It was 10:15 pm, not even an hour into Tim’s shift, and already he prayed for the sweet release of death. It was hellishly busy for a Thursday night. There had been a severe blizzard over most of the midwest, which always played merry hob with the service towers, and had delayed several dozen flights as well. As usual, a cavalcade of mouth-breathers flooded the chat client with every plane that finally made it off the ground, demanding free wifi service for the inconvenience of not being allowed to risk plummeting to their deaths from thirty-five thousand feet. Huddled in his cube, fingers flying from one chat to the next, Tim repeated the same conversation over and over again, each interaction the long-form, polite, corporate-friendly version of “we are not the airline, bugger off”. The phone rang. [i]Damn it all to hell[/i], Tim thought as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Ordinarily he would never need to take phone calls, but they were short-handed this week after yet another crop of promising rookie reinforcements washed out: three of them had failed their drug tests, two had been let go for swearing at customers, and the last poor girl had fled the building in tears after a first-class passenger, when he was told he did, in fact, still need to pay for wifi, had wished her future daughters to be "raped to death by a million frat bros". Not everyone was cut out for trench warfare. Tim sighed as he tapped the side of his headset. “Thank you for calling SkyFi Inflight Wifi, this is-” He was cut off as a wookie with a southern accent roared in his ear. Tim flinched as he hastily turned down the volume. “I’m sorry, sir, could you please repeat that?” “CLEAN THE SHI-*crackle*-TA YER EARS, BOY, AH SAID YER SERVICE FU-*snapcracklepop*” [i]Huzzah[/i]. Tim wondered whether to ask for clarification due to the bad connection, or just admonish the yokel for swearing. He chose the option more likely to end the conversation. “Sir, if you are unable to maintain a civil tone, I’m afraid I’m going to have to-” “FUCK YOU, YOU PIECE OF-” [i]Called it[/i], Tim thought as he tapped the side of his headset again. A couple of years ago, Tim would have taken a small amount of satisfaction from abruptly hanging up on a customer, especially mid-epithet. Now, he was just too tired to care. He rubbed a hand over his face, noting absently that he’d forgotten to shave that evening. At least the call wouldn’t impact his chat resolution time too much- The phone rang again. “God dammit,” Tim grumbled as he hauled himself to his feet. He scoured the nearly empty field of cubes around him to find his few remaining coworkers were also trapped in one-sided phone conversations with the howling void. Tim managed to stifle the sigh this time as he sat to take the call. “Thank you for calling SkyFi Inflight Wifi, this is Tim, how may I assist you?” “Hello, Tim,” a middle-aged woman’s voice replied, almost timid in timbre. “I was hoping you could help me.” Tim sat up a bit straighter, eyebrows raised. [i]A humble request? That's a new one.[/i] “Of course, ma’am. What can I do for you?” “Well, unfortunately, my husband passed away a few months ago. Apparently he had a Universal pass with your service? It’s been charging us seventy dollars a month without anyone using it.” Tim’s heart fell into his stomach, where acid began to eat away at it - he already knew how this conversation would play out. “I see. What was your husband’s name?” She gave the necessary details. A quick glance at the man’s account confirmed no usage in over four months - not that it would matter. “Well, ma’am, I can definitely cancel your husband’s subscription effective immediately and get that most recent charge refunded to your account.