Microstory 2369: Earth, September 6, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I was trying to decide how to send this to you. I didn’t want it getting mixed up with the open letter I wrote to the whole base. I really should have sent this first, and the open letter the next day. So, sorry for the delay, and I’m sorry you’re feeling bad. I’m really hoping that you feel better by the time you get this. Actually, I’m hoping you felt better by the time I got your letter about it. I might know of a way to help. When I was still young—so young that I can’t entirely trust my memories of those days. The poisons had not yet destroyed the environment, but things were pretty bad already. I guess I’ve never really gotten into it, but the gases were kind of a breaking point for preexisting struggles all over the world. They were nowhere near the beginning of conflict. That was a hard time for us, but I was oblivious, because I was too young to understand. I was a little hungry some of the time, but not starving, and definitely not neglected. Dad did the best he could to provide for us during a difficult period in history, and that often meant spending time away from me to make money. Since he had to be away so much, a babysitter cared for me. We couldn’t afford much of course, but she must have been willing to do a lot for not very much money. She was so kind to me, I always thought she just enjoyed my company since I was a pretty cute kid. Thinking on it now, though, maybe there was something between them. Maybe she was never a babysitter at all, but a girlfriend. They didn’t tell me her last name, so I can’t look her up, and I’m afraid to ask. I have never otherwise known him to date. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s just that, I was having my own troubles during all that where I was getting sick kind of regularly, and in different ways. Man, maybe I really should ask dad about that to see what was going on. Was I terribly ill, with something concrete and diagnosable? No matter what was wrong, one thing that my caretaker did for me every single time was make me chicken noodle soup. Also looking back at that, I doubt it was even real chicken. However, I still have the recipe, and I’ve attached it here in case you have the right ingredients to supplement what isn’t available. Maybe you have nothing that works. Or maybe you have chicken noodle soup all the time, and I sound like a patronizing doofus. Just...I hope you’re feeling better, and that things are going okay with you, okay? How’s Bray? How was my letter received by your friends? When are you coming down to Earth for a visit?

Take care of yourself,

Condor

Microstory 2081: Half a Surprise

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I didn’t have to go to work today. I worked eleven days straight, so it’s time for a break. I’ve not just been sitting around, though. I got out, and did stuff. First, I walked back to the bike shop, where they let you rent for the day. The first time is free as long as you sign up for their emailing list, and promise to seriously consider buying something at a later date. They have a few used ones, so instead of exploring my options online, I think I’ll just end up choosing one of these. I’ve gotten my first deposit, but I’m not exactly a millionaire yet. I would like to get a couple more before I start making any big purchases. I did spend a little cash on some food. I am not much of a cook, but I can get by if I plan it out, and I’m very careful. My landlord happened to have the day off too, so she planned something with a friend. She’ll be home for dinner, though, so I’m making something for her. I told her that I wanted to pick something up for the two of us to thank her for everything she’s done for me, so shh, it’s still half a surprise. She’s a vegetarian too, which is great. Do you know what the most important part of cooking is...? [...] Give up? It’s eating. Eating, of course; what else would be the point. The second most important thing, however, may be timing, and it’s one of the hardest things to learn. That’s what I’m struggling with now, but I think I’m gonna be okay. Something that really helps is having a bunch of little bowls ready with the individual ingredients. This is how they do it on all the cooking shows. My landlord doesn’t cook much herself, because she’s too busy at the clinic, but she inherited a lot of kitchen stuff from her grandmother, so there’s enough here for me to be ready to go. Wish me luck, I’m making a Mediterranean bowl, which shouldn’t be too terribly hard for an unskilled, perpetual novice like me. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Microstory 2079: Struggling and Stammering

