Jerry was standing in an alleyway, as he had been doing most nights after work this past week, staring out across the street.
Java House. Rebecca. Everything that had happened.
His hatred burned with a passion more fierce than he'd used for the dark roast he'd prepared earlier.
Noam hurried to the ferry pier and was glad to see in the distance that the ferry had not yet docked. It was on his way, so he kept up his hurried step. He didn't want to be late for work, and Luap was generally not a fan of tardiness. It had been a while since he'd been able to get to work at all, since the ferry had been out for a few days. Luap couldn't really hold that against him, but when it was going, Noam was expected to be there for their customers.
The rift was temperamental. One day it would simply let everyone through, no issues, and others it would tear ferries and all those on them apart. When that happened, all they could do was wait it out. Usually they managed to recognize that the rift was unstable before anyone got hurt, however.
Ava liked going to vintage stores. She didn't mind buying new clothes necessarily, but there was something about getting something someone else had already used and giving it a new life. Especially the older things, somebody had loved it enough to keep it around and had not wanted to throw it out. Or at least, that's what she told herself. She didn't need the details.
And she was looking for a coat, because it was colder outside than any of the jackets or coats she already had could weather, and here she always found the more interesting ones. She was going through the rack and saw some nice coats, making mental notes as she continued on. None had really wowed her yet.
Time to do some work, but not at home, he had decided. He went through the front door and started his music by hitting a button on his headphones. He looked outside through the window in his apartment's hallway and saw that it wasn't raining that much. Nice, even if the day had been sunny and blue skies only hours before.
He checked whether he had his laptop in his backpack, felt that it was there, and smiled. He pulled the front door closed and turned around towards the staircase, when he realized something. He checked his pockets. Shit.
The car arrived and Oliver put on his face mask. He walked towards where the Uber driver had stopped and tried to whistle a tune, then found the mask made that impossible. He smiled and opened the back door of the car.
"Hey, Hamid?" Oliver said as he got into the back, his knees immediately pressed up against the plastic shield placed between the front of the car and the back.
"Yes, hi, you're Oliver?" Hamid said with a smile, Oliver thought. Hamid's mask made it hard to see.
"I am, thanks for being so quick."
"No problem," Hamid said, as he put the car into gear and slowly took off.
"So we're going to the central station, correct?"
"Yes, please."
"250 years is a lot to us, but to you it'll feel like you went to bed and woke up after a really good sleep," they had told me.
I had nodded. I understood the science, even if only the basics.
"Well, you'll wake up feeling like that 4 times, of course," they had added, with smiles and some glances at each other, as if to congratulate each other on their humor.
Stasis scientists were the worst.
"I haven't written in months," Liam said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "And it's starting to really make me uncomfortable."
He sat up and sighed. He leaned over, putting his elbows on his knees and looked down.
"Why not?" Sienna asked, emptying a beer bottle into a glass. "Did you run out of ideas?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure I've ever been full of ideas. I feel like everything I write is..." he paused as he seemed to disappear into thought.
"Yes...?" Sienna asked, walking over to Liam, handing him the beer.
"I don't know, you know. Where do writers get their ideas? Am I just copying things I've read that I think are cool? Am I writing versions of stories I've read that go differently because I think I have a better idea? A cooler idea? Am I just deriving from existing works and that's it?"
"I feel like I'm slow compared to others, like I'm not working hard enough, or that I'm behind on everything," Jeremiah said.
He was in a conference call with Kay, a more experienced team member than him, who he had asked to stick around after the morning stand-up meeting, to talk about something personal that was weighing on his mind.
"I dunno, when we talk about what we've done, I always feel like I've got the least to say."
They had been working from home for about a month now, and he had gone through the first few stages of the 5 stages of quarantine grief. He had denied it, 'It'll be over soon'. He had been angry at it, 'This is bullshit! How can they expect us...'. He had bargained, 'I'll have more time for other things now, like reading, or sport. It's not so bad...'.
He was now at the depression stage.
Kay laughed, and then she nodded.
"You do realize we all feel that way, right?"
"...No?" Jeremiah stammered, looking confused.
"Oh boy, do we," Kay said, still smiling.
$ composer require myclabs/php-enum
Using version ^1.7 for myclabs/php-enum
./composer.json has been updated
Loading composer repositories with package information
Updating dependencies (including require-dev)
Package operations: 1 install, 0 updates, 0 removals
- Installing myclabs/php-enum (1.7.6): Loading from cache
Writing lock file
Generating autoload filesRobin sighed and hung his head low. This couldn't keep happening, it was time to do something.
"Welcome to Enums Anonymous, this is a safe place without judgment. We have a new member today. Robin, you want to go first?"
'Oh crap, only 4 hours left,' Marc thought to himself.
Looking at the mess in his apartment, a sense of doom crept up along his spine. Empty pizza boxes, mostly empty bottles, random crap he knew he should've thrown away ages ago and many misplaced things which were misplaced solely due to the fact that they never had a location to be placed in the first place.