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| Everlight City |
He last worked at the job he loved seven months and ten days ago. Fat, dumb, and happy pushing research data around the institution, he had plans of retiring from there in another decade or so. The new administration decided to throw a wrench into human health research, and he was one of several casualties that fateful Monday in April. The institution furloughed him for six months, as if continuing to have a job that he could not legally work on and would not get paid for was anything other than a cruel joke meant to crush hope.
The weeks since then stretched long with application after application sent to an uncaring employment shredder whose output got piped to /dev/null. His long career of figuring out how to move sensitive data efficiently to where it would do the most good apparently doesn't matter when he thinks he's near the end of his usefulness. The pandemic that kept coming back and kept carving away pieces focus from him every time it infected him didn't help matters.
Five applications per week kept him busy. The state requires a minimum of three, but it took 19 weeks after he filed his application before any sort of unemployment money flowed back to him. And now the state support is down to a handful of weeks, ticking down the time that any legal entity considered him worthy of anything other than pity and a canned "We're sorry we are unable to help" reply to queries.
He landed interviews at 4 companies, a 2.5% return on application time investment. One of those advanced to the second stage, but no further. Only 35% of companies deigned to reach out with a boilerplate "We wish you luck on your job hunt, but we don't think there's a place for you here" email. That left over 60% of applications swimming through the nebulous void of false hopes and companies drowning in applicants.
His health insurance runs out in less than 2 weeks. He does the research he's dreaded for 7 months now: unsubsidized self-funded options. The institution would be glad to continue the coverage he already has if he would be so kind as to send a payment every month. That payment totals a little over four times what he paid while on payroll. He found other options, and settled on less coverage for only two and a half times what he previously paid. His family had appointments coming up, and even a routine office visit would hurt now.
Making that first insurance transfer from an account that hasn't seen a payroll deposit in months hurt. Something snapped. The facade that everything will work out and he would be fine finally slipped. A single tear ran down his cheek as his manic laugh spooked the cats in his home office. What else could he do but laugh? How could this possibly work out? What would he do? Where would he go? He just wanted to wake up.
So he did.
Jolted awake in his apartment lit only by fiercely-clashing neon signs and holos hawking products everybody needed but nobody could afford without a bottomless well of credit, he found the half-full SoyKaf from the night before and shambled to his office space. He woke the screen and fit the plug to the back of his skull. He drained the SoyKaf carton and tossed it near the waste can in the kitchenette, clattering against the dozens of empties he seemed to live on.
He ignored the inbox full of flashing final notices and kicked off the diags app. Always make sure the deck runs clean. It's only your brain at stake.
He had job boards to scour, avatars to virtually visit, data to move, deals to hustle. Maybe today he'd find the break he needed. Maybe today the lottery would come in.
Sure it's a billion to one against, but those odds provide just enough hope drip to make it through another day.
The best of all possible worlds, indeed.
NOTE: Although fictional, many details are autobiographical. Just had to purge this crap out of my head tonight, as buying health insurance today made me angry and frustrated.
Part of the Promptober project for 2025.
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