“Hello there. What can I get you? Oh, you’re here for the story. The story of The Ranch Motel. Yes, Legal said that name was a better choice. The writer has been locked away banging on his keyboard, and we are ready to start again. He asked me to ask you to write a review if you have made it this far,” the Cat says to you.
His grin grows wider.
You lose your grasp on your reality.
You slip into one of his memories.
The default ringtone alarm on her 3-year-out-of-date smartphone wakes Izzy up. She searches for it and turns it off. She nudges Jacob out of the way. Her bladder is informing her she has to pee right now. She staggers to the bathroom and sits on the toilet, flicking through the news. The doom and gloom that is everywhere crushes her emotionally.
She sighs. Like always, she starts her day off with depression. She gets dressed in business casual. She drives her car to work. It’s raining. The office building is a large brick edifice to inefficiency. She makes her way to her office. Her short heels clicking on the pergo. She sits in her office, head on the desk, tea growing cold.
‘I hate my life,’ she thinks as she looks up at the drop ceiling and the fluorescent lighting, the 60 Hz flickering of the bulbs designed to irritate her as much as possible. She rubs her temples. Today, like yesterday, she checks her email. 156 emails are spam. “Do you want to change your life? Act now,” an email subject says.
“Except you’re a scam, and you just make life worse,” she mutters, deleting the email. She clicks through them, sending replies as needed. She feels her will to live flowing into each meaningless word.
She gives up and surfs a Chinese import website, selecting thousands of dollars’ worth of things she is pretty sure will disappoint her. But they give her momentary joy. She hesitates, her finger above the buy now button; her finger falls down toward the button, but instead she closes the tab.
She looks at her phone, and the cracked screen shows the time is 12:15. She grabs her purse and heads to lunch. Her coworker Samantha Frank greets her with a tight hug.
“Hey girl,” Samantha says and smiles, her pantsuit and dress flats immaculate as ever. She eyes Izzy’s disheveled look. She lets her hands slide down to her butt.
Izzy blushes faintly. Samantha’s hands feel warm and supportive. She shakes her head and pushes her friend away. “Hey, Samantha,” they sit at the seats connected to the table.
“How high was the shopping spree total today?” Samantha asks with a mouth full of triangular chips of cornmeal covered in cheese.
“12,534 without shipping,” she says, her wilty salad depressing her further. “I almost sneezed and clicked it this time.”
“I think you need a healthier hobby,” Samantha says, putting a hand on her shoulder.
But Izzy deflects, “Yeah, like my boyfriend and his video game obsession—we fought last night over the toilet seat, and instead of finishing our argument, he just left me there yelling about how I fell in the water. He said his match was about to start.” She sighs, stabbing her fork into the salad like there is a layer of chocolate-covered strawberries at the bottom of the container. “I realize my life isn’t perfect, but it’s the life I have made, and Jacob does love me. He made dinner every night this week.”
“How’s his job search going?” Samantha asks, feeling sorry for Izzy’s wimpy salad .
Izzy just stares at Samantha, watching her as she shoves a delicious turkey Swiss with mayo on rye bread sandwich into her smug face. ‘How can she eat like that and stay so thin?’ Izzy thinks.
“Badly he keeps applying, but no one wants someone who doesn’t have a degree in something.” She sighs and plays with her salad.
“Tomorrow might be better,” Samantha says, but inside she is frowning, ‘Every day I eat with you. You’re beautiful, and you tell me about how you’re miserable. How you’re wasting your life. Every day I touch you at least once to build our friendship, and maybe someday you will wake up and leave him and be with me and never be sad again.’ She sighs and looks up from the sandwich.
Samantha closes her mouth, realizing she was having an internal monologue and not listening to her best friend.
“You know what I mean,” Izzy says.
Samantha just nods her head soulfully.
“Well, time to get back to the grind. Let’s hope something changes,” Izzy says, getting up. She throws her trash in the garbage; the late summer air smells like the change of season, but for now it’s sunny and warm. She turns to say goodbye to Samantha, who is too close. ‘Oh god, is she going to make a pass at me?’ Izzy says, taking one step back.
Samantha tosses her garbage in the trash and wraps her arms around her. “Nothing will ever change if you don’t make a change.” Samantha moves close to kiss her on the lips, but Izzy evades, and it lands on her cheek.
“Hey, I have to go to a meeting with the boss; I can’t be late.” Izzy rushes away. “I can’t keep stringing her along; it’s not fair, but she is my best work friend.”
Samantha sighs, “Well, third time isn’t the charm. I should give up and hit on the new girl from accounting.” She watches Izzy walk away, her eyes drawn to the sway of her hips. “Maybe a few more tries,” she smiles to herself as she watches Izzy enter the building.