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I’m working first shift tomorrow, so I’ve set up a few appointments to go look at apartments, maybe somewhere that’s right next to the nursery, or at least closer. I won’t be signing any contracts quite yet, but I imagine that it’s going to take me a little bit of time to find the right place. This has nothing to do with how the world works. I have very specific requirements. It doesn’t have to be big, and it certainly doesn’t have to be luxurious, but it needs to be clean, and/or I need to be able to clean it without breaking my back. So in that regard, it would be better small, especially since it’s just me. I like things to be efficient and quick. Procedural memory is key. I want there to be a place for everything, with everything in its place. One benefit to coming to a new world is that this is a fresh start. I’m not burdened by all these hand-me-downs that don’t fit my needs perfectly, or regretful purchases that I made in my youth. I get to start from scratch, and buy only what I require, conceived by my more mature, experienced brain. It may still seem too early to do all this, since I’ve not even received my first paycheck yet, but I believe that they’re going to be lenient on me when it comes to when the first rent payment is due, due to my financial situation. It’s more important to them that I give them reason to believe that I can reliably pay on a consistent basis, not necessarily pay right away. I can prove that I am gainfully employed, and that I have decent job security. I’m still in touch with my social worker, who is reaching out to the necessary people to facilitate the future move. They’ve certainly dealt with harder cases than me, including people who can’t conduct business deals for themselves. I could never run a Fortune 500 company, but I’m capable of understanding the basics of a rental agreement. It’s nice to have someone in my corner who can explain what’s going on with me. I’m pretty awkward in social situations. If we’re only there to talk business, that’s fine, but if you start asking me about myself, you’ll find me struggling and stammering. Buhbye.

Microstory 2047: Delaware

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Papa struggled with the ALS for many months, doing what the doctors recommended, and trying different medications. Nothing was working, so they decided to go see another doctor. There was a different specialist who lived in Millsboro, Delaware. This is the one who told my fathers that the disease was aggressive. That’s the word I heard my family use a lot: aggressive. It sounds really mean. Some people can live 10 years after they find out that they have ALS, and I wish I could say that my papa was one of them, but he wasn’t. He found out in 2021, and you already know how this story ends. They did everything they could, but that wasn’t much. All they could really do in the end was make him as comfortable as possible. Delaware was not a good trip either. I will probably never go to Pennsylvania or Delaware. I might not even go to North Dakota again. Delaware was the last time that my papa could walk. He had to stay in the wheelchair for the rest of his life. It was hard to see him like that, but I would rather see him like that than not at all.

Microstory 1869: Warehome is Where The Hotplate Is

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The first thing I did when I got out of college was to apply for a bunch of jobs at warehouses. I didn’t even bother trying to leverage my degree into something “better” because if there’s one thing my entire education career taught me, it’s that even when I work hard at something, I only ever barely make it. So I really needed something entry level, and there were a few other jobs that were off the table. I don’t do cleaning, and I don’t do food services. Cleaning—ironically, but not surprisingly—makes you dirty. And I don’t want to see how the sausage is made. Warehouse work seemed like the ideal environment. If I could just find something lowkey and small, I wouldn’t have to deal with all the stresses of other jobs, or bring my work home with me. I could just sit around and wait for item requests, and then fulfill them. Well, I severely overestimated the number of opportunities like that. They were all busy, busy, busy. We weren’t running, or anything, because that was dangerous, but I wasn’t ever not filling an order. But I didn’t bother looking for anything better, because that sounded like a lot of work. As always, I was an average worker. I was at no risk of getting fired, and at no risk of being promoted. Those guys got paid more, but they also had much more of that stress I was telling you about, because they were responsible for other guys. I just wanted to stay in my lane, and make enough money to afford my not quite rent-controlled apartment. That’s what did me in decades later. I never earned enough to do any significant saving, and when my rent went up, I got out. I realized, though, that I had a backup place to live. There was a nearly secret room in the warehouse on the upper level, which they didn’t use for anything anymore. Always at a comfortable temperature, and big enough to fit a mattress, a hotplate, and some safe space between the mattress and the hotplate. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? No. You don’t.

I spent about a week looking for a new place, all the while trying to make my living space as nice as possible. I put up some decorations; I like lemurs, so I had a lot of pictures of lemurs. I learned some clever recipes. I even bought a few new things to be more efficient with what little space I had available. Mostly what it did was get me to reassess my needs. I hadn’t watched TV that whole time, and I didn’t miss it. I spent a lot of time reading, which was not a hobby I enjoyed before. See my earlier statements about school. I decided to stop looking for a new apartment, because this was doing me just fine. I had a nice routine, which allowed me to sneak up there without anyone noticing. The perfect thing is that it wasn’t just any room. It was, like, an industrial shower, or something. I don’t know what they designed it to clean, but I don’t think it was people, yet the plumbing was still on, and I found it worked just fine. There was a less secret toilet down the hall that I just couldn’t use until I was sure the place was completely empty. With all that nearby, it was months before I felt bold enough to loosen up a bit. I stopped tiptoeing around, and being careful with the sounds I made. I even ended up venturing downstairs once, curious what the warehouse looked like without lights. I found a bunch of my coworkers down there, playing cards in their pajamas. They greeted me warmly, like they knew I was there the entire time. They said they did know, and then they took me down to a secret section of the basement that was totally finished, where they all lived in more luxury then I ever had in my apartment. So I moved again.