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. Tim took a deep breath to brace himself. Finally the woman spoke. “What about the other charges?” Tim slowly let the breath out through his nose as he shook his head slowly, then remembered he was on the phone. “I’m afraid I can only refund the most recent charge on the account, ma’am. I can send a request to our billing department to get the other three credited as well, but,” another deep breath, “I cannot guarantee that they will comply with the request.” Silence. Tim shut his eyes and steeled himself for the thunderstorm of bile and vitriol that was about to be released upon him. As the silence stretched on, the acid in his stomach began to boil as it ate away at his heart with renewed vigor. He was about to ask if the woman was still there when her quiet voice came through, as though from a great distance. “Please.” Tim’s eyes flew open along with his jaw, but no sound came out. “Please,” the woman repeated, her voice tinged with tears, “the charges have been overdrafting our checking account, and the bank won’t reverse the overdraft fees until your charges are removed. Between the medical bills and the funeral, we can’t afford the…” She choked on her words. Tim’s heart shattered, forming a gaping void in his gut that left him feeling more than a little ill. He found his voice at last and struggled out, “Ma’am, I understand your situation; I can send the billing department an email-” “Do you?” Tim froze. “Do I what?” There was a sob, and Tim realized his error too late. “You don’t even care, do you? Nobody cares. Ever since Jeff died, all I’ve learned is just how little the world gives a damn about anyone else.” The tears in the woman’s voice had turned bitter, but she still hadn’t raised her voice. [i]This is so much worse than yelling.[/i] “Ma’am, I’m sorry for your loss, I truly am. I’m doing everything I can…” He trailed off as the woman began to cry in earnest. His words, however truthful, rang hollow in his ears. The billing department would reject the request out of hand, as they always did, and that would be that - there was no further appeals process. His hands were tied, but that was of little comfort to the grieving woman, and to himself. He listened to her cry as he searched for the words to say that would fix everything. There were no words, he realized, that wouldn’t also be a lie. [i]Is false hope better than none at all?[/i] He made his decision, but he would need to calm her down first. “Ma’am, please-” His entreaty proved to be the final straw as she cut him off with a wail. The disconnect click hit him harder than a slap in the face ever could. Tim sat there, numb, as the three chats he had been ignoring continued to ping at him, as the other customers that clamored for his attention became increasingly frustrated by his apparent absence. When frustration flared to anger and the swearing began, Tim closed the chat client and stared at the barren cube wall in silence. Moments stretched to minutes before Tim finally muttered, “Dammit.” He grabbed his keys and his pack of American Spirits, then stood. “I’m going on break,” he said to his coworker Bill as he passed by his cube. Bill looked up as he put his headset on mute. He held an earpiece away from his head as wailing and gnashing of teeth tinnily vomited out of the speaker. “Dude, we’re awash in a sea of bullshit, we need your ass in that cube.” “I wasn’t asking permission,” Tim tersely replied as he passed, never breaking stride. The moon shone brightly overhead. The air was cold, crisp, and clean, and pale light reflected off the distant blizzard that had so thoroughly fouled everyone else’s evening as it hovered on the horizon. Tim found it both beautiful and uncomfortable; he felt it illuminate his soul, and he didn’t like what he saw. He sat on top of one of the picnic tables that served as an outdoor smoking area and lit a cigarette with a match. He savored the taste of perique as he took a deep drag and tried to focus on the part of himself that felt nothing. The smoke mixed with his foggy breath, billowing outward into a plume that hung in the still night air. He watched the hazy miasma ebb and flow as it slowly dissipated, idly tracing the line of a particular whorl back into the center of the cloud. When the last wisps faded, he took another drag, and another, and watched as something beautiful faded away and was lost. Somehow it didn't make him feel any better. “Hey.” A high, scratchy voice from behind him shook him out of his melancholy reverie, and he turned to see Kayla, her golden hair reflecting platinum in the moonlight as it tumbled past her shoulders. “Hey,” he replied as she approached. He turned back to the moon and his clouds. “Bill sent me to get you.” She tapped her own pack of cigarettes - Parliament menthols, he knew - and drew one into her mouth. “I figured.” She fumbled in her purse for her lighter. “You wanna talk about it?” “Not