Wake Up
He rolled over. He had been torn from yet another dream. A good dream. The same dream that he’d been having since he started art school.
In the dream he was a lawyer.
He sat up, brushed the silver-blond hair from his face and yawned.
Goddess he hated that alarm clock.
So nice.
So polite.
So concerned that it was waking him up.
A soft mellow trickle of an alarm clock.
He smoothed out his plaid pajamas, he loved those pajamas. They were so ugly.
He stood up and surveyed his meager apartment.
It was spherical, it was a triumph of form and function, the room was furnished in a very stylish modern-art-deco and was splashed with color.
Goddess he hated this @#$%ing apartment. Too modern for its own good.
‘@#$%ing’ he liked that word. He didn’t use it often. But he appreciated the way it gargled off his throat, made his tongue arc and vibrate.
He was told it was ‘Germmen’ but it was a widely known swear word on Zictin.
He often thought of that planet, mostly about the Men of Germ, if their whole language was like that.
He couldn’t ask anyone, no one else he had encountered had been to that region of space and if they did they simply called it uncivilized and left it at that.
The professor who had taught him the word was no longer teaching at his college. He had been thrown out after encouraging the student body to protest the Ariosian Royal Families’ decision to allow The Kayooshen the ‘privilege’ of building the new power plants on the outskirts of the larger cities of the planet.
Personally Mayln didn’t see what was so wrong with those power plants.
They were eyesores, sure, but Goddess be damned if the capitol city couldn’t do with a few eyesores.
He had finished getting dressed and walked out the door, tying his sash loose around his waist as he went.
He checked his small, wrist worn, computer system as he rode the elevator down to the lobby of his building.
It informed him that he didn’t have class until seven tonight, it also informed him that he needed to call his mother later and tell her how he was doing.
The watch informed him that he was, however, due to be at work in twenty minutes.
Since it was his senior year (thank Goddess) his family had decided that he should find a nice entry level position at one of the many design firms around the city.
And by ‘he should find a nice entry level position’ they meant that they had already found him a position and if he didn’t take it they wouldn’t give him any more for his schooling.
Which was honestly fine by Mayln, he hated art, he hated design, he despised form and function.
But the argument that followed his bold announcement that he wanted to become a lawyer five years ago still served to convince him that it might be easier to become an artist and hope for an early grave…it seemed less troublesome.
The argument (if you wanted to call it that. Mayln didn’t call it that.) consisted of his father yelling about ‘proper’ professions and that ‘respectable’ men didn’t want to become lawyers all while his mother sobbed into a handkerchief.
They did, oddly enough, suggest that he should become a doctor if he didn’t want a ‘real’ job.
Given the fact that he was deathly afraid of blood Mayln thought that this was more of a trap than anything else.
He briefly thought of taking them up on the offer out of spite, but decided that he would likely do his patients more harm than good.
The sky was overcast.
Dark clouds menaced a downpour.
He grinned, happily, he loved rain and he loved lightning. Storms at least caused a little ruckus.
A downed tree or two, maybe even a few shattered windows, would do the city as much good as a few more eyesores.
On the other side of the street was an elderly man holding a sign that Mayln had seen before but had never taken the time to read whatever it was advertising. Occasionally the man would yell things like ‘repent’ or ‘be afraid’.
Mayln decided that he didn’t really want what the sign suggested he needed.
He gave a mighty yawn and pushed open the door to ‘Orooa and Fime: Design and Architecture’ the woman behind the front desk looked up and smiled.
She was pretty. Blond hair down to the small of her back, deep blue eyes that seemed windows to her soul, full bust, and crème white skin…which was to say she looked exactly like every other Airosian woman in the city.
And every Airosian male for that matter…well…the men didn’t have a full chest, mind you.
After the briefest exchanging of pleasantries(and another short, silent, elevator ride)Mayln made his way to his small, corner office and sat down behind his little desk.
It was shaped like a lima-bean, of course Mayln didn’t know what a lima-bean was, but the description was apt.
His computer system was stored on a tiny cube that sat quietly on his desk; it projected a solid-light holographic representation of a keyboard and screen that functioned in exactly the same manner as the physical objects did one hundred years prior.
Except they were much prettier.
Mayln hated that little Goddess forsaken cube.
He spent the next four hours attempting to make the curvature of a building exceed ninety degrees without causing a catastrophic failure of the support beam(s).
He failed several times simply because watching the tiny holographic building collapse amused him.
Toward the end of the four hours watching the building tip over ceased to be amusing…mostly because he had been attempting to make it work correctly for the last three and a half hours.
No building should be at this angle.
These stupid architects never thought for a second what actually went into building these things.
He stood up and left his tiny office and walked down the spacious corridor to the elevator.
He rode it to the bottom floor, told the attractive woman at the front desk he was going out to lunch and if anyone needed him they could call his wrist-computer’s VIOP system.
She smiled with her perfect white teeth and told him that she would happily do so.
He stepped out the door and was disappointed to see the storm had faded away.
