Microstory 2083: For Free Candy

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Today was pretty much exactly as it was yesterday, except I worked second shift, instead of the first one. We hung out in the greenhouse while the boss stayed in the main building to greet customers. She would call us up whenever she needed help. I could practically copy my post from yesterday, and paste it here, and it would hardly be inaccurate. The weather is still crap, though it’s not as windy or snowy, which is nice. I thought maybe that there would be just a few more customers, but it was the same. We keep track of the number of people who come in, and the number of parties. Somebody smart wrote a computer program that logs this stuff for us using the main entrance security camera. It doesn’t have any facial recognition software built in, so it’s not totally accurate. For instance, if you realized you forgot your wallet, ran back out to get it, and then opened the door again, it would log you twice, because it wouldn’t know that you were the same person. Anyway, that doesn’t happen a whole lot, so we’re not worried about any auditing issues. The total number of visitors today was nearly identical to yesterday. I’m not good with numbers, but I like to explore trends like that, to see if I understand them. It reminds me of how my parents would always log visitors on Halloween. Oh, that’s right. You don’t have that holiday in this world. It involves children going door to door to ask for free candy. I wonder whether they still do that.

Ya know, I don’t think I’ve mentioned my family yet. Bulk travel is a form of time travel, but I’ve not seen them in over 25 years. So if I were to return to a point in their timeline that matches my own personal timeline, they would be in their eighties. They could be gone by now. But again, the timelines don’t match up, so I could also go back, and not a second will have passed. Or I could go back to before I even left, or before I was born, or before they were born. Heh, time, right? Back to the weather, why were the numbers about the same, even though it wasn’t precipitating as hard? It’s because of the roads. I always forget about the roads. It was really bad last night—even worse than it was to drive while it was still happening during the day before—so people did not want to go out after that. All schools in the area were canceled, which is why the high school student who works here picked up an extra shift. I think she’s my favorite out of all the humans I’ve met on this version of Earth. She seems to be the only other person who recognizes how unexciting it is, besides maybe those people who answered my weird ad. Though to be fair, they didn’t appear to have any strong feelings about the nature of the world. They were just behaviorally divergent. Speaking of which, I should probably reach out to them; make sure they’re doing okay.

Microstory 2082: Too Happy Here

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The meal with my landlord went great. I’m glad I went with the easier recipe, though I may try to challenge myself more next time. We’re going to try to have dinner together twice a week from now on, though when I get my own place, that may change. I made enough so we could have leftovers today, and I couldn’t wait to eat it because it meant that I could sit in the break room for thirty minutes. It’s heated. The nursery is a mostly outdoor spot, as you can imagine. There’s a building, but it’s chock full of plants, particularly ones that I’m allergic too. I try not to spend too much time in there. I seem to be okay outside, or when I’m in the greenhouses. That’s where we spent the majority of our time. It’s snowing and blowing, so it sucks to have to work outside, but it also means that not many customers show up, so we don’t have to do much outside. The boss doesn’t like us to just be sitting around doing nothing, because there is always a plant in need of attention, but she exempts us from that rule on days like this. She volunteered to stand guard while we hung out, but we had our radios on hand. All she had to do was press the button three times, and one of us would run up to help. If she had clicked it four times, that would have meant that two of us needed to go. It didn’t happen much, but when it did, I always agreed to go back, since I’m still the new guy. She’s not going to spend too much time training the temp, because he doesn’t seem to be too happy here, so we don’t think he’ll ask for a permanent position. She’s still looking for someone new while the authorities are looking for our missing coworker.