December 31, 299
The comfortable, sweet serenity of sleeping through my alarm clock for so long that it automatically turns off was shattered with a pillow crashing onto my face.
“Get out of Wonderland, shitbiscuit! We have an economy to salvage!” Graham yelled from outside my bedroom.
The rude awakening tore me right out of my REM sleep, and I lied there with the pillow on my face for several seconds before realizing my breathing was cut off. In a panic, I punched the pillow off and lunged out of bed onto the floor, half wrapped in my covers. The clock read 12:20.
“How fucking late did you stay awake last night?”
In a daze, I muttered, “I don’t… fucking know. A while.”
Graham dug through the closet between our rooms, then ran to the bathroom and slammed the door. I remained sat on the ground, trying to catch my breath. 12:20… It’s 12:20… the bus leaves at… 12:30? And… I’ve got… a five-minute walk. Wait.
I leaped up and rocketed to my dresser. Still wearing my jeans from last night, they don’t look terrible… my shirt will be covered… whatever. I ripped open the bottom drawer, sifted through it until I found my work shirt, stuffed myself into it, and stuck my box knife and nametag in my pocket.
I smacked the bathroom door, then noticed the smell of soap. “Hey, we weren’t supposed to shower today!”
“Well, excuse me for trying to appear nice on a day that actually matters, your Highness.”
“It’s called doing your part for the community, read a fucking book.”
The door flew open and he threw a hair comb into the sink, already dressed for work. “Sure thing. You have any little DVD seminars about being a model citizen from 80 years ago that I can borrow as well?”
“I’ll bet you can find some buried in the City Archives somewhere.”
“The City Arch—Jesus Christ, what is it with you and the Archives? You bring them up in every fucking conversation now, it’s super weird.” He pushed past me and headed for the door.
“I think you’re just salty that I found a better hobby than barging into random peoples’ dorms at a college you don’t attend, talking their ear off for an hour, then falling asleep on their couch.” I followed him out the door and shut it behind me.
“Hey, there’s no more respectable hobby than meeting new people. Also, you really think reading centuries-old newspapers and government documents from a time when ink was extracted from the burnt remains of the wooden poles that kept the tarp they lived under standing up while sitting in a silent library around the most boring people on the planet and perking your eyebrows every time the writer says some fancy old-timey word like fucking ‘expeditiously’ and then repeating it to everybody for the next week constitutes a cool hobby? What a sad life you live.”
Graham did that ramble down the entire dorm hallway, loud enough for anybody around to hear clearly. Somebody must have, because a voice inside one of the rooms burst out laughing the second he stopped talking.
“God,” I sighed as we started down the stairs. “How are you so much better at rambling insults than I am?”
“Because my brain is better. I can outsmart the best rap battler in the fucking country, and I’ve never even rap battled before.”
“And there’s your second favorite hobby: telling everybody how much better you are at everything.”
“Have I ever been proven wrong?” Graham burst through the exit door and we speed-walked through the university’s extensive front yard.
“Well, I know I can beat you effortlessly when it comes to basic knowledge about the place we fucking live in.”
“You know why, Finn? It’s because you care about that shit and I don’t. I could not give a singular shit less about it. I don’t even give the slightest pebble of shit that’s hanging over the toilet by a twangy ass hair. Not one. That’s why, and that’s only why. But if you challenged me on any of the shit that I care about, you’ll get pulverized so far into the ground they’ll have to slurp you out with groundwater pipes and glue back together the paper-thin scraps of bone marrow that was once your skeleton. That’s what sets me apart, my friend. If it was me reading a bunch of ancient newspapers and we debated this, within minutes your ashed remains would be getting swept into a dustpan by some mentally handicapped janitor. It’s because you’re lame and I’m not.”
“If you won’t pick up any books on Lyman history, you could at least do yourself a favor and pick up one on this thing called narcissistic personality disorder.”
“There’s more to narcissism than realistically thinking highly of yourself, which you would know if you actually have picked up a book on narcissistic personality disorder. And this is high school education that’s speaking right now. Fucking clown.”
