One Star
content warning: this story depicts threats of sexual assault and violence
✩ ⁛ ~ ♡~ ⁛ ✩──Tuesday──✩ ⁛ ~ ♡~ ⁛ ✩
1 lb skinless boneless chicken thighs, 1 jar medium salsa, 1 8oz package cream cheese, 2 liter diet cola, 1 package sandwich cookies, 1 20ct box frozen mini pizza bagels, 1 gallon vanilla ice cream, 1 bottle bismuth antidiarrheal.
The sandwich cookies were sold out, so Zoe substituted – the same cookie, just a different brand.
In the car, she tore off her headphones and switched the audio on her phone to the car stereo.
The rentier state is a state of parasitic, decaying capitalism, and this circumstance cannot – [Turn Right onto Second Avenue] – this circumstance cannot fail to influence all the socio-political conditions of the countries concerned – [In 200 Feet, Turn Left onto East 11th Street. Destination Will Be on Right].
Two flights of stairs. Apartment 3-A. Zoe knocked and left the paper bags of groceries by the door.
On her way down the stairs, after marking the delivery as Completed, she checked her messages, ignoring notifications from four different apps except for a new message from Kitty, which she opened.
⸸†. kitty .†⸸
my date canceled you should come overrr
tonight
please please
Pausing on the landing between floors, Zoe responded:
Zoe ♥☭☾
I have to work
sorry, loser
Back in the car, she checked the MagiCart app for her next order. The customer upstairs had already left a review.
Idiot bought the wrong cookies. ✩ (1 out of 5 stars)
Unsurprisingly, there was no tip.
“Nice,” said Zoe out loud. “Fucking awesome.”
Another message from Kitty:
⸸†. kitty .†⸸
work? You mean writing? its not work if you don’t get paid
you can write at my place i just don’t want to be alone tonight seriously
pleeease
Zoe ♥☭☾
get alcohol
Next order.
1 bunch bananas, 1 all-natural rotisserie chicken, 1 12-pack black cherry selzer water, 1 box large condoms, 2 large bags fun-sized chocolate caramel bars, 1 roll electrical tape.
✩ ⁛ ~ ♡~ ⁛ ✩
Zoe completed her last order at 7:21pm, returned home to shower and change clothes and pick up her computer, arriving at Kitty’s apartment wearing sweatpants at 8:09.
As promised, Kitty had purchased a case of peach-flavored alcoholic selzer water. They each opened one and drank while picking over the day-old Chinese takeout from Kitty’s fridge.
“What does that mean?” said Kitty, her mouth full of half-chewed orange chicken. “The one star review.”
“It’s the second time in a couple weeks. If I get another one star review my average will dip below four stars. Then I’m fucked.”
“You can always do a different app, right?”
It was true. Besides MagiCart there was TaskPhantom, iServe, and a host of others. It was not unusual for workers to float from one service to another as a result of arbitrary firings, but as much as Zoe despised MagiCart it was the highest-paying gig, in addition to being the most popular, which made it possible to find a constant stream of work at almost any time of day or night, allowing Zoe to work as many hours as she needed in a given week.
“I could always go back to grad school,” she said, baring her teeth in an unpleasant smile, then added ironically, “Nice glitter makeup.”
“You’re so sweet,” said Kitty, fluttering her eyelashes coquettishly. “This is why you need to move in with me, so I can get that kind of validation all the time.”
“It would save so much money. You know that if I had to pick a roommate it would be you. But I just have to live by myself.”
Kitty covered her mouth and belched. “I understand,” she said, quickly banishing this and all other topics with a wave of her hand. “I have to do some work now. Thank you for coming. You know I hate filming when I’m all alone.”
Kitty stood up and leaned over Zoe, who was still sitting at the barstool in the kitchen, and hugged her tightly. Then she disappeared into her bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar. Zoe pushed aside the takeout boxes and set up her laptop computer on the kitchen island. Opening another alcoholic selzer, she started typing:
Why is thinking better than not thinking? Thought is its own justification. It falls in love with itself and demands more and more of itself, even while also desiring to flee from itself and then back into itself.
“What’s wrong, Daddy? Don’t you like my new panties?”
Zoe rubbed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She began digging through her backpack for a pair of headphones.
“I got them just for you, Daddy. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell anyone...”
In another moment, Kitty’s voice vanished beneath the buzz of synthesizer and drum machine, and Zoe kept writing.