really.” “Uh-huh.” A pause as she dug through her purse in earnest. She smiled around her cig as she finally found what she was looking for. “So, you do wanna talk about it.” The cigarette bobbed in time to every syllable. Tim blew smoke out his nose, halfway between a sigh and a snort. “None of us is here because we want to be.” Kayla paused between flicks, hands in front of her mouth, as she glanced over at him. “Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?” Again, the cigarette bobbed. “I dunno, I just feel like I could have done better than this. Actually accomplished something, instead of having to settle for being paid barely above minimum wage to be the flesh conduit through which corporate-mandated scripting flows.” Kayla stared at him for a pair of heartbeats, then resumed her efforts to light her cigarette with a frown. “And here I was thinking I didn’t want to kill myself today.” “Sorry.” He took a final drag, then crushed the butt into the table and flicked it towards a nearby trash can. It missed by several feet. He coughed, then drew another cigarette from his pack. “I was just thinking about how this place… it does something to you, y’know? To your soul.” “Mmm,” came a noncommittal grunt as Kayla continued flicking her lighter. “C’mon, you piece of-” There was a snap-hiss and a flare of orange light as Tim struck a match and held it a few inches from her hands. “Mmm,” she exclaimed, an octave higher this time, and she puffed away at the tiny flame. She inhaled deeply as the cigarette caught, then shot him a grin. “Well, ain’t you classy as all hell.” She breathed out her own jet of smoke, her exhalation far less defined as it flew apart, scattered by its own force. “Heh,” Tim replied as he brought the match towards his own mouth, then sighed in dismay as the flame winked out. He went to strike another, but found his matchbook empty. “Awesome,” he muttered. “Here,” Kayla said as she moved to stand before him. Before he could flinch away, she leaned her face close and pressed the tip of her cigarette against his. Tim blushed at the sudden intimacy of the gesture. She drew deeply, as did he, and the cherry glowed a brilliant scarlet as it spread to light its mate. She took a step back as they exhaled, silver fumes catching the moonlight as they swirled about them. For a moment she seemed limned in silver herself, and he was struck breathless. She smiled at him. “Y’alright?” He snapped out of it. “Yeah… yeah. Thanks.” “No prob, Bob.” She took another drag, then hugged herself with a shiver. “Brrr.” “Oh, here,” Tim mumbled as he scootched over a bit on the table. Kayla’s smile widened as she hopped up to sit next to him. She was a small slip of a woman, barely five feet tall - even sitting down, Tim was a full head taller than her. They sat for a while, enjoying their cigarettes in silence, and watched their clouds intermingle. After a bit, Kayla nudged him. “So what’s your deal, man?” “Oh, right.” He related the story of the widow and the charges, and finished it with the last drag of his cigarette. He extinguished the butt on the table and flicked it away again, this time missing by inches. Kayla had nodded occasionally as he spoke, and finished her own cigarette as she said, “Yeah, I feel you. S’not your fault, though.” “That’s not the point. I just hate this place, is all. Makes me feel lower than dirt.” “It’s not the company’s fault, either. I mean, if her family’s having such tough times, how did she not notice the charges for this long?” Tim scowled at her. “See, that’s what I’m talking about.” She raised an eyebrow. “What?” “I just told you we basically stole three hundred dollars from a poor, grieving widow, and your first response was to blame [i]her.