We reached the path’s intersection with the sidewalk and started jogging down it for the bus stop. Dozens of other public transports were whizzing by on the district’s main road, but the bus has been our go-to since the system’s tight scheduling allows it to safely drive past red lights, and its exclusive lane prevents any traffic. Also because taxi drivers are either awkward or dicks.
Despite it being the middle of noon, the winter temperature made it feel like the early morning, and both of us were dumb enough to not bring jackets. Graham left his at his apartment, but I left plenty to spare in the closet that he rooted through, so he’s far more guilty than I am. But I don’t feel like telling him that now that my innards are shriveling up in the 40-degree breeze.
We crash-landed on the concrete under the bus stop shelter at 12:28, just in the nick of time, in front of four people taking up the benches. Graham and I quickly scooted back against opposite walls of the shelter, pretending nothing happened. As the last 120 seconds ticked by, Graham noticed one of David Taggart’s corny campaign pamphlets taped on the glass next to his head. He picked it off and stared at it, getting secondhand embarrassment at Taggart’s terrible pose and slogan on the cover.
“‘Have it your way, vote Taggart today!’” he repeated mockingly. “A guy who can’t comprehend rhythm wants to be trusted on handling national policy? What a fucking loser. He looks like he combs, trims, and gels his pubic hair every morning.” If only you knew how close he is to being a frontrunner.
The two people on the bench beside him looked at him slightly shocked and/or offended. They’re either devoutly religious or Taggart supporters, but in both cases, it’s funny seeing stupid people get pearl-clutchy.
The bus creeped out over the hill to the left and stopped by us inches away from the curb at 12:30 on the dot. Graham and I leaped on first, taking the only empty seat in the back and leaving the other four to sit next to strangers. After a minute, it took off.
With 22 minutes to spare until we arrived at the grocery sector, we both stared out the window at the passing city. Our city district is one of the most densely populated in Lyman despite being the second smallest, so houses and apartment blocks are everywhere on every street. Some are a sort of modern black-and-white, some are large colonial-style, most look straight out of 1950s suburbs, and some are basic worn-down farmhouses shrouded with trees and overgrown bushes. Many of the larger homes built during the production boom 60 years ago house multiple families each, while the apartment complexes (mostly located in urban areas) are loaded with people fresh out of high school/college. The ever-present diversity in homes with scores of small businesses in between, set in the consistent backdrop of abundant nature and people, gives a kind of feeling unique to this city that the former U.S. could only dream of achieving.
As the grocery sector came into view, so did a billboard beside a restaurant that said, “Vote for Antonis!” It caught Graham’s eye too, and he subsequently groaned.
“Holy fuck, I have never seen so many fucking political PSAs constantly poisoning the light that reflects into my eyes. What the fuck is all this about?”
“What? Have you been living under a rock for the past three months?”
“I’ve been living with you.”
“Graham, the most important election in Lyman’s history is taking place next February.”
“Finn, I need you to understand that the phrase ‘most important election in Lyman’s history’ is about as meaningless a statement to me as ‘most important dog show in French history.’ You’ll have to take this slower with me. Why should it matter to me whether an Antonis or a Taggart guy wins some random election?”
“This isn’t some random election, it’s the governor’s race. It impacts everybody.”
“And what does this ‘governor’ fellow do exactly?”
“Do you even know who the governor is?”
“I don’t know, was it the Taggart guy?”
“It’s Antonis. Giorgos Antonis.”
“See? You’ve already lost me with the damn Baltic name. Try again after we start work.”
The bus came to a stop in front of the grocery sector, and half the people in front of us stepped into the lane, leaving us to get off last just minutes before our shift starts.