Izzy sits at her desk doing nothing. After lunch is blocked off in her mental calendar to do nothing, so in fact she is doing what she has scheduled to do. Besides, the bulk of her work is done by 9:30, and it’s 1 now. She texts Jacob, “Good morning.” Odds are he is playing video games or out doing odd jobs.
Izzy leans back and counts the ceiling tiles. She is never sure why every time she counts them the number changes, but she has never gotten the same answer twice in a row. ‘You’re forgetting something,’ the nagging voice in her head says. She looks around the room and then down at the floor.
“Fuck,” she whispers, “the meeting with the boss.” He barges in, all 6 feet, bald, and slightly overweight.
“I wasn’t happy with your last review, and now you skip a meeting with me. What could have been so important I had to cross campus to see you?” He asks, red in the face.
“I was doing reports!” she says. She turns the screen so he can see. Unfortunately, as she turns the screen, she clicks open her browser, showing her Chinese import game. He sighs. no longer angry She mentally panics. ‘This is how he got when he fired Joyce, she looks at the empty desk across from hers.
“You’re fired.” He says, “Go find a job you actually enjoy. I will let HR know. Don’t come back on Monday; you are fired.” He leaves.
She sits watching the door, waiting for it to open for someone to say that didn’t happen, but enough time passes for her to have to admit it did and it’s over. She cries and packs up her things. She climbs down the stairs to the second floor and goes to Sam’s office. “They fired me,” she whispers, trying to say it louder but finding it impossible. Izzy watches Sam’s face fall.
“Well, shit.” Samantha says and then takes her hand. “It’s going to be ok; you will find a better job.”
“Wish I believed you.” They hug, and Izzy leaves her job of 4 years. She gets in her car and drives home. She walks into her and Jacob’s apartment to the loud sounds of first-person shooters. She walks in and tries to tell him the news.
“One second,” he says as she stands just to the side of the screen. He is on the last round of a professional league game worth 2000 dollars. She yanks the console off the entertainment center.
“What the hell? Why? You have no idea what you just did.” Jacob yells,
“I got fired today,” Izzy yells back.
“Now we can’t make rent. I was banking on the money from that,” he cries out in anguish.
“I bet. You just freeload off me and play your silly video games.” She rages with her pent-up anger, stabbing Jacob over and over.
He gets up and storms out. He drives his car away. She is cold, the kind of cold you get when your life just fell apart. She packs her things and fills the car. She calls her mom as she drives down the road and tells her she needs a room for a while.
“Ok… But what about Jacob?” Her loving mother asks in that tone of voice, the one reserved for when Izzy has made a horrible mistake, which is cold and sharp.
“We are done,” she says in the same cold voice.
It’s mid-afternoon already, but she is just done with this town. She turns onto the highway, determined never to go back.
Jacob drives in no particular direction. He has spent the last 2 months climbing the rankings on Turbo Gunner. He had found he was good, not only good but great. He was in line to take the state championship, which would have paid him 2000 dollars, and the next rank up would pay him just to play. He was on his way to the pros.
He put on his left turn signal, the sound of the mechanical click almost deafening in his anger- and sadness-filled drive.
His whole world had started to fall apart when a new machine had been brought in to the pen factory. He had spent half his working career there. He was good at it too. But they restructured, and now they require a 2-year degree. It would have been ok if he had had the time to get it.
He turns into the parking lot of his old job; he had driven here on autopilot. He shuts the car off and sits listening to the capping machine kerchunk in the distance.
He had started playing FPSs in high school, but he never thought of it as a dream. But once he got fired, he saw an opportunity and ran with it. It had become his dream.
He thinks about the long days of playing, sending emails, doing job interviews, and rushing back to play. He thinks about the long nights of her going to bed alone. He always made sure to make her a hot dinner and talk about their day. At first she was supportive. Then slowly she became dismissive.
He squeezes the steering wheel tightly. “I fucked up.”
He starts the car and drives off in search of the forgiveness special. He goes into a store and buys ice cream and toppings to make sundaes. He grabs a bouquet of flowers.
“I bet she has cooled off by now.” He says, rushing up the stairs. The hallway has 4 doors, one to each apartment, and his stands open. He walks in carefully. “Izzy?” he asks. finding the apartment vacant.
Fuck
Her stuff is gone.
Fuck
The keys to the apartment are on the table.
Fuck
She is gone.
Fuck
He tries to call her but only gets her voicemail. Instead He sits and eats an entire tub of vanilla ice cream with no toppings. Happiness is required for chocolate syrup. He curls up on the couch and regrets everything.
