‘Can’t afford to buy my food / or the drive I need to go / further than they said I’d go”

He’d heard this speech a few times now; it was a familiar song and dance at this point. “Look, Isaac, it’s not that I don’t think you’re a good kid. You clearly are, you’re smart, got a good head on your shoulders, but that’s only gonna get you so far. It just feels like you’re barely present at all these days. You skip meetings, don’t check your email, you’re on your phone all the time. We’ve got people who have been here half as long, who make less money than you, and get twice the work done.” Reggie didn’t stop there; he had more to say, but Isaac never bothered responding. He had nothing to add, and few reasons to bother tuning in. 

He knew where this was going, had seen it coming; honestly, he was surprised it had taken this long. Part of him knew this should bother him a lot. He didn’t have a job anymore, and he certainly didn’t have any leads on a new one. Plus, he was terrible at buckling down and actually job hunting. He’d procrastinate, he’d fritter away his savings ‘til there was nothing left and he wound up taking some other job he hated, only this time with worse benefits and pay. 

Despite that, all he could react with was apathy. Isaac didn’t want this job. He didn’t want any job; he needed a job, but had no interest in actually doing one. The prospect of not going into work tomorrow or the day after sounded nice, it was just the other part that sucked. The needing money to not be out on the street part. Not that he could conceive of himself being in that position. His brain was just kind of telling him things would be fine. Not cause they would be, but because it couldn’t muster anything else. 

Isaac didn’t have the drive for panic or anxiety, same as he hadn’t had the drive to actually bother doing his job well, and wouldn’t have the drive to look for one at a reasonable pace. Trying hard just meant falling flatter when things finally blew up in his face, so why bother? It would be the same outcome as if he’d skidded by on minimal effort until the good will he’d built up early on was spent. Plus, he’d probably find a new job eventually. And if he didn’t, well, Isaac couldn’t really imagine that future, so he didn’t try to.

At least they let him go early with a full day’s pay, plus his severance pay and compensation for the paid time off he’d accrued amounted to another full month’s worth of pay. So it wasn’t like he’d really need to worry about it any time soon. He could take a few days off, even a week, then ease his way into it again. It would be fine, and if it wasn’t, then, well, it wasn’t. He gathered his things, and left his workplace for the last time, depositing his company ID and keycard at the front desk, not really bothering to acknowledge the receptionist or doorman on his way out into the chill air.

He paused, standing in the open air of the city center, surrounded by the bustle of the final lunch rush of the day. Speaking of which, this would have been his lunch hour, and he hadn’t eaten yet. Isaac liked to take his lunch later in the workday, so when he came back he’d be more than halfway done with the day. Not that he worked particularly hard either way. Isaac considered popping into a lunch spot and buying a sandwich or kebab or rice bowl or whatever struck his fancy, then reminded himself that this was not the time for frivolous spending. He went ahead and got the stupid sandwich anyway. He was hungry after all, and food was one of the few things he took genuine pleasure in. Sleeping was another one, friends too, but Isaac didn’t have many of those anymore. Regardless, the sandwich was fine. It sated his hunger. 

Already questioning the decision, he set off toward the train station, groaning as he checked the train schedule on his phone and realized he’d have to wait a full twenty minutes before the next train arrived—something he could have avoided if he’d just not bothered getting that stupid sandwich.  He really didn't feel like staring down at his phone screen for the next twenty minutes, but it wasn’t as though he was just going to fuck around in some shop for the duration. That was the sort of thing which would sidetrack him and cause even more delays. Just as he was about to descend into the station, his phone came to life, a call from Bea, his ex. He really wanted to ignore it. His thumb hit the answer button.

“Yes?” That came out ruder than intended, but hey, who ever wants to hear from their ex? Unless it was an amicable breakup, which it sort of was. But more because Bea wanted to break up, and Isaac didn’t have it in him to argue. She didn’t seem to like how easily he’d let her go, though. 

“Isaac, you’re on your break, right? I’m in your area, Can we meet? I want to talk.” Bea sounded worried, a little anxious, maybe sad. And it wasn’t that Isaac didn’t care, he did care about Bea. But also, he didn’t have it in him to deal with her. He had his own issues to struggle to process and properly respond too. Having an uncomfortable talk with the ex-girlfriend who wanted and deserved someone who could actually commit and be emotionally available wasn’t high on his list of priorities—which currently mostly included getting home and some kind of unspecified unwinding and pretending he didn’t live in a world that made him choose between either working a job he didn’t want or being utterly destitute.