At the entrance to the four-acre lot ahead was a 40x40’ symbol of a giant R made of colored bricks in the ground, the R being short for the district name Riley, which is short for Rafael D. Riley, Lyman’s third mayor. In the far back, the far left, and the far right of the lot are three main grocery wings, and between them all are a bunch of smaller subgenre shopping outlets, and between those are roads for public drivers to come pick up shoppers. The east wing has dairy and all the frozen stuff, the west wing is for all the meats and prepared foods, while the largest wing up north holds everything else, including the produce department where Graham and I work.
We made it inside just in time to clock in at 1:00, and our boss Korey was waiting by the prep room, presumably already clocked out.
Graham greeted her with, “Sup. How’s it looking today?”
“Eh, it’s a weekend. You know how these things go.”
I asked, “Something important that’s keeping you here to talk to us?”
“Yeah, just one thing: some guy has been coming into the store multiple times a day this week and taking the max quota of zucumbers and rose kale every time and leaving the shelves empty every night. He’s got a weird newsboy cap that he wears all the time and a cheeky suit with some stupid red bowtie, I don’t know if you guys saw him last Sunday?”
Graham quipped, “The guy that’s aged like an apple core in a dumpster?”
“I… guess, yeah. I’ve had to shoo him away twice this morning, so if you see him again… you know what to do.”
“Blowing people off is what I do best, ma’am.”
“Cool. See ya.” And then she left.
Graham looked at me and said, “Alright. Now you can tell me about this Giorgos Antonis character. And tread carefully, or I’ll lose interest.”
As soon as I said the word “policy,” he lost interest. But I at least got him to understand the concept of governor’s races, though it took a little bit of explaining to get him to see why having six people clobbering in the same election was unusual.
The first five hours of our shift was a rotating cycle of restocking the salad wall, wiping down one of the display cases, putting back up a bunch of food or containers that were knocked off one of the display cases, putting up one of the dozens of genetically modified variations of kale, sweeping up a container of berries or cut fruit that was broke open on the floor, cleaning the mess of bagged ambrose cane that customers always leave, and then back to the salads. Then come hour six, most everyone had come and gone, and there was nothing to do.
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I was now left at the wet rack pulling the row of zucumbers on display into a double basket shopping cart so I could put one box of them on the bottom, while Graham was organizing the other squash varieties to my right. A corn squash rolled off the shelf next to him, broke in half on the edge of the display, landed on the floor, and rolled under a case behind him. Then a customer appeared next to him.
He asked, “Hey, do you know where I might be able to find, like, a box of pineberry yogurt cups at? I’ve been looking up and down the aisles, but I haven’t found any.”
Graham’s face sunk a little, seeing as the answer was incredibly obvious. I would have stepped in to answer for him, but he’s new and needs experience with customers. “Would that yogurt be vegan?”
“Nope, just regular yogurt.”
He lightly sighed. “Then that’s a dairy product. And if it’s a dairy product you’re looking for, you’ll find it with the other dairy products in the dairy department. Which is in the east wing.” He was clearly restraining himself a lot between that and the corn squash. I probably should have answered for him.
“Oh. Thank you.” And he walked away.
Once he left the store, Graham said, “Jesus. This is, what, my sixth week here, and that’s eight fucking people now who have asked me for shit that’s not even in this goddamn wing.”
“Try dealing with it for two years. At some point, you’ll have to accept that most people who walk into the store are just fucking stupid. When we get home, we should petition the government to require every citizen to work three months in retail.”
“Except we’re not going home, we have that New Year’s thing at Alicia’s, remember?”
Up until now, I hadn’t. Shit. “No. Goddammit. I am absolutely not ready to get drunk with a bunch of generic college students.”
“Rubbish. You won’t be saying that in three hours when we’re with that bunch of generic college students and you get severe peer pressure. We did not stay up until 3 AM taste-testing a bunch of shit for you to not get fucking wasted the next day.”
“One, I don’t hang out with any of your friends, and I barely know Alicia. Two, I have barely even had a full day. I’m not going to wake up, do an eight-hour shift, and then drink with a bunch of random people. New Years’ events are supposed to be an end-of-the-day thing, and my day feels like it’s barely started.”
