me safe and sound while these morons fumble the ball.
The sound of a message alert grabs my attention. When I check my phone I see the expense has been accepted and that there is an additional six hundred dollars added to my flexible assets fund per week until the lockdown passes.
“Ka’ching!” I declared.
My cheer wakes Angelica up next to me.
“Let someone else scour around for my toilet paper now.”
The last two months were a pain in the ass. Toilet paper shortage. Alcohol shortage. Hand Sanitizer shortage. Then there were the issues with name brand items for a bit. I swear if someone hints at a shortage, everyone will run out and buy everything they can find just to make sure they have it. I get it. With the current standards, this place is going to have a hard time.
I’m really grateful to, normally, live in a society that actually takes care of your needs.