I Don't Have Time For This

I have five minutes. Just five minutes. Two to find what I need, two to ring up at self checkout. And one as a buffer. That’s enough time, right? I turn a corner. 

Blood.

It was actively dripping as she held her hand tightly to her stomach. Active shooter? And were they still active or had they already left? The other question was would she live without some hospitable interference from every member of the audience. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the time for it right now. And besides, I’m not medically certified in anything at all. Other people had cell phones I’m sure, and I wasn’t the first on the scene, judging by the commotion in the background. Could I conjure up the perfect co-morbidities of feigned visual impairment and plain rudeness (the first opening up the stage for public forgiveness -- or at least general, societal tolerance-- of the second) to pass by unnoticed? Customer entitlement was calling my name. The same siren that called me across busy streets without so much as a glance or a crosswalk to guide me in these frigid temperatures. Pedestrian privilege by a different name. Just this morning I passed by what looked like a terrible, possibly fatal traffic accident. Only I couldn’t quite tell just how bad, I was driving at about five miles above my usual twenty miles over speed limit. Before I could fully get into character for the alleged business call I was theatrically elbowing out of my handbag, the teen lifted her hand away. So she wasn’t shot in the stomach. She was however nursing a pretty badly sliced pinky finger. I was picking up off the floor the receipts and cough drop wrappers that had fallen out of my purse onto a rather unfazed carpet. The leopard spots of her bloodshed were becoming smaller and smaller as they settled into the dusty blue ground, and the dark stains seemed to lighten and change hue ever so slightly to match with the un-leveled vastness that stretches from aisle to aisle. This layout has stayed the same since I was a teenager. Pubescent clouds of my over-productive dandruff probably still circulate in these airless ceiling vents, waiting for a fresh batch of my dead skin cells to waft upwards and reminisce. I could actually feel my head being pulled upwards. Soon it would pop.

I wake up on the floor. Someone has a cellphone and is on an actual call, looking at me. Someone is holding an opened water bottle but not drinking it. “Yeah, I’m at the Walgreens over on Grove street, and some lady fainted.” Some lady was me. Blood is not my thing. Never was. Must have forgotten. I wonder if my coupons are still in my jacket pocket.

….

Some lady fainted. I had 30 minutes to find this stupid mascara and get back on my scooter to make it to this customer’s house on time. And this lady fainted. Where the fuck are the rest of the workers?

….

Jackie is in the car crying and sucking on some old french fries because his pacifier rolled under the front passenger seat. His father has maybe three minutes before someone notices him alone in his car seat, engine running, windows all the way down, surrounded by fast food paraphernalia. Either that or he gets to that delicious looking bottle cap he’s been furiously pawing at with his other hand. The cold plastic is gonna feel good on those gums, plus there’s a lifetime sweepstakes entry code robot-typed on the underside. The cap doesn’t have a hole for Jackie to breathe through, that would defeat its purpose. An icy breeze pummels in and pushes the cap closer to his tiny fingers.

Jessica is crouch-leaning behind the dumpsters of the office building next door. She has one minute left of her break. She doesn’t move. She coughs on caramel vapors. She hears something loud. And then that same loudness, again and again.

The pharmacy gates close so slowly. How long before he gets to them? Before he runs out of ammo? Before the cops show up? The pharmacist was the first to scurry onto the parking lot. Thank god for the drive thru. Barbara, the oldest pharmacy technician, stays to hold the button down for the gate after she told everyone else to run. She gets paid approximately $1.50 more an hour than the rest of the crew. Not including the pharmacist, obviously.

….

“Insert more value to continue” A cartoonish countdown began from 20 on the screen. Barbara takes off the helmet. 

“Too realistic”

“Huh?”

The twenty year old bartender was on his phone. He whipped it out like a Swiss Army knife after each customer. What was he doing on it? Barbara desperately wanted to know but would never admit that to anyone, and tried not to admit it to herself. She knew what social media was, and that phones came with so many apps, but couldn’t understand how kids these days could participate so enthusiastically in what to her was just a screen. He was still on his phone and she watched him for a moment. It was a physical interaction, like a handheld sport. A one-dimensional rubik’s cube, and he fiddled with it like a bored gunslinger of olde practicing turn around time for an upcoming duel. Nothing he typed or sent or swiped garnered any reaction from him beyond an upward tilt or scrunch of a corner of lip, alternating from one side of his mouth to the other like the lava lamp bubbles in a leveling tool.  Zero expression in the eyes. Barbara was celebrating, she had just cruised through her 120th birthday and still felt strong. Agile, even. Which she was not particularly happy about. Barbara, like so many her age, was ready to retire this life on Earth. Some had grandkids that hooked them up to Virtual Reality helmets at home. A full set up for many who had lost almost all mobility, a modern iron lung. Barbara used to judge these people. The families who pulled their almost forgotten great great great grandparents out of ulcer and urine stained nursing home beds and shoved them in the rooms their adult kids had abandoned like old socks. She judged the unwilling participants just as harshly. 

It was advertised as freedom, as a way to now explore all human and non-human possibilities simply through the mind’s eye. Up until now Barbara had felt she had done just that. Unlike these youngsters, she didn’t grow up pulling an encyclopedia for every semi-thought that she had. She prided herself on her ability to remain at a constant speed while technology plowed on around her at lightning speeds. She worked as a lead tech at the same big retail pharmacy until she could only walk as fast as she could, and then until she could type only as fast as her arthritis would let her, and then until her body’s imperceptible disintegration outpaced the assisted devices big pharma thought she was worth. So she retired, which was worse than death. Barbara lived alone. Not because everyone around her died, as people assumed. But because everyone around her no longer had any use. A bit hypocritical but absolutely necessary. She could still get around just fine. She read and cooked and painted and learned new piano pieces. She did not try any new drugs or travel to interesting places or turn strangers into lovers. None of that held anything new for Barbara. So here she was. Internet cafe by day, Virtual Reality bar by 5pm. The helmets were not active earlier in the day. Barbara supposed that, the way people seemed to be addicted to these things, the drooling, open mouths of the players created an unsettling atmosphere in the daylight.

 These helmets put you in another “person’s” thought, the characters and their personalities differing depending on the setting you choose, their “thoughts” generated by the AI based on the player’s choices.

The fantasy was a cocktail of the user’s input at the various initial menus: setting, general physical attributes, profession, even outfit: you could be as detailed or vague as you wanted. Barbara made specific calls for the profession and setting, her age and gender, her allergies and the weather for the day. But she allowed AI to concoct the actual scenario. She of course wasn’t aware of how strange this request was. Alex the bartender had to come input some numbers onto a pop up prompt, to which she asked what exactly this was for, and to which she was met with a grunt and a zero-eye-contact shrug of the shoulders.

A public shooting? Well, they did occur quite frequently now. And how did the game know exactly how her customers would act? That was almost spookier than anything else.

But, anyway. Barbara felt she had experienced all she could…at least in this lifetime. What could the next life hold? Well, it was only a matter of time.