“Mate, if you can handle me, you can handle Alicia and all of our mutual pals. You’re a happy drunk, so get drunk and be happy.”
Something caught Graham’s eye as he was looking in my direction. I turned to my left. Walking down the aisle was an upper-middle-aged figure with a newsboy cap, a dusty beige suit, and a tiny red bowtie.
Graham whispered, “Oh shit. Is that the guy? He ticks all the boxes.”
He grabbed a bag, picked a bunch of rose kale off the display, dropped it inside, and continued strolling in my direction.
“That’s him.”
Both of us stared at the man as he walked up to my double basket cart that held the dozens of zucumbers. He reached his hand out to grab one, before Graham leaped around me and slapped his hand away.
“Sorry, pal. Not for sale. And neither is that rose kale.”
The guy looked back, befuddled. “What? But it was on display.”
“Yes, but were you aware there is also a quota in place? You can’t just snag as much as you want by exploiting a legal loophole.”
“Is there something wrong with the zucumbers in the cart? Should I grab one of the new ones?” He reached his hand out to grab one of the zucumbers I had just put on the shelf, but Graham slapped it away again.
“No! You’ve gotten your quota of zucumbers and kale already, now scram!”
“What are you talking about? I just want my zucumbers!”
“Don’t play ignorant with me, fuckface. I know you from around here. Your name is Harold Jefferson, right? That weird hobo who does meet-and-greets with every person that passes him on Downing Street? Yeah, I’ve seen you here before as well. So has he.”
Graham pointed at me. I awkwardly nodded. “Yeah, we saw you on Sunday. You’ve been taking all of our zucumbers and rose kale the whole week.”
Harold grabbed at my shopping cart again, and Graham slapped his hand again. “I just wanna do my weekly shopping! What is wrong with you?”
Graham scoffed, “Weekly shopping? Do weeks for you last six hours? I mean, it would explain all the grey hair and skin wrinkles when you’re probably in your fucking forties.”
Harold’s voice started cracking. “I haven’t touched any of your zucumbers or kale rose! I haven’t even been here all week! Now let me get my dinner!”
“You can find dinner in any number of places, my friend. Do you know how many meals people have crafted with just our berry selection? Look at fucking Pinterest for five minutes, I’m sure you’ll find something.”
“I haven’t taken any zucumbers!”
“Why do you have to lie about this? What do you stand to gain? What is your endgame here?”
“You’re the one who’s lying!”
“No shit, you’re trying to gaslight me now. Is this how you get your way with everybody else? Do your children even talk to you anymore?”
“Screw you!”
I was initially itching to cut Graham off so I could talk to him like a normal human being, but I see now that there’s no way to reason with this. Graham is fine handling this on his own.
“There has to be some underlying psychological problem here. Is it brain damage? Did a bookcase fall on your head as a child?”
His face was turning bright red. He tossed his rose kale bag on the bottom of the display and leaped full-body for the zucumber shopping cart. He wrapped his arms around the top basket and tried running off with it, but Graham sped in front of it and grabbed the handle. They began a tug-of-war match with the cart, and when Harold pulled back with all of his strength, Graham let go and sent him flying back, then grabbed the cart as he let go and pushed it away. Holy christ, what am I watching right now? Thank god most of the customers are gone.
“My man, if you have a problem, there’s no shame in just admitting it. Whether you have some weird emotional attachment to rose kale and zucumbers, or if you’re just some anti-social psychotic shopping addict who repeats actions on a semi-hourly basis to fill the empty void in his heart left by the divorce, it’s all good with me, rest assured. I’ll find the therapist for you if that’s what it takes.”
He made a last-ditch sprint for the shopping cart, which was sitting in the corner next to the wall of bagged vegetables. Graham swiped it away, but the man kept tumbling forward and ran face-first into the wall, lodging his head in a pusher tray.
Graham walked up to him and patted him on the back. “Do I need to escort you out of here, buddy?”
