But maybe... Maybe I’ll go outside. Mr. Minegold stopped by a couple of nights ago and gave me an entire folder full of things to do in town. October has Halloween things up the wazoo, some pumpkin festival, a Night Market that runs all year, all these little shops...
I sigh. I moved here because there’s literally no way to live in a city on what I make. Next year... Next year, I can get a raise. I have benefits now. I’m still eating what Mr. Wickstaff gave me. Expensive little boutiques aren’t going to work. I’m still on the “looking at budget recipes daily” setting of my life.
Hey, Doofus. You’re in the mountains of New York. You know, the place where rich people from the city come to hike and stare at trees? Go outside. Get some Vitamin D before you get scurvy or mess up your malaria.
Wait, not malaria.
What’s the thing where you can’t sleep because of being on a screen all the time? Melanoma?
No, melatonin! I am probably messing up mymelatoninbetween working weird shifts in different time zones and being on screens so much that my eyes are blurring.
So. Out I go. Phone in pocket. Water. A muffin and an apple from the basket. A map of trails that take you through thefoothills and lead all the way out to Ridgeview Peak, which is still technically part of the town, even though it looks like it’s really far away.
Oh, and a jacket. I put everything into my shoulder satchel and figure I’ll just start small and see if I like it.
I smile at the reflection in the hall mirror. Sometimes I do this, where I just stare for a minute and talk to my reflection. After all, I’m the only relative I’ve ever known. This face—aging, filling out, slimming down, growing stubble, sporting glasses—it’s the only face I’ve ever seen on a continual daily basis.
“Look, Arthur. We have our own place. No one can kick us out. We have our own wheels.” I jingle the keys I pick up from the hook next to the mirror. The car they belong to is a total junker, but it runs. “We live in the ‘burbs. We’re going to go hiking. See leaves and shit. Maybe deer! Ooh, raccoons.” I know it’s dumb, but I still give the reflection in the mirror a thumbs up. “We’re gonna make it. I’m gonna take care of you. I’m even exercising so you don’t turn into a lard ass.” I wink and have to chuckle. I’m the skinny drip, no matter what I do, and probably always will be, but it’s fun to pretend I’m doing this for my health instead of because I’m too broke to do something else.
“OH. OH, MY GOD. I THOUGHTthin people were in good shape.” I collapse after an hour of hiking, sweating and blistered. Well, maybe not blistered, but definitely sore. My worn sneakers are great for grocery store runs and the occasional coffee run, but they arenothiking shoes. In fact, I think I’m supposed to have boots for this sort of thing. I look up at the foothills and then at the distant point of Ridgeview Peak, still green and covered in pines. Down lower, there are lots of reds and yellows of changing leaves.
If I’ve got to be exhausted and a complete failure as an athlete, at least this is a pretty place to do it in.
I could even eat my muffin and use my satchel as a pillow, lie back, and watch the clouds in an October sky. Rest my feet.
Relax after my fourteen-hour shift.
Geez, and I was up before that. I sit down in a grassy spot beside one of the trails that is supposed to take me all the way up to Ridgeview Peak—where I will not be going. I finish my muffin and a few sips of water before sighing and snuggling back in the cool grass under a bright blue sky.
How many hours have I been up?
I don’t know, but I fall asleep trying to figure it out, and dream of maniacal robots making lactose-intolerant people cry by promising them lasagna and then taking it away, hiding all the good food in walls of swirling code.
When I wake up, it’s dark, much colder, and the crying from my dream has carried over into the waking world. I sit up with a gasp, panicked and confused about where I am for a few minutes, and then even more confused that the crying in my dream has morphed from angry wails of the pasta-deprived to tiny, helpless whimpers and muffled sobs.
Like a baby’s cries.
“Baby?” I call.
Like that’s going to help. I crouch, then stand. “Hello? Hey! Is someone there?”
No one answers, unless you count the crying as a reply. It’s getting louder, as if the owner is trying to respond to my voice. “Baby?” I shout again.
There’s no one else on the path. No hikers. No joggers.
“Isn’t there a bird that cries like a baby? Or is that a bobcat?”
Great time to have been raised in inner city Baltimore. The only nature I know is crabs and the sea life I got to see in my annual trip to the aquarium. I could be walking towardssomething that poops on my shirt, or something that eats me alive and licks its whiskers over my corpse.
“Third option. Baby. Maybe baby and mom!” I start to jog, ignoring the pain in my inadequately shod feet. I’m picturing all kinds of things. Maybe a mom who tripped and hit her head. Or broke her ankle. The poor baby, screaming for help as it’s strapped to her in a backpack.
Maybe I’ll be a hero. Maybe it’s a single mom.
I’m so disgusted with myself for imagining that. I’m lonely, and it’s always cooler to play the hero when the hero might get a shot at saving the woman of his dreams.
I don’t have time to think about that now. I’m busy pushing into the treeline, phone flashlight on, whispering and shouting in turns. My stomach is on red alert. I keep scanning the ground for bobcats and the trees for birds.
I was peering at a suspicious shadow when I tripped on her.