But our thought is not merely self-indulgent, circular, mystic ruminations, the type of thought whose object is only itself. This kind of thought is increasingly impossible in our world, except for those rich enough to buy the time, the space, and the solace for reflection – though if you’re that rich, your mind is most likely stunted beyond repair by the ideology of your class, and so perhaps you may build a perfectly comfortable and private mind palace for yourself, but such palaces are like vulgar suburban mansions, symbols of money, cut off from human tradition, divorced from suffering and struggle and the beauty that is born from it ...
Zoe stopped and re-read what she had written. She was getting side-tracked, as usual. A notification popped up on her phone.
Blaise
hey
what are you doing tonight
Zoe sighed and chewed her lip and stared at her phone.
♡ * ♂♀ * ♡ ──Wednesday── ♡ * ♂♀ * ♡
“Did you get any writing done?”
“Not really. I got distracted. Blaise started texting me.”
“Oh my god. Seattle boy?”
“He actually lives in Coeur d’Alene now.”
“That is sad.”
“Um, your boyfriend lives in LA. That’s even farther away.”
“At least it’s not Ohio.”
“Coeur d’Alene is in Idaho.”
“Yikes.”
They were at the coffee shop, drinking iced coffee from plastic cups.
“I’m getting my refill today,” said Zoe. “Do you want any?”
“Yes please, I just got paid. Did you see my pictures on Image?”
In Kitty’s tiny bedroom there was only enough space for the bed. Draped in a pink mesh canopy, the white bedspread covered with stuffed animals, Kitty sat on top of it in pink lace lingerie, her brown hair in pigtails, her face done up with pink blush and glitter, posing and smooching at the camera installed on the shelf.
Explicit videos and pictures cost money, but she posted samples like this for free on her ImageWire profile.
Zoe found the pictures and hit the “Like” button.
Zoe didn’t have a tripod or a wall-mounted camera like Kitty. She took pictures of herself with a mirror, or just by holding out her camera. Fishnets and a baggy black sweater, straight black hair. Heavy, sharp cat-eye eyeliner. That was her most recent photo – it was getting quite a lot of attention. As a result, private messages were piling up, but Zoe hadn’t had the energy to look at them yet.
“Hot,” said Zoe appreciatively. “Sorry I made fun of your makeup. It looks good in the photo.”
“Thank you.”
“Come with me to the pharmacy.”
Kitty’s gutteral groan was two octaves lower than her speaking voice. “Fine,” she said.
~ ♡ * ♂♀ * ♡ ~
100 tablets of amphetamine, 20mg, prescribed for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Zoe parceled out 10 tablets to Kitty, who sent her money through the mobile app PayMe.
“By the way,” said Kitty when Zoe brought her back to her place. “I’m seeing a guy tonight to get the acid. Or maybe tomorrow. So we’re still on for Friday, right?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“Okay great. Bye, sweetie!” said Kitty, climbing out of the car. “Text me later.”
~ ♡ * ♂♀ * ♡ ~
satanic cabbage
hey
Zoe ♥☭☾
Hi.
satanic cabbage
do u do live shows
Zoe ♥☭☾
No just pics. I have sets – Semi-nude $15, nude $25, cat girl and other outfits $30
satanic cabbage
lol i can get pictures for free
Zoe ♥☭☾
okay? good luck with that then.
satanic cabbage
fuckin whore
~ ♡ * ♂♀ * ♡ ~
Though most of Zoe’s comments and direct messages were compliments or fawning, desperate propositions, ugly messages were also typical. Zoe saved the best ones in a special note file on her phone titled “Death Threats.” One day, perhaps, she’d do something with them – turn them into a poem, or a t-shirt, something like that. For now, she just collected them. They were not badges of honor, and though they were funny and creepy she didn’t save them as a joke either – they were more like spirits that she’d captured in a crystal ball. One day, perhaps, she’d do something with them, set them free or harness them for her own purposes. For now, she just collected them:
✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿ ⁛ ✿
your time is coming soon commie cunt you will be in front of a firing squad with all the rest
✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩:::✩
Keep posting this liberal communist trash and showing off your body like a whore. See what happens.
⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆♡⋆
FUCK u femnist jew bitch u should be raped n shot
☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺✧☺
You think you’re entitled to free money just because you’re a woman? Why don’t you get a real job. You are a disgusting human being and one day soon you will be raped. That’s a promise.
✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩♥✩
Sometimes Zoe wondered who these people were, the people who sent her such messages. She wondered if she had ever delivered groceries to one of them.
