Fiction
You Only Die Once
Chapter One, Chapter Two
Chapter 3: Eye of the Hurricane
“Why do I have to learn this?” Nassim held up a cucumber. “Pick-el.” He waved the produce at the bodega’s refrigerated case and rattled off the names of the rest of the vegetables in his native Upper Paodatian. “Tafaha, zanahoria, ikhowe, filberts, skirlie neeps. Already good names. What learn for? You don’t even eat veg-e-tables. You eat sludge.”
Sheldon took a deep, calming breath before responding. Yes, studies showed that volunteers lived longer than non-volunteers, but he was beginning to wonder if working with abandoned puppies extended your lifespan more than teaching English to cranky, chain-smoking, 25 year old “teenagers” with two wives and 3 children back in Greater Paolotia.
The bell over the bodega’s door dingled as it opened and the redhead from apartment 57-E swept in. Sheldon didn’t know her name, but he had nicknamed her “Karen.”
“Um. Well. Yes. Obviously you should drink the nutritional shakes.” He picked up a large jar of fruity flavored powder and shook it at Nassim. “Optimally balanced nutrition with no salmonella.”
Nassim opened a refrigerated case and pulled out a transparent tub of glistening chicken livers and shook it back at him. “Nutrition better-er.” Sheldon thought he might vomit.
Karen had picked up a basket and was poking through the collection of mustards and chocolates displayed near the bodega’s entrance. This location had been a regular convenience store offering a variety of nutritional beverages and first aid supplies, but after a terrible hurricane decimated the Jaifijian Archipelago three months ago, a refugee family had moved in and transformed it. Sheldon and Nassim were shopping there because he had thought an opportunity to actually use English in the field would provide more motivation than the classroom, but he now realized had been overly optimistic.
“Dude, why don’t you just talk to her?” Nassim dropped the tub of livers into the basket.
Sheldon turned quickly. “Come on, let’s check out. You can practice numbers.”
“You practice. You like her; go say hi.”
“I do not.” He put the jar of fruity powder in his basket. Sheldon picked up a box of granola at random and stuffed it into his basket. “It’s just, it’s not safe at night anymore because of the gang war, and the police confiscated her bike so she has to walk home, so I keep an out just in case something goes wrong–”
“Talk talk talk. All you do. No liver, no wonder. Just go talk to her.”
“I can’t do that. That’s sexual harassment. What if she doesn’t want to be talked to? What if she’s deaf and talking to her is a microaggression? I could accidentally traumatize–hey, where are you going?”
“It is not hard.” Nassim picked up a bunch of carrots. “Watch.” He walked up to her, smiling. “Excuse me, miss.” He pulled out the carrots. “What do you call these… rutabegas?”
Karen smiled. “These are carrots.”
“Care-otes.” Nassim nodded, then pointed to the rest of the produce. “And these?”
“I think those are Zucchini.” She laughed.
“Ah, zucchini, thank you.” He hefted a bag. “You like, zucchini? Good?”
“Oh, I’ve never had zucchini. I just have the nutritional shakes.”
“Never had zucchini?” Nassim put another bag in his basket. “I grill. Make delicious. Delicious! You will love it. Come, 8 o’clock.” He put down the basket and pulled out his phone. “Give me your number and I text you address.”
Sheldon thought he could feel something popping in his inner ear as Karen pulled out her phone and, laughing, agreed to dinner. He didn’t even remember to put the tub of chicken livers back in the refrigerated case before paying for his food and marching angrily into the street.
“Hey, dude.” Nassim caught up with him, smoking already. “See? Easy.”
“What? No!” Sheldon gestured wildly. “Not easy–”
“Whoa.” Nassim caught his arm. “Dinner tomorrow. 8’o clock. You come. We have party.”
Sheldon set down his bag of groceries in shock. “Me?”
“You.” Nassim fished the tub of livers out of the bag and put it in his own. “You come; you meet girl.”
If there was a party, it was happening somewhere in Sheldon’s guts and using his stomach as a trampoline, but he managed to croak out a “Yeah, sure,” before running away.
Chapter 4: Listen to Yourself Churn
Sheldon almost stayed home. He had showered, dressed, picked out an appropriate gift (a wireless wall lamp), and made it to the lobby of his apartment building when the familiar banners flanking the exit caught his eye:
Act so your actions
May be a Law
For the whole WorldBefore you go
Stop. Reflect.
Are you being safe?
And, of course, the national motto:
You Only Die Once
Did he really need to go out? No, of course not. Was it safe? Well, every outing carried risk; it was difficult to get into a car accident while sitting on the couch, watching TV.
Sheldon had one foot back in the elevator when his phone began ringing. A phone call? Who used phones to call anyone anymore?
“What’s up?”
“Sheldon!” James’s voice came through loud and much too clear. “I tried the telelink, but you’re not at home. Don’t tell me you’ve gone out–”
Sheldon punched the up button as the elevator left without him. “Well, actually–”
“Have you gone mad? Don’t you know there’s a gang war going on?”
“James, I’m not going to a war, it’s a party–”
“You’re going to a shooting, that’s where you’re going. You know crime rates in Quodatian neighborhoods are astronomical–”
“It’s Greater Quodatian, James. You have to remember these things now,” Sheldon cut in. “And the crime rates are only high because so many of them are unemployed, traumatized refugees. They have to learn English before they can get good jobs, which is why I’ve been volunteering–”
“Volunteering your hide, more like. Just go home and be safe.”
“It is safe, James. I’ll go and prove it.” Sheldon hung up the phone and marched out the door.
He realized immediately upon arrival that he was wrong. He should have stayed home and read up on investment strategies; instead strangers were belching weed in his face and piling half-raw hamburger meat onto his flimsy paper plate. Nassim was flipping zucchinis and chicken livers on the grill while children screamed and threw fireworks across the apartment’s courtyard.
“Nassim, how did you get AB approval?”
“What?” Nassim plunked a bottle of beer next to his plate.
“The Apartment Board. They have to approve–” He winced as a firework went off. “My Apartment’s Board requires three kinds of insurance, a $1,000 deposit and two months advanced notice before they’ll approve a party.”
“I don’t know ‘Apartment Board,'” said Nassim. “I just got grill, invite neighbors.”
Sheldon was about to object when Nassim broke into a grin, threw down his spatula, and ran across the apartment courtyard to greet more guests.
A minute later, one of the burgers caught on fire. Sheldon knew that unlicensed operation of a grill was a misdemeanor punishable with up to a year in jail, but he also knew that he had to take action fast to save everyone near the conflagration. He grabbed the spatula and began whacking the burger, hoping to put out the flames.
He couldn’t tell if things were supposed to be smoking or not. Was that how grills were supposed to work? Well, Nassim had been flipping things, so he tried flipping things. One of the burgers disintegrated, falling through the bars. Oh no. This was why Sheldon didn’t have a grilling license. You were supposed to have a grilling license, grilling disaster insurance, carbon offsets, and get tri-annual grill inspections before you could even think about using a grill, and here he stood with only a spatula between the open flames and the lives of hundreds of innocent families who lived inside the building–
“Hey, Sheldon, get this lady a burger.”
“Oh! Kar–I mean, hi.” He just barely managed to slide one of the burgers and a zucchini onto probably-not-actually-named-Karen’s plate. “Nassim, you can’t leave me here, I don’t have a grilling license, and–” More fireworks popped off. “Why are they juggling fireworks!?”
Nassim laughed. “Just relax. Have fun. You only live once, you know.”
evolutionistx 