Inconsiderate pricks

You encounter a lot of them on the train here. People from every walk of life, from every culture, each with a different worldview all come down to the subway and suddenly they all start acting like it’s demolition derby and whoever knocks the most people into the tracks gets a million Proj. The sweetest old lady topside turns into a mean old bat the moment she hears “The E train is now arriving” like some kind of magic spell.

Like the first week I was here, I’d just moved to Dorovec and getting used to everything, and half the journey some jackass with a wireless speaker thinks he’s the train’s DJ and starts blasting so loud I missed the announcement for North Downtown and I had to ride another fifteen minutes in the opposite train. To add insult to injury, as I stepped onto the platform some elf with the biggest backpack I’ve seen in my life swings around and smacks me straight into next week. No spatial awareness. Plus, I’m convinced that backpack was full of bricks because that sonuvabitch hurt.

My mother was against me coming up here. She kept telling me about how Dorovec will smell smoggy everywhere and how much better it would be to stay in Andeija. When she found out I got a plane ticket and was packing my bags, she tried hiding my passport and started guilt tripping me about who’s gonna take care of her at her old age and what will the neighbors think and all that. But after the last fight about what a disappointment I was and how I should have become a lawyer or a businessfey like a proper faerie lady, I just took whatever crappy job I could find in Dorovec and hightailed it out of there.

That first smog-filled breath of air stepping out of the airport was the sweetest air I’ve ever breathed in my life.

And you know, even though there’s all this smog and stuff and I kinda hate my job, there’s still some pretty neat things about Dorovec other than the absence of my mother. My first day working here, I’d barely sat down in my chair for the first time when Dalos, my old cubicle-mate, pulled out this big box full of specialty teas from his desk drawer and invited me to try any ones I like. My favorite was this blooming tea where you put it in the teapot and it would bloom into this flower as it brewed, and if you have a clear teapot you could watch it unravel and diffuse tea into the water. It’s really quite mesmerizing.

Since he had so much tea, every day we’d rotate between all the different kinds he had, and every few weeks he’d bring in new ones to try. It’s nice having someone sip tea with you while trying to keep sane copying numbers into a spreadsheet day in and day out. There’s this guy who hangs out in the break room quite often called Vostin, and he’s convinced everyone on our team is redundant anyway and we’re all wasting our effort. He’s supposed to be this savant at programming or something, and he’s always going on about some stupid algorithm for some side project he’s working on. Supposedly he started working on an app to automate some of his work, but when the Boss caught wind of it, he was forced to stop because of some “bureaucratic data compliance nonsense,” end quote.

As much as I hate to side with Avalia on anything, I’m glad he’s not allowed to just automate me out of a job. That’s the problem with all these techy folks― they’re always going on and on about algorithms or RAM or memory, and at the end of the day they don’t even stop to think about whether they’re damning everyone they know to unemployment.

Anyway, at some point I started bringing snacks to have with tea, like biscuits and stuff. After a month here, I chanced upon a cute little bakery run by an old couple not too far from the office. I’d never been in a human bakery before, but I saw this sign posted outside offering to shrink anything down to normal size for a few Proj extra using a talisman. If you get the chance to swing by, they’re on Eighth and Grove in the basement level beneath the Snackoo Mart. It’s easy to miss unless you’re paying attention, but I’ve always got my eye out for sweets.

But now when I have a certain combination of tea and sweets, I remember stuff from days when I’d had that combination before. Silver needle white tea and almond cakes was when I started reading Into the Garden, which I bought at a used bookstore in North Downtown. I’d never read any of the Blue Sky books before, but Gjarszan’s sci-fi work is supposed to be a big deal so I thought I’d give it a go. Everyone’s surprised when I tell them I’ve never seen the seemingly infinite movie adaptations, but I was never one for movies anyway. Books are convenient. You hop on the train and you start reading, put a bookmark in when you’re getting off, and you’re right back where you left off the next time you’re on the train. Try watching a two hour movie while riding the train using a dinky little screen. Not happening.

Peach tea and mint patties were when I learned what the closet labelled “sleeping bags” by the break room was for. It was a couple weeks before the end of the quarter and we all had to have our spreadsheets completed for Biz Dev or whatever. I was just getting ready to go home as usual when Dalos asked me what the heck I was doing.

“Well, it’s 8, right? I wanna watch the new Golem Whisperer episode when I get home.” “Didn’t you see the Boss’ memo? She’d have your head if she catches you leaving during crunch time.” “What are you talking about? She always leaves at 8, and then everyone goes home. The last episode had this really big cliffhanger too!” “Ah… I forgot this is your first crunch time. Avalia doesn’t leave until all the data and reports are submitted, so we’re all pretty much stuck here until the quarter ends. Extra-strength soykaf and Nutribricks are in the break room, and you’d better get one of the good sleeping bags while you still can.” “So what, are we just supposed to sleep in the office until morning and go straight to working?” “Yep.” “Fuck.”

[TODO: have another snack tea combination for this bit] Dalos liked to explain all these things about the best way to make tea and boil water and where all the different teas he had came from, and to be honest I can’t remember half of what he was saying. [TODO: Talk about empathy here]

I’ve gotten pretty used to the smog by now, which is way worse in Dwarf Quarter where I live than it is Downtown. I remember last February when the aeromancers at City Sanitation went on strike, Dalos, also a crippling asthmatic, stumbled out of the elevator hacking up a lung, slumped into his chair, and turned to me all pale-faced like he’d seen the horrors of war. Then he says, “You ever miss home?”