Microstory 1800: A Life Well-Earned

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I was born into a very wealthy family, which only got wealthier with each generation. None of us was allowed to rest on our laurels, and relax. We had a system in place. Parents were expected to take care of their children, and give them just about anything they wanted (within reason). Once they turned 18, their college would be paid for, and everything that goes with that, like food and lodging. Any purchases they wanted beyond that had to be approved, and were always contingent upon extremely good grades. No one was expected to join the family business, but they had to do something with their lives. They had to live up to our name, whether that meant doing as they were told by their betters, or striking out on their own. A well-rounded education was vital to this. You were cut off once you turned 26, regardless of how prepared you were. The idea was to give everyone enough time to finish their undergraduate studies, plus their graduate studies—if they so chose to continue their education—and also begin pulling in their own income. There was no trust, there were no allowances. Everybody had to make their own way, at least after spending a quarter of their lives learning how to do that. I know, I know, this all sounds very ridiculous to normal people, but what would you have us do, reject our family money as soon as we could speak? That wouldn’t have done anyone any good, would it? For my part, actually, I didn’t even let my family do this much for me. I let them pay for tuition, books, and other educational expenses, but I paid for food, and my own place to live. I had a job while I was there, which was smarter than my siblings and cousins, because I learned a lot more about the labor force than they did from their ivory towers. I wouldn’t say that I struggled, but I certainly worked harder than the rest of them. I was at least closer to seeing what real life was like for most people.

Rich people have problems too, and I don’t mean to sound like we don’t, but I always tried to be careful with my perspective. The fact is that I had an easy life, and people like me have a responsibility to use our privilege to help others as possible. What better way to support those people than to provide them with jobs? No one wants to be a charity case. They don’t want you to just hand them stuff. They want to feel like they earned it. No, strike that from the record; they want to know that they undeniably earned it. Ya know, receiving free stuff activates the same part of the brain as incurring debt does. I mean...I don’t actually know that for sure, but it sounds right, so it probably is. People hate to feel like what they have isn’t really theirs, and I chose to do my part to alleviate that for them. I paid my employees fair wages, and I treated them fairly. Sure, if you read the statistics, it sounds like workers were generally unhappy in their positions, but that data is always skewed. Only the loudest and angriest of people are going to fill out those surveys. Content people tend to be too happy to bother telling other people about why. And sure, my company technically pays most jobs on the left side of that bell curve, but that doesn’t matter. That isn’t what my organization is about. What I found—and this is another one of those things that my relatives never understood—is that an employee would much rather be validated by their superiors than just be given more money. Money doesn’t make you smile. Money can’t buy you monthly division birthday parties, and great online coupons. Well, I guess it does, but family doesn’t need that from each other. That’s what we are at the company; a family. I couldn’t die prouder.

Microstory 23: Three Dimes

When I arrived at my friend’s apartment complex, I discovered there to be no more free parking spaces left. The only ones available were at meters. I tossed my car, looking for change, and was fortunate to find three dimes, hashtag-thestruggle. This would get me to the three-hour limit, which was still a problem. “Feeding the meter” was illegal. I had to finish up there in the allotted time, or I would go to jail. As soon as I got upstairs, my friend asked me if I would drive him to a chick he met online who was getting rid of her old TV. I did as he asked, but hurried him along, fearful that I would lose my precious parking spot. But luck was on my side. When we got back, the space was still open. We stopped by the door to get the TV out. Just then, I looked over and saw someone park next to my spot. When he got out to pay his meter, I could tell that he saw that my meter was already running. He stepped back into his car. I dropped the TV on my friend’s foot, breaking it in two places, and cracking the TV screen. I then jumped back in my car and raced across the lot, slipping back into my birthright! The guy who wanted it was disappointed. So he stabbed me. I was arrested at the hospital for parking illegally.