[/i]” Kayla’s eyes widened. “I…” Her gaze fell to the ground. “Jesus Christ.” “Yeah.” The thought of going back inside left a sour taste in Tim’s mouth, so he fumbled for another cigarette - until he remembered they didn’t have a light anymore. He sighed. Kayla gave a small shake of her head. “Man, fuck this place.” They sat in silence for a moment longer, before Tim finally said, “Bill’s probably wondering where we are.” “Let him,” Kayla said, then gasped. “Dude!” Tim looked at her. “What?” He wasn’t sure he liked the gleam in her eye. “What if we just left?” “Pfft.” He laughed. “You crazy, lady.” “No, I’m serious! What’s keeping us here?” Tim’s eyebrows knitted together. “Abject poverty?” “Nah, dude!” She swatted his arm as she hopped down in front of him. “For real, how long could you last if you just walked out, right here, right now?” He did some quick calculations in his head. “Uh, about a month. Maybe longer, if I ate a lot of ramen-” “Same! That’s plenty of time to find a new job! Hell, we could get paid twice what we are now at any company that was actually worth a damn!” Tim was having a hard time keeping up with her train of thought. “I mean, I guess? But-” “Then let’s do it!” A wide grin split her face. “Oh my god, Tim, let’s blow this joint!” Time seemed to stand still. Tim looked over the last few years of his life - a steady forty hours a week bought a lot of goodwill, compared to his previous jobs. [i]But can I honestly say that I have a future here? Do I actually want to work graveyard tech support for the unwashed hordes, and screw over countless clients in the process? Have I ever been happy with this lot in life?[/i] Tim locked eyes with Kayla, and in the warmth of her enthusiasm, the last vestiges of pragmatism melted away. A slow smile crept across his face as he nodded. “Okay. Let’s bail.” She hopped up and down with a cheer, then threw her arms around him in a tight hug. He returned her embrace, and they stood grinning awkwardly at each other. At length, Tim took a step back and said, “We should probably leave before anyone else comes looking for us.” Kayla seemed to deflate a bit at this. “Yeah, I guess so.” He scuffed a shoe against the cement, then took a deep breath. “Well, Kayla, I guess this is-” Kayla darted forward and pulled Tim down into a passionate kiss. He could taste the menthol on her lips, on her tongue, and once again, time stood still. Half an eternity later, Kayla let him go. Tim said the first thing that came into his head. “Buh?” Kayla stared at him. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now. If this is the end, I didn’t want to miss my last shot.” Tim blinked at her. “Uh… I don’t…” Tim stumbled over his words as Kayla’s eyes widened. He tried again. “I don’t want this to be the end.” A wide grin split Kayla’s face once more. “Neither do I.” Tim looked around, then up at the moon, as though it could tell him what the next thing to say should be. “Um… You wanna grab something to eat?” They collapsed to the mattress once again, panting, sweaty, exhausted, exultant. A pair of paper sacks contained long-forgotten fast food, abandoned on the table near the front door of Kayla's studio apartment. They lay there for a moment, basking in the afterglow. Tim struggled for coherent thought, let alone coherent words. “Hah… hah guh… I just gotta catch… hah…” He shifted his arms for maximum distance from the rest of him, for maximum exposure to the stifling air of Kayla’s apartment. He coughed. “We… we should probably quit smoking.” Kayla was similarly trying to catch her breath. “Hah… yeah, ha… Not as young… as I used to be…” After their breathing steadied somewhat, Kayla sat up and fished a cigarette from the pack on her end table. “Before we do though, you ever smoked after sex?” Tim just shook his head no. “Aw man. Then this is the perfect note to go out on - I promise you, it’ll never be this good again.” She stood to open the window above her bed, and Tim froze, lost in the sight of her. He snapped back to reality as the chill, cleansing breeze from the window struck him. He reached over to his own pack, and drew his final American Spirit into his mouth. Kayla handed him her spare lighter, and they sat together below the window, blowing their smoke up and out into the night. Kayla tipped her ash into a saucer on the window sill. “So what’d you wanna be, growing up?” Tim laughed. “What, now that we’re unemployed, we just need to follow our dreams?” “For sure, dude! Why the hell not?” Tim waved his cigarette hand, a trail of smoke wafting in its wake. “Because it’s not that simple!” Kayla gave him a smack. “It is! It [i]is[/i] that simple! We hated our jobs, so we quit! We wanted to bang, so we banged! We want to quit smoking, so we’re gonna quit smoking!” She picked up her Parliaments and crushed the pack in her hand, then tossed it against the wall. She turned back to look at him, a fire in her eyes and a manic grin on her face. “We want to