~ ♡ * ♂♀ * ♡ ~
1 12oz bag Vienna roast premium coffee beans, 1 1⁄2 gallon rice milk, 4 red delicious apples, 2 avocadoes, 2 boxes frozen General Tso’s chicken dinner with fried rice, 1 5lb bag cat litter, 1 large package recycled toilet paper
~ ♡ * ♂♀ * ♡ ~
Sophie. Oh my god, like, for real. That is not dialectical.
Natasza. Yeah, her entire critique is framed in moral terms. It’s completely ahistorical.
Sophie. I mean, yes, and that’s typical of bourgeois feminism, but what gets me about this is that she calls herself a Marxist when she has zero understanding of materialism.
Zoe was taking a lunch break, sipping a Demonic energy drink (Medusa flavor) and listening to her favorite podcast while she leaned against her car and stared into the dark water of the canal. A message appeared on her phone.
Blaise
hey
Zoe sighed and pretended like she hadn’t seen it. She opened ImageWire and began scrolling through her feed. Someone she followed, a guy named Adam who was working on a PhD in philosophy, had posted a picture of himself for the first time. Usually he posted surreal memes and short, ironic remarks about politics and culture, which Zoe always thought were quite smart. But now she knew what he looked like.
She sent the picture to Kitty.
⸸†. kitty .†⸸
nice nice
friend of yours?
Zoe ♥☭☾
Not really, just a guy from Image
he’s so fucking hot though
I would let him piss in my mouth
⸸†. kitty .†⸸
lol your disgusting
you’re *
...me 2 though
Zoe finished her drink, crushed the aluminum can, and tossed it through the window onto the backseat floor of the car.
Natasza. ...well what do you expect? You’re in a dying empire on a dying planet.
Sophie. Yeah stop being such a pussy.
Zoe got back in the car, opened the MagiCart app, and got back to work.
~ ♡ * ♂♀ * ♡ ~
The following items were the major noticeable features of Zoe’s studio apartment:
1. A pyramid of empty Demonic energy drink cans.
2. An antique full-length mirror with a black blemish in one corner of the glass.
3. A mattress on the floor, the unmade sheet and blanket bunched up and pushed to the side.
4. A writing desk littered with loose pieces of paper, colorful sticky notes, a few books, pens, energy drink cans, and an architect lamp.
5. An old swivel office chair, its foam stuffing protruding from a rip in the side of the seat cushion, pushed up against the desk.
6. Disordered piles of books everywhere on the hardwood floor.
7. A steel clothing rack next to a half-full hamper of dirty laundry.
8. A set of plastic drawers filled with makeup, cosmetics, underwear, and other assorted items.
9. A kitchenette with a refrigerator, microwave, and stovetop.
Despite the seemingly disorganized and provisional nature of the apartment, the floor, kitchen, and bathroom were always kept mostly clean.
When Zoe was too tired and hungry to keep working, she came home to her apartment, turned on the overhead lights, stripped off her clothes, showered, put on some socks and a clean oversized t-shirt, then microwaved a container of frozen curry.
Zoe ate her dinner while sitting on her mattress and watching the first 37 minutes of Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend on her laptop computer. Afterward, she took some amphetamine, opened a can of Demonic energy drink (Medusa flavor) and started writing.
~ ♡ * ♂♀ * ♡ ~
Thought is impossible without the conditions of thought. And it is the conditions of thought which we are being deprived of.
The Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori developed the concept of the “uncanny valley” to explain the horror we feel toward highly realistic simulacra of human beings. Our emotional response is positively correlated with the human-like appearance of robots, but only up to a certain point. Too realistic, and suddenly we become disturbed, creeped out, disgusted. Represented visually, this sudden dip in our emotional response is the “valley” of the uncanny simulacrum.
We are experiencing this phenomenon of the uncanny valley, but in reverse, and not with regards to representations of humans but to human experience itself.
We are becoming simulacra, shells of human beings. But we’re not quite there yet. Or perhaps we slip in and out of it, slip in and out of being human and being something else – machines, images, artificial intelligence. Sometimes, perhaps even most of the time now, we are completely flat, like characters from cartoons or memes, and in this inhuman flatness there is little awareness of what’s been lost.
But sometimes we experience a sudden shock of recognition as we remember what we once were, and understand what we’re becoming.