“Not on break. Not on anything, I lost my job. They fired me.” Bea’s responding gasp suggested this was maybe something he should be a bit more bothered by, but that didn’t change anything. 

“Shit, I’m so sorry. Let me buy you a meal and we can talk this out, I know a few recruiters; even if they’re not hiring they can probably—” 

“It’s fine, Bea. I mean, I saw this coming a mile away. Honestly, I’m surprised I lasted this long, I wasn’t exactly a good employee.” It was true, none of the things his now ex-boss had told him were exactly inaccurate, they just weren’t really things Isaac could fix about himself. He wanted to be more driven, to be more responsible and passionate, but he wasn’t. Which was maybe for the best; this way he didn’t wind up looking like an idiot when he got knocked down all the same. Isaac might have been fired, but he was taking it with the grace of someone who knew he’d fucked up. Better that than fly too close to the sun and go down in flames.

“Aren’t you literally the person who regularly rails against employers for firing anyone for pretty much any reason? Aren’t you the person who thinks literally nobody should need to worry about having their basic needs met?” She wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t make the reality of the situation any different.

“I am that person, and I still think those things. But I’m also not naive; the people who sign my paychecks don’t see it that way. In their world of profit I’m a liability, I don’t blame them, the problem is systemic.” Just as he was about to launch into a lecture, Bea cut him off.

“For fuck’s sake, do you care about anything?” Bea was angry, and that was his fault, he knew that. And that, at the very least, made Isaac feel shitty. Bea might be an ex, but she had perfectly valid reasons for dumping him; he just hadn’t been a very good boyfriend and now he was just proving that all over again by getting completely hung up on the wrong thing. “Isaac.” Her voice broke his train of thought.

“I mean, I don’t care about things that will actually earn me a living wage.” That was a joke, sort of. It was true after all, and his flat deadpan gave no hint of humor. Not that people couldn’t come to expect deadpan from him. Isaac always said he put the dead in deadpan, because he was dead inside. People didn’t seem to like that one.

“Ugh, look. Things with you clearly aren’t fine. So come on, we’re getting lunch and figuring all this out.” Her tone had softened a little, but did nothing to make Isaac actually want to go. Something told him “this” included their relationship, and Isaac wasn’t interested in re-hashing that. Or hashing out the details of all the shit with his job, not yet anyway. He was tired. The most appealing sounding option was to go home and stare at his computer screen for seven to ten hours then fall asleep. 

“Ah, sorry. I have some plans; also my phone is about to die, so—”

“Isaac. You just got fired from your job. You don’t have plans, besides, I can literally see you right now.” He froze in place, trying to subtly scan the surrounding streets, before locking eyes with her across an intersection. She waved. He pretended not to see her. 

“Uh, that must be someone else?” He offered weakly, then hung up the phone and descended into the train station, hoping against hope that conversation had taken as long as it felt like it had. It hadn’t. The train was still fifteen minutes away. He glanced behind him up the stairs, and saw Bea round the corner and begin descending the stairwell. With few options, and a brain that wasn’t exactly behaving rationally, he scurried off away from the platform to a different exit.  Just as Isaac began climbing the stairs, he heard Bea calling after him. 

He picked up speed, taking the stairs two at a time, receiving many dirty looks from commuters and shoppers just trying to go about their day as he dashed and weaved through them. Reaching the open air, Isaac broke into a run; he couldn’t really explain why, he just wanted to get away. Away from Bea, away from the hard questions he was going to need to ask himself, away from nine to fives and private health insurance and cramped studio apartments for two grand a month. Without bothering to check the traffic lights or cross signal, Isaac bolted into the street, causing cars to come to screeching halts amidst a cacophony of blowing horns as he blew through their intersection on a green light. In the middle of a long stride, Isaac tripped over his own feet and nearly face planted. He just barely managed to recover in time to hear a loud, deep, blaring horn. Like an idiot, he glanced in the direction of the noise, as though he somehow couldn’t guess what was making it, and froze in fear.

A semi-truck was barreling toward him, too large, and with too much momentum to stop. What a semi was doing driving around this close to the city center, and how it had managed to gain that much speed were questions better saved for a later date. Instead, all Isaac seemed able to do was gape. He could see the driver clearly through the windshield, she was waving wildly at Isaac to get the fuck out of the way. And, as though he just needed a reminder of what to do, his brain kicked into gear, and he awkwardly threw himself across to the other side, avoiding certain death by a hair, then stumbled off into an alley as his entire body shook. 