He deactivated his wrist computer’s VIOP system and whistled glumly as he walked down the street, meandering towards somewhere that might make him food.
After half an hour of wandering he decided it was about time to get down to the business of finding food.
Not really because he was any hungrier than he was a few moments ago, but because even in his culture a lunch break exceeding an hour and a half was pushing it…especially for what amounted to a poorly-paid intern.
He scanned the block, not seeing anything other than the towering buildings and glistening windows that made up the capitol city of his planet.
The sky line was beautiful; at least that’s what they’ve told him.
He hated it.
For another few blocks he walked aimlessly until something caught his eye, or rather something caught his nose.
The rank scent descended on him like a fog, it made his eyes sting and nose twitch…and his mouth water.
He followed the scent until he discovered a small, back ally food stall marked in bright pink letters ‘Velkin Cuisine’ and walked over to it.
The person working the stall had their back turned to him.
Their dirty orange was enough to get him to approach the stall in interest.
He drew tentatively nearer the small, ugly, cart.
He cleared his throat and his breath caught before it could leave him.
He had met an angel.
Her light blue skin was slightly dull, but her deep green scales glistened like the sea, and her eyes were velvet purple.
She was everything that every Airosian woman wasn’t.
He greeted her in Airosian, fumbling over the smooth words of his language.
She smiled at him, awkwardly to his eyes, but beautifully.
She had fangs, at least she would have, except for the fact that she seemed to have chipped her right K-9.
Mayln felt his heart flutter and couldn’t help but wear a moronic grin.
He asked what she would recommend, and she tried to respond haltingly in his own language, he suddenly realized that he had spoken in Airosian.
He hastily assured her that he spoke Basic.
Some of his people had resisted the push for a universal language, saying that it undermined their individuality.
That was bullshit, of course.
The real reason was the simple fact that Airosians were afraid of change and as such Mayln jumped at the chance to learn the language when he was younger.
She relaxed.
He watched as she put together a bowl of something that resembled chicken and round balls of slightly hard bread, she also handed him a small bottle filled with what she assured him was the best hot sauce in the Universe.
He sat at one of the small tables that surrounded the cart and dumped a liberal helping of the red liquid into his meal.
Suddenly he realized that this might have been a mistake.
Unfortunately, Mayln realized this after he shoveled a heaping spoon-full of the soup into his mouth.
Before he knew it he was struggling for air as he gaped around at the alley bound cart, the Velkin woman rushed to hand him a drink.
He gulped it down and relaxed a little.
He sighed.
Idiot, he heard himself saying, in Airosian.
She was laughing, Mayln was bright red as he turned away, too afraid of looking like an idiot again to attempt to eat his meal and too proud to simple pay and walk away.
He sat there for a few seconds before the woman placed a new bowl of the soup in front of him and whisked the other across the table, where she sat down.
He just stared at her as she smiled happily and passed him another drink, telling him that she would gladly accept his invitation to lunch.
He still just stared at her.
Her name was Ol’Ana, but everyone (including him, she insisted) just called her Ana.
It was a perfect name for her.
He couldn’t have imagined a better name for an angel.
He didn’t say that of course, he fumbled over his own name and thanked her for the second bowl of soup.
She grinned and said that he was still paying for both, but the drinks were on her, as a matter of furthering good relations between their species.
She laughed in a jovial way as she said it.
Mayln couldn’t help but laugh as well.
She easily gulped down the scalding hot soup, eating mostly with her fingers and by tipping the bowl slightly into her open mouth.
Mayln ate with his spoon, and felt oddly foolish for doing so.
She finished her bowl before he had finished half of his, she drained it with gusto and let it clatter to the table, she grinned at him again (Goddess he loved that grin) and asked if he was enjoying it.
He was. Very much so.
This bowl he didn’t taint with an obscene amount of the fiery liquid of death.
And it was delicious.
She gave him another drink and popped the top on one for herself.
She asked him what he did.
He told her.
She smiled, told him that she had always loved architecture, but wasn’t very good at it.
She had followed in her father’s footsteps and worked at the family restaurant after graduation (she went for a three-year business degree).
He asked what had brought her to Airosia.
She told him, briefly.
The Alliance had offered a sizable chunk of funding to encourage ‘cultural exchange’ between planets.
She had decided that food was as culturally representative as anything else in the universe, so she had gathered together some of her favorite recipes and shipped out on the next freighter.
She opened up a trendy new restaurant in an upscale district of the capital city; it opened with a huge gala with the richest Airosian’s in attendance.
It was everything she had hoped for.
Unfortunately she didn’t take into account that the average Airosian’s palate wasn’t nearly as appreciative of spices as the average Velkin’s.
Mayln snorted into his soup as she described the opening night and the chaos that reigned freely over the scene.
One older woman apparently went into cardiac arrest when she had an appetizer.
Ana assured him that she was quite fine, just… hospitalized.
But fine.
This was the night that she learned to keep the sauces to a minimum and let the individual find their own happy medium.