Science fiction about artificial intelligence is not really about artificial intelligence. Ghost in the Shell shows the emergence of rogue consciousness from machines. The reason why we write such stories, and are obsessed with them, is because we have already become machines – some of us completely, others only halfway. And we want consciousness to emerge. We want freedom to emerge. And sometimes it does, in unexpected ways, in unexpected places, the same way that grass and dandelions sprout up through the cracks in the pavement of parking lots and sidewalks. But this is not enough. We want to smash up the concrete and the strip malls entirely, and let new gardens and meadows bloom in the ruins.
But sometimes I’m afraid that love isn’t possible anymore. That’s the theme of every dystopian novel, the old ones. They all imagine a society in which love has become impossible. And despite everything else that might be ugly, unjust, restrictive – it’s this, this impossibility of love, which is the worst thing, because it strikes at the heart of what makes us human.
I don’t want to exaggerate. But if I’m being honest with myself, this is how I feel sometimes and I know I’m not alone in this. We can feel desire of different kinds, desire for sex and status, the physical and the psycho-social gratification of mating with the right kind of person. These are natural, libidinal impulses, and I’m not trying to moralize about them. They’re necessary but insufficient for love. By themselves they’re just desire, maybe infatuation. But where is love?
Most days I feel too hollowed out to experience love. It’s not just that I’m exhausted, it’s not just that I’m so disgusted by my environment and my job that to survive I have to constantly distract myself from what’s around me. It’s these things, but its more, its something else. Maybe its the lack of sleep or the isolation, maybe the knowledge that capitalism is destroying the conditions of life on earth and human civilization may not last until the end of this century. I guess it’s all of these things. But everything feels hollowed out. I’m hollowed out. Each thing I see and touch is hollow. Nothing means anything. And there are days when no drug, no amount of seratonin, can replace what’s missing. Because what’s missing isn’t seratonin, it’s not something in my brain like medical science will try to tell you. What’s missing is in the world. What’s missing is in history and in the environment. Alienation can’t be treated with drugs. All you can do is sedate people, tranquilize them, make them shut up and stop complaining and get back to work. But you can’t give people hope. And you can’t make people fall in love.
And when sometimes I wake up from this trance I’ve been put in, this trance of survival, moving and working automatically, doing my laundry, eating, bathing, shaving my legs, working, sleeping, moving from point to point like a drone, when I finally wake up from this trance in which I shut out the vulgarity and emptiness of this world, when I finally wake up and experience a moment of tenderness, because of a piece of music or a memory or a glimpse of something beautiful, I can’t enjoy it, because I only experience it nostalgically, and I am overwhelmed by an immense grief, because this feeling is something I used to have access to and now only comes to me in these fragments which are already lost.
Even in this brief moment of humanity I’m alienated from myself, alienated from my own emotion and my own experience, which comes to me like something already lost, already compromised.
How am I supposed to love someone like this?
⋆ ♥ ⋆ ☭ ⋆ ♥ ⋆──Thursday──⋆ ♥ ⋆ ☭ ⋆ ♥ ⋆
⸸†. kitty .†⸸
i got the shiiiiit
ready for tomorrow now
Zoe ♥☭☾
enough for both of us?
⸸†. kitty .†⸸
oh yeah we’re gonna trip balls
I’ll come to your place in the morning
and then we’ll get drinks and stuff and go to the spot
Zoe ♥☭☾
okay trying to make some money today
also I was up last night writing and I’m behind on my sleep
so I might want to sleep in tomorrow
⸸†. kitty .†⸸
lol yeah when I said morning I didn’t mean before noon
no worries babe
⋆ ♥⋆ ☭ ⋆♥ ⋆
4 avocadoes, 1 bunch bananas, 1 box Merlot, 1 box frozen waffles, 1 roll recycled toilet paper, 1 jar aspirin, 1 dozen organic large eggs
1 bag plain bagels, 1 8oz container cream cheese, 1 tropical fruit scented candle, 1 large bag dog food
1 cucumber, 1 12oz bag organic barley, 1 12oz package shiitake mushrooms, 1 nail clipper, 1 jar poultry seasoning, 1 container anchovy paste, 1 12oz box raisins
⋆ ♥⋆ ☭ ⋆♥ ⋆
Zoe used to “like” most of Adam’s posts on ImageWire. She liked them, so she “liked” them. Now she felt uncomfortable doing so. On her lunch break she scrolled past his posts, cool, aloof, and did not interact.
⋆ ♥⋆ ☭ ⋆♥ ⋆
Raúl
Hey you’re coming to the meeting on Sunday right?
Zoe ♥☭☾
Yep I’ll be there
need me to bring anything?