Taking refuge behind a dumpster, Isaac sat heavily onto a wine-crate, and realized he was crying. Why did this all have to be so hard? He didn’t want to talk to Bea. Not about their relationship; she deserved someone who wasn’t a complete doormat, someone not constantly paralyzed by the threat of failure. Besides, he wasn’t even that good-looking; his body was weird and gangly and hairy in the wrong places. He’d never understood how anyone could be interested in anything he had to offer. He certainly wanted nothing to do with it, but he was playing the hand he was dealt. Unfortunately the game was rigged. He was fucked. Sure, yeah, he could burn away all his money trying to find a different job he hated, but then what? He’d just wind up fired again. How many times before people realized he wasn’t even worth hiring? Why couldn’t he just be allowed to live a dignified life without giving away the better part of his years to fill someone else’s pockets? 

He just wanted to go home, but no, not even home was enough. Home would be safe today, and tomorrow, and next month. But Isaac still had rent, had bills. Home didn’t protect him from the responsibilities he neither wanted nor asked for. It wasn’t like he’d had any choice in the matter of being born, and if he had he certainly wouldn’t have chosen to be, well, what he was. He’d be different somehow, he wasn’t sure how. But at the very least, he’d have made sure he wasn’t some weird-looking dude with a bad brain that didn't let him care about anything until he was crouched behind a dumpster on a wine-crate in an alleyway hiding from not only his ex-girlfriend, but the entire world.

Isaac’s phone started vibrating in his pocket again; that would certainly be Bea. Just as he fished it out, held it in front of the face, and was in the midst of reaching for the ‘reject call’ button, the air around him seemed to stretch and bend and compress and do a whole bunch of other things he couldn’t explain—he could have sworn it felt like the space he was occupying was getting turned inside out, but he couldn’t even conceive of what that actually meant—there was a tearing sound, then something akin to a popping noise, and suddenly his phone had no signal; also, he wasn’t in the alleyway anymore. He wasn’t even outside. Bewildered, he glanced up. 

Right away, it was clear that Isaac now found himself in someone’s home. He could see a kitchen, a bed, some tables and other generic furniture. All that seemed normal, but the room also looked like something off a fantasy movie set, with all kinds of old books and weird dried plants lining the shelves and hanging from the ceiling. There were symbols drawn all over the floor and walls, along with all manner of contraptions that just screamed ‘This is what people think of when they think of fantasy magic users,’ crystal balls and beakers and telescopes, that sort of thing.

Standing in the center of the room, surrounded by glowing runes etched into the wooden floor, was a young woman. She was tall-ish, for a woman anyway, about Isaac’s height, so around 5’9”. Her hair was short and black, but voluminous and dense, packed with loose, springy curls which reached about half way down her neck, it was almost akin to a curly-haired mullet, though a bit too overgrown in the front and sides to count.  Her bangs were just a little too long; they partially covered her eyes—which were an unnaturally deep brownish-green shade. It had the effect of giving her a slightly wild, unkempt look, but that seemed fit well with the rest of her. 

Her skin was an unfamiliar tone, almost grey and ashen colored, with just enough of a medium brown peeking through to keep her from looking downright otherworldly. Her arms, which were left bare by the tight black vest-like button up she wore, were covered in faintly glowing, intricate runic tattoos inked in an assortment of deep blues, purples, reds, blacks, and even ethereal, winding strands of silver. Taken as a whole, her getup was reminiscent of a sort of bohemian goth-witch style given an old-world makeover. 

She was adorned all manner of talismans, earrings and even a septum ring, all denoting different phases of the moon or animals, such as her crow-skull necklace and light, silvery circlet depicting a set of antlers which began just above her eyebrows—and, of course, originated from a crescent moon that made up the circlet’s centerpiece in the middle of her forehead—then branched off toward her temples. Her legs were covered by an odd, baggy garment colored a deep shade of burgundy that seemed to be a compromise between the sort of long, flowing robe one might expect of a fantasy witch, and a pair of loose fitting pants. Her plump lips were painted with a dark green, almost black lipstick that shone in the dim light. Within her hands, she held aloft the mortar half of a mortar and pestle. Beyond that, she also happened to be staring directly at Isaac, and appeared to be on the verge of tears.

SapphicSounds

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