City Living

March 14^th, 2020.

That was the date that he had written down. He had repeated that date over 100,000 times. It was the date that marked the beginning of the end. 2021 was that year the whole insanity of it all was too much for Michael Seong. He thought 2016 was the roughest year in the 21^st century, but 2020? It was a great contender for the bullshit that occurred in his life. At least, all of the life that occurred in his room. When the pandemic had occurred, his first instinct was to haul ass and not get the Coronavirus within the perimeters of his Orange County, California condo. After the whole affair with the infamous bug infestation, the last thing he wanted was Carson, his landlord, to give another warning about being evicted. So Michael decided to move to San Diego, California, instead, with the three months worth of rent money in his bank account.

Despite the fact that he knew he wasn’t one of the likely ones to contract COVID-19, Michael did everything within his power to disinfect the entire condo. Although he wasn’t a neurotic person by nature, this pandemic had allowed him to become completely paranoid 24/7. Therefore, he decided to barricade himself in his room. It was surprisingly easy. It wasn’t as if he was Lee from the video game The Walking Dead. If Lee could survive kicking zombie butt every day, excluding his fateful death, he definitely could survive a pandemic. His mother and father were always huge fans of survivor stories; there was a whole plethora of them out there.

 This was the moment. Michael Seong was able to confide in himself the regards of being able to rest and take breaks. He had every right to do so. The pandemic could not have made it any clearer in San Diego, California. He would do whatever it took to leave this blasted state forever. While California was a sense of paradise for the naïve fools, he saw it for what it really was: a manufactured, over-the-top, pretentious, shallow wasteland. One grim date that he recalled after March 14^th was July 15^th. Ideally, a couple of weeks after the Fourth of July, which was obviously America’s birthday, would be a joy ride for anyone. The day had started ordinary. All Michael wanted was a simple Frappuccino with whipped cream on top. That didn’t prepare him for the blonde woman next to him. Today, she would be known as a Karen.

At first, he thought the term had sounded obnoxious. Who thought it was a clever idea to even use a person’s first name to describe their entire personality? Whoever it was, they really had the common sense of making it a popular trend at its bane known as social media. At this point in his 40s, he didn’t see the point in making accounts where strangers would make assumptions about his life based on artificial posts. Technology was already ripping people off, so why give them the satisfaction? It wasn’t enough that the woman had to have every topping in her mocha latte, but also “a little bit of caramel just to add that funk.” What did that even mean? Do people even listen to their selves anymore?

Besides, he had other concerns to deal with. Before Michael divorced his wife, Tammy, there was a time in his life when he actually enjoyed San Diego. Contrary to popular belief, the city had a lot of neighborhoods. To him, La Jolla would always be one of his favorites. The laid back atmosphere was the perfect antidote to his harsh, stern personality. The public school atmosphere was no supportive environment to his impeding atmosphere. To everyone’s astonishment, the divorce had nothing to do with Michael and Tammy resenting each other. There was no more effort being put after being married to each other for twelve years. He had felt that he had put up this façade of being the perfect husband given the fact that he knew Tam-Tam, the affectionate nickname that he had given her, had been so fractured. Tammy was the complete opposite of that.

She was vibrant, alive, and never had a self-conscious bone throughout her entire body…unless you count the time that she joked about Wendy’s giving her the Turbulent Tammy swirl after she had a huge bowl of cookies and cream ice cream.

“This is exactly why flabby bellies will never go out of style!”

The lingering, long, languid feeling of regret didn’t help anything in his personal affairs. He was on No Man’s Land, a hermit without a home, a crab without a shell to crawl into; he was what the Spaniards would call the male version of him as La Llorona. Even though he was now in a men’s support group, it was still very challenging him to be vulnerable to others. He especially feared being vulnerable to himself, for he feared that the man he saw in his own reflection wouldn’t be a person he liked at all. Perhaps there was a reason that he was in the Sunshine State. It was the only element left that garnered any hope left.

But what could he do? Back then, he had overheard a conversation from one of his Korean aunts about his five year old cousin’s shoes getting spat on at her private school. While Michael knew that kids could be cruel, he had wish that day that beating up children was considered legal. Then he got more angry at himself because he not only had undocumented family members, but also had been arrested already for a misdemeanor back in 2013 for attempted assault after his ex-girlfriend, Mia had been harassed by a belligerent drunk.

After all that has happened, with the wounds of past and present to behold, he still found things to love about the city: the Sunshine, Mia attempting to reach out to him at 4:00 Pacific Standard Time, in order to let know that there were no hard feelings left after that fateful night, and the love that his family would always maintain for him.

Perhaps San Diego wasn’t such a bad place to move to after all.

Throughout that whole time, he had been in a long line. Thankfully, he was able to collect his thoughts and order what he wanted: a simple Caramel drink, specifically, a Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino. He sat down near a window, gazing outside of the arid land of overly expensive cars, frantic people, and the congested air of San Diego, resting into its sordid affair of magnificent wonders.