He did, the man suddenly a lot more compliant. He was led into a public car and driven off, and one of the worst shitshows that I’ve ever experienced in this job was finished. And three hours later, as Graham and I were going to clock out at 9:00, we saw four missing zucumbers and two missing rose kale bunches.
It was deep into nighttime when we left, and it still didn’t feel like anything approximating a full day had passed. We took another bus ride back to my university and entered the dorms at 9:38.
As we headed for Alicia’s dorm, Graham asked, “Feeling any more spirited yet?”
I shrugged. “Eh. It just feels like any other social event.”
“What? Come on, this is the New Years’ celebration of the 4th century. Isn’t that, like, a big historical event for you?”
“Technically speaking, the 4th century doesn’t actually begin until January 1st, 301. We’re still in the 3rd century.”
“No, we are fucking not. I refuse to recognize whatever stupid system the fucking technocrats decided three thousand years ago; the year is the first of the 300s, and therefore it is a new century.”
“Whatever. It still doesn’t feel too remarkable to me. I would rather read about how people celebrated the previous turns of the century.”
“I knew you would fucking say that, you nerd. But unlike you, I enjoy living in the here and now. Appreciate what you have, Finn; don’t waste your valuable days feeding into your fucking history fetish.”
We passed my dorm, and I heard the voices in Alicia’s get louder. “Right, because it’s much more worthwhile drinking pints of alcohol in a college dorm to celebrate the number of the year changing?”
“Jesus, which one of us is supposed to be the cynic in this dynamic? The lines are getting blurry.”
Graham knocked on Alicia’s door, then opened it. We were met with cheers from over 16 already half-drunk people as we walked inside.
Alicia, standing on her couch in the back corner, drunkenly shouted, “Yes! Everybody is here! Are you motherfuckers ready!”
Everybody cheered once again.
Alicia continued, “God, it is just… so fucking cool that we all get to do this. Buncha new faces, buncha old faces… all together for the one night in every year where we just get to do… fuck-all. And by the way, no fucking in my or… anybody else’s room. If you’re gonna fuck, go fuck in your own fucking dorm. No fucking in my fucking dorm. Anyway…. Alright! Now let’s do some shit!”
They cheered for the third time, and thus the gathering went into full swing. There was a beer pong table set up, a massive TV with a VortX 300 and Polaris NØ console plugged in, another table stacked with card games, five boxes of pizza on the counter, a shitload of alcohol in the fridge, and plenty of space to walk around.
I did my best to stay in the background through the whole affair. Everybody kept to their own circles for the duration of it, as did I. I managed to beat Graham’s bet that being around everyone would make me want to drink a ton, but I did start lightly drinking when I got bored. A group of eight people would gather around the beer pong table or TV, cheering or yelling at whatever was going on, then Graham and I would take over once either was available to no fanfare. I, being a lot more sober than him, would beat him easily at any beer pong match or Skate 4 competition. We couldn’t get through an Uno game without him throwing all the cards around like a toddler. Afterwards, he would do a lot of wandering around and loudly mingling with other groups, which is where I would stand away because my assumption that they would be intolerable was largely correct.
Then it reached near midnight, and as the first fireworks started going off outside, everybody suddenly gathered at the windows to watch the big firework show from the distant Capitol, which is why we did this in Alicia’s dorm of all places. Piles of bodies blocked every single window, so I was left standing in the back, seeing all the colors reflect off their faces. Their excessive shouting and wooing at every pop that went off in the sky made it difficult to hear. The show went on for about five minutes, then reached an explosive crescendo as the clock ticked to 12:00, and everybody cheered in celebration once again. The show ended, and they went back to their previous business.
From then on, I was left counting down the minutes until things started to close down. It took a lot of minutes. Graham and I did another game of beer pong, scrolled through the Polaris NØ game store for fifteen minutes, and sat in a bedroom with four other people for what felt like two hours watching anime on another TV. Nobody seemed to be losing interest in it yet, so I left to go to the bathroom and didn’t come back. I stationed myself on the back couch with a large cup of deutschberry wine, watching the last fireworks go off across the city. The drink just made me feel woozy, but my thinking still seemed normal.