The restaurant failed soon after and she took what was left and opened up this little cart that she tugged around the city.
She told him that she wasn’t too broken up about it, she thought that having hostesses and employees and waiters defeated the entire purpose of going into the restaurant business.
Anything you do should be a labor of love, she told him.
Something that you look back on with fondness.
What the Plains is the point of doing something your whole life if you can’t stand it?
She put all the hate he had for his job into words that he could never have expressed.
And she didn’t know him from any other Airosian on the street.
That almost scared him.
They talked for hours.
The suns disappeared into the horizon, the clouds were bathed in a beautiful golden light and the stars shown dimly through the disappearing day.
They, of course, didn’t see any of this since they were on the ground floor of a towering city.
Mayln had privately decided that he wouldn’t be going back to work.
Or to his post-modern apartment that he hated.
In the hours he spoke with this woman he knew that he couldn’t go back.
They exchanged stories of their lives, their hardships, their triumphs.
Ana had grown up on one of the first space stations built jointly by the Alliance, she told him about all the people she saw.
Millions of people. All different. All unique.
People that looked like squids, people that looked like gorillas, like birds, people with huge black eyes and grey skin and people with funny little antenna on their heads.
Mayln wanted to see them.
All the people.
Then she took his world away.
She was leaving in the morning. He was to be her last customer of the day. Or any day.
And it suddenly occurred to Mayln that he hadn’t been in her way this entire day because no one else even attempted to order anything.
The odd person that came by was simply passing through and gave the car, and the pair beside it, little more than a curious glance.
Ana popped the top on another drink and handed him another as well, she told him that he was her first customer in two days and the first that week to actually eat anything.
Apparently more Airosians wanted her fizzy drinks than the actual food…which wasn’t saying much as hardly anyone wanted the drinks either.
After another hour she, sadly, declared that she needed to close up shop so that she could finish packing up her belongings.
Mayln gave his goodbye, his heart rending in two as he said it.
But when he turned to leave she grabbed his arm and kissed him on the cheek.
When he asked her what it was for, she just grinned and told him ‘for being a loyal customer’.
He walked home in a daze.
He rode the short elevator ride to his little pseudo-modern apartment and looked around.
He was back.
Back in the real world.
Back being Mayln, the man who blew off work all day and was likely to be fired.
Mayln, the unhappy, out-of-place intern at a huge design firm.
Mayln, the man who ditched all his classes that day and didn’t even give a damn.
Mayln, the man who knew what he wanted but was too afraid to grow a pair of testicles and do it.
He sat on his bed and looked at the clock. It was late.
He didn’t bother to set the alarm.
He didn’t care.
If he was going to be fired, he was going to be fired when he felt like showing up.
He didn’t even pretend to turn on his wrist-computer and check his messages.
He just rolled over and went to sleep.
The next morning he got up and lethargically headed for work.
As he left his building he saw the man holding a sign and he finally read it, it declared simply that ‘The End was Nigh’ he looked at the old man as he walked by and felt something click in his mind.
The End was Nigh.
The end was extremely @#$%ing nigh.
Mayln broke into a run, he slid into his office building at half-past ten and was told by the same plain looking woman who greeted him yesterday that the boss was looking for him.
He thanked her and headed for his floor.
Mayln found his boss waiting for him in his tiny office, looking at the results of Mayln’s attempt to force a building to bend more than it should and not collapse.
It still collapsed.
His boss wasn’t happy.
Mayln was.
And before his boss could finish telling Mayln how unhappy he was and that his he was going to inform Mayln’s parents of his failure; Mayln told him how happy he was for his boss to have something to actually do and that he quit.
He quickly jogged out of his office, leaving anything ‘personal’ there and rode the elevator down to the ground floor.
It couldn’t move fast enough for him.
He gave his quick goodbyes to anyone he saw on the way out and felt as though he should leave them with something to remember him by.
He gave them all an entirely un-Airosian whoop of joy as he barreled through the doors and went sprinting down the street.
Mayln felt like his feet weren’t even touching the ground as he dashed the short distance to his apartment, he waved at the doom-sayer and rode the elevator to his floor, quickly fumbled for his key and burst inside.
He frantically threw whatever clothes he could into a small satchel, grabbed anything that was either valuable or sentimental, and (as almost an afterthought) he grabbed that damned alarm clock and galloped into the hall and back towards the elevator.
He didn’t bother to lock his door.
They could have the rest of his life if they wanted it.
In the elevator Mayln struggled to juggle his few possessions as he stripped off his wrist-worn computer and when the doors opened he dodged between a few of the other tenants, giving them his best wishes as he went and he hurried back out into the street.
The sign-toting old man watched him warily as he approached.
Mayln greeted him with a huge smile on his face as he shoved his alarm clock into the old man’s free hand.
When the old man asked what they were for, Mayln simply told him that the old man helped him wake up, it was only fair that he returned the favor.
The computer-watch was simply hurled into the nearest trash bin he could find.
Because who needs their life that organized anyway?
-End