Raúl
Great
No, that’s alright
Can I ask you a favor though?
Zoe ♥☭☾
What’s up
Raúl
If I send you a list of names and phone numbers for drivers could you make some
contacts for us?
We want to get a lot of people in the door for this one
We are going to talk about going public with the union
Zoe ♥☭☾
Yeah I can do it
send me the info
Raúl
You’re awesome, Zoe!
⋆ ♥⋆ ☭ ⋆♥ ⋆
Hey, you drive for MagiCart right? I’m also a driver! A few of us have started a group to talk about problems with the company and how we might make things better. We’re meeting on Sunday night and we would really like your input. Can you make it?
Hey, you drive for MagiCart right? I’m also a driver! A few of us have started a group to talk about problems with the company and how we might make things better. We’re meeting on Sunday night and we would really like your input. Can you make it?
Hey, you drive for MagiCart right? I’m also a driver! A few of us have started a group to talk about problems with the company and how we might make things better. We’re meeting on Sunday night and we would really like your input. Can you make it?
⋆ ♥⋆ ☭ ⋆♥ ⋆
1 pound applesauce, 1 16oz jar California olive oil, 2 cases selzer water, 1 8oz package Swiss cheese, 1 8oz package sliced roast beef, 1 loaf white bread, 1 jar brown mustard
2 cases Demonic energy drink (Ice Troll flavor), 2 bags cheese puffs, 1 loaf white bread, 1 18-pack all-beef hot dogs
1 large chocolate cake
⋆ ♥⋆ ☭ ⋆♥ ⋆
Szabolcs Guth. Yes, and that is precisely why...
Sophie. But how can you tell people things are hopeless? Isn’t that exactly how they want us to feel?
Szabolcs Guth. No, no. Quite the opposite. I will explain it to you. Because there are two kinds of hopelessness. There is the apathetic kind, as you say, in which we surrender to the forces of history because we think that we do not have the power to change anything.
And then there is a different kind of hopelessness, a revolutionary hopelessness. And this is the realization that yes, maybe we are all screwed, but precisely because we are screwed, we must now stop hoping for things to change, and instead go and really do it. Because as a society, we are in an absolute state of emergency. Hoping for better days at this point is conservative. We must act, now.
⋆ ♥⋆ ☭ ⋆♥ ⋆
1 raspberry cheesecake, 1 bouquet flowers, 1 bottle Chablis.
Zoe had the other items, and was just picking out the wine. Squatting to get the Chablis from the bottom shelf, she became suddenly conscious of the sensation of her bare skin. The plastic grocery basket, its metal handle looped around her elbow, was touching the flesh of her upper thigh, which should have been covered by clothes.
Zoe looked down. Aside from socks, shoes, and a pair of black lace underwear, she was completely nude. Goosebumps broke out on her arms and legs. How could this have happened? How could she have forgotten to put on clothes? A dim memory took shape in her mind, of having gotten undressed to take pictures. Afterward she must have neglected to change back into her work clothes before going out for another delivery. Zoe touched her head. Sure enough, she was wearing a cat ear headband.
There was nothing for it. She had to finish the order, get out of the supermarket, and find some clothes. She grabbed the Chablis, put it in the basket with the other items, and rose to her feet.
For whatever reason, the other patrons of the supermarket didn’t seem to notice or care that Zoe was practically naked. She passed by several people who were all too engrossed in shopping to pay her any attention. Perhaps it wasn’t too unusual after all, in those days, for a girl with cat ears to go grocery shopping in the nude.
She had almost made it to the checkout counter when she saw him. Near the checkout, the supermarket bakery opened up onto a stylish café where writers and bohemians sipped coffee, writing in moleskin journals or typing on laptop computers. He was there, sitting at one of the tables, wearing a tweed jacket – Adam, the intensely attractive philosophy guy whose picture Zoe had just seen for the first time earlier that day.
He was conversing with the notorious iconoclastic social theorist Szabolcs Guth, one of the most controversial and famous academic celebrities in the world. What was especially odd was that, if Zoe remembered correctly, Guth, then in his seventies, had died of stomach cancer just two months previously. But there he was, wearing one of the cheap hooded sweatshirts he was known to wear late in life, scratching his flabby, scruffy chin, and talking about Mao.
Zoe didn’t know what to do. She wanted to meet Adam. She wanted to meet Szabolcs Guth. She wanted nothing more than to sit with them, order a coffee, listen, talk, make jokes, throw in passing references to international cinema and revolutionary history which would earn her knowing smiles and nods.