change our lives, so [i]let’s change our lives![/i]” Tim chuckled, helpless in the face of her zeal, and shook his head. “I guess… when I was younger, I thought it would be neat to be a bartender.” “Ha! That’s it? Dude, this is a college town! Do you have any idea how many bars there are downtown?” Tim smirked at her. “Alright then, what about you? What dreams did you let fall by the wayside?” Kayla sobered a bit. “I…” She paused. “I wanted to be on the radio.” Tim sat patiently, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, Tim gestured with his cigarette and said, “So, be on the radio.” She laughed. “Right, cuz that’s as easy as picking up a bartending gig.” He tipped his own ashes into the saucer. “Well, yeah, actually.” Kayla frowned at him. “It’s really not. I don’t have any sort of degree, let alone one in broadcasting or whatever they’d need.” Tim shook his head. “You don’t need one. I had a cousin who spent the summer after high school working for his local radio station - he just waltzed in the front door, said he wanted to work there. When they said they didn’t have any positions open, he said he’d be willing to work for free. They hired him on the spot.” Tim took one last drag, then put out his butt on the saucer. “By the end of the summer, he was cutting promos, writing ad copy, editing songs to be radio friendly, the works. Probably would have let him on the air, had he stuck around longer.” Kayla stared at him. “So it’s just that simple, huh?” Tim grinned as he nodded. “Yeah. You might need to snag a second job for a while, but yeah.” Kayla nodded in kind, then got up on her knees to look up at the moon. She took a long drag, then mashed the remains of her final cigarette into the saucer. He stared at her as she gazed out her window, at the interplay of light and shadow as both caressed her body; tracing her delicate curves, casting her muscles into sharp contrast, texturing the gooseprickles that stippled her flesh in the chill breeze from the window. She caught him staring, and smiled. “What?” Tim shook his head, his brain simmering in a soup of nicotine and endorphins. “It’s just… It’s like I’m seeing you for the first time.” “Ha, yeah, I can see that.” She shrugged. “People see what they expect to see.” “I didn’t expect to see you.” She laughed as she gestured at herself. “Well then, out with it, what do you think?” He grinned the dopiest grin a doped-up dope ever grinned. “I think I’m ready for round three.” She laughed again as she tackled him off the side of the bed, and they fell to the floor in a heap, a giggling tangle of limbs and bedsheets. [hr] [i]“Hey, hey, it’s DJ K-to-the-A-Y, and lemme tell you, listeners, I’ve got my hands on something that will make you extra K-Y jelly. Believe me, honies, this spicy-sexy-sweet album is piping into my ears and my veins as we speak and I’m having trouble holding myself together! Mm-mmm! “But momma doesn’t want your jealousy, she only wants your[/i] love! [i]And because I love you all so dearly, you’re gonna be the first to hear this luscious loveliness:[/i] Aleph Null’s [i]new album, ‘March of the Slor’! That’s right, our heroes of metal are fresh from the studio and preparing to take our humble city by storm once again. So don’t change that dial, my lovely ducklings. Here it is, the first of their many new hits, ‘Bloody Samurai’!”[/i] Tim smiled at the radio as he applied another small dollop of wax to his mustache - it was wild, untrammeled, and needed to be reined in with goo in order to be even vaguely work-appropriate. He didn’t mind the effort, though; the process served to remind him just how far he’d come. He ran his thumb along his wedding band as he listened to Kayla’s voice, a welcome change of pace from the Victrola fodder piping through the speakers out front. The door to the bathroom burst open as Tim’s boss, Jacob, skidded to a stop, a pair of brass goggles bracing the base of his rather impressive fauxhawk. “Yo, there’s an ocean of customers out there, mah man, and the tide is comin’ in. I need you at the bar, double-quick-time.” “I’m on it, cap’n,” Tim replied as he finished tweaking his ‘stache, then adjusted his top hat to sit at a slightly more jaunty angle. He snapped his fingers at his reflection with a wink. Satisfied and self-assured, he blew a kiss to the radio before striding out the door.