One guy was left playing on the TV, and the rest, I assumed, were in the other bedroom talking or smoking with each other. The door to that room down the hall on the right creaked open, and Alicia came walking out. She dropped her cup in the garbage can, plodded to the couch, and fell back on the end opposite me, looking only slightly less sober than when the night started. She lied down, putting her feet inches away from me, and pointed at me.
“You… you’re that guy who sits in the back of the po… political science class.”
I took a deep breath before talking. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure anybody knew I was there.”
“Pfft, everybody knows you’re there, there’s only, like… fourteen people in the class. I think you’re pretty cool, though. Seem to know your shit.”
“I assume Graham has told you about my so-called history fetish?”
She snickered, “History fetish. Nah, he just… he doesn’t really talk about you in detail. For some reason. You’re, like, the library guy.” Great. I have a reputation that I didn’t know about. “So… what are you… doing in the class? Why political science? What you wanna do with it?”
“I don’t know, I kind of just wanna… contribute a little more to society. I don’t wanna just sit on the sidelines of all the garbage that goes on in the city when I have stuff to contribute. I wanna be, like, the guy all the journalists come to for analysis of this big news event or this frontrunner candidate for governor, or something. I don’t exactly wanna be in elected office myself, but maybe I could… build some kind of platform myself to educate people on what’s going on. Democracy needs educated people.”
“Hm. Very cool. You’re real serious about the political stuff. I like the stuff we talk about and all, but I’m honestly just in it because of Brice. He’s kind of hot.”
I snorted. “Yeah, and 15 years older than you.”
“Aw, really? I thought he was, like, 29. Do you think he has kids?”
“I don’t think he’s even married. He gives off real ‘remorseful divorced dad’ vibes sometimes.”
Alicia silently broke into laughter. “Yeah, he kinda does.”
The other bedroom door suddenly burst open, and Graham came running out before dropping on the ground. “Finn! Finn. Fi—fuck… You are gonna get me back to the fuckin'—you are getting me back to the dorm now or I am mentioning you and your entire family by name in my suicide note. Let’s go.”
I looked at Alicia and said, “He’s about to throw up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She gave a little wave, and then I was dragging Graham on my shoulder back to my dorm. I noticed the January 1 Lyman Press newspaper under my door as I unlocked it, and picked it up once Graham let go of me and rushed inside. He fell straight onto the couch and muttered, “Fuck, I’ve changed my mind. Not throwing up, just wanna… just wanna rest for a little bit.”
“Sure thing. Knock yourself out.”
The microwave clock read 3:22. Jesus. I wasn’t tired yet, so I set the newspaper on the counter and sat down to read it.
I glanced through all the headlines first, trying my best to keep my vision focused. “Seventh Proposed Last-Ditch Ballot Measure Struck Down by Riley District Council.” “After Booming 200s, Lyman Enters New Century With Caution.” “Antonis Staked His Livelihood in the 292 Election. Now He Risks Losing It All.” “70% of Agriculture Is Genetically Modified. What Are the Risks?” “Harold Jefferson, District Representative Candidate, De—”
Wait, what the fuck?
Graham was incoherently mumbling, “Y—you and your… fuckin’ pol—political shit. You—”
I said aloud, “Harold Jefferson died a few hours ago. He was running for District Council.”
Graham tried to burst out laughing but choked. “Oh-ho-ho, no fucking way, dude. That fucking dude from the store just kicked it? Ha… ha… fuck….”
“He died of Alzheimer’s.”
“Haha! The motherfucker had—fucking—he—Alz… Alzhei… he… oh. Oh. He… so, he wasn’t lying. Oh. Oh….”
He disappeared from his aides six days ago. Jesus Christ.
Graham chuckled, “Good god. I called… I called him a ‘psychotic shopping addict.’ God. That’s… ha… that’s so fucked.” He took a deep yawn and immediately passed out.