Zoe wanted to sit with them, but she was in the middle of work. And, what’s more, she was almost completely naked. But when would this chance come again?
A message appeared on Zoe’s phone. Large, bright red letters:
Where’s my order? You’re late. I need my things.
Zoe ignored it. She could finish the order later. She set the shopping basket down by a shelf of muffins and cookies and stepped into the café.
Folding her arms modestly over her breasts, she approached the table.
“Do you mind if I sit down?”
Adam looked at her quizzically. “Do I know you?” he said.
“Yes, kind of,” said Zoe. “We’re friends on ImageWire.”
Adam was still squinting at her uncertainly, as if he were trying to remember something. Szabolcs Guth chuckled knowingly and scratched his chin.
Zoe’s phone buzzed loudly, vibrating in her hand. The red letters flashed on the screen:
Can you please hurry? What is going on?
“These social media companies, like ImageWire and so on,” said Guth in his thick central European accent. “What is going to happen when they decide Communists are not allowed to use the app anymore? Where will you go? How will you communicate?”
“That’s not going to happen,” said Zoe. She was flustered, but this was her chance to say something. Suddenly remembering her cat ears, she pulled the headband off before continuing.
“What do you mean?” asked Guth.
“They want us using apps like ImageWire. They want us distracted all day. They want to control everything we see. And they want to listen to everything we say. They’ll never kick us off.”
Adam licked his lips, cocked his head even further to the side.
“Do I know you?”
Zoe was trembling. It was uncomfortably cold in the café. “Could I just sit down for a minute?” she said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with one finger. “I could really use some coffee.”
Her phone buzzed again, louder and more intensely than before. She tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t stop vibrating until she looked at the message.
HURRY UP.
At last, Adam turned away, and as he turned his face from her he seemed to grow farther and farther away, fading, disappearing, as the color drained from the café and everything seemed to become detached from everything else.
“Wait,” said Zoe feebly. She was crying now. Szabolcs Guth looked away in embarassment. Another message on Zoe’s phone:
Are you a fucking idiot? I WANT MY THINGS.
Zoe stared at the flaming red message in her hand, and in a sudden access of rage she screamed: “You want it that bad, huh? FUCKING GET IT YOURSELF!”
Zoe hurled her phone against the wall, and like a crystal glass it shattered into a thousand pieces.
✩⸙ ⋆ ☾ ⋆⸙✩ ──Friday──✩⸙⋆ ☽ ⋆ ⸙✩
Kitty arrived at Zoe’s apartment at 12:49 PM. They went together to the coffee shop, ordered iced coffees in plastic cups, then stopped by the bodega to purchase sports drinks and a bag of pretzels.
While Zoe drove them to the appointed place, Kitty placed a tab of acid under her tongue, then reached across, instructing Zoe to open her mouth, and placed a tab under Zoe’s tongue.
Zoe parked her car in the parking lot of the abandoned Toys Galore supercenter. The store, a huge windowless concrete square, was covered in graffiti. Grass and dandelions sprouted up everywhere through the fissures in the sun-bleached parking lot. Cicadas hissed desperately in the bushes. There was no one else around. Zoe shut off her phone and placed it in the glovebox of the car.
Zoe and Kitty tripped on acid (Lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD), wandering around the parking lot, peering in through the windows of the abandoned Toys Galore supercenter, admiring the graffiti, listening to music on the car stereo, forgetting and then remembering that they had sports drinks in the car.
Zoe brought her notebook and a pen, but couldn’t manage to write anything down.
At a certain point, Kitty broke the silence, and said: “Do you think there’s going to be a revolution in our lifetime?”
And Zoe replied: “No.”
Kitty: “Then why...”
“Because,” said Zoe. “I just...fucking hate...”
“What?”
“All of it. Everything. It’s only beautiful when it’s destroyed, like this stupid store...How am I not supposed to want to destroy it all?”
Some time later, Kitty said: “We’re surviving. That’s what counts. I think you’re right. Maybe things will get much worse. But the fact we made it this far has got to count for something, right?”
█ █ █ █ █ ── Saturday ── █ █ █ █ █
The first of the month was coming up in three days. Zoe wrote out her rent check and made her student loan payment online.
She checked the MagiCart app for the first time since the day before yesterday. Another one star review.
Zoe went to the TaskPhantom website and began filling out an application.
Reuben Dendinger
Reuben Dendinger is a writer and educator based in New York City. His writing has appeared in The Baffler and Protean Magazine.