Day 88 - The Last of Everything

 The Last of Everything

 Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

The price of oranges had gone up again. A week ago, George had bought one Mandarin Orange. The clerk made a comment – they peeled easily, but that price! George nodded along and said that was why he was only buying one. This week though, he would pass. One orange was suddenly as expensive as a pound of meat had once been.

In a different era, he might had just blamed it on getting old. Prices will rise, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Yes, prices had risen since his childhood, but George knew it was more than that. Anything and everything seemed out of reach now. It wasn’t just getting old. It was getting old at the same time as getting poor. It was getting old while getting poor while jobs got worse.

George wondered if that was the last orange he would ever have. How could he justify the cost? It had been nearly a year since he had a peach or pear. At least three since he had pineapple.

One year it was the cost of shipping. Another year there were floods to blame. The next it might be drought. Then came famine or plague or pestilence. All those phrases from the books long ago, that people had forgotten might actually come true someday. Not that he saw any horsemen riding in with sickles raised, but one could never be quite sure when Revelations might come true.

In the parking lot George noticed a new dent and a few scratches on the passenger side door. He took a deep breath and told himself that it was okay. It was only a car. It was only a thing. One more thing he would never fix. One more thing he could never afford. The car was already decades old. It only needed to last him for as many more as possible.

He sat in the parking lot, feeling hopeless. It had been well over a decade since he had sat alone in his car and cried. That was because of a broken window and a stolen radio that were simultaneously worthless and irreplaceable.

Suddenly things were feeling like 2008 again. There was something in the air and people were talking about it in casual conversation. The woman going door-to-door trying to sell solar panels had opinions. So did the AAA tow truck driver who sold him a new car battery. Everything was bad again. Everyone was feeling it. Long overdue, the cycle had taken a few extra years to work out this time, but everyone knew it was coming. A matter of days or weeks or months, but soon. The collapse was on its way.

George thought about going back in the store and buying himself an orange. Why not? What was the point of scrimping and saving when it wouldn’t amount to anything anyway? Why not enjoy a moment or two and have some small reason to live?

He couldn’t justify the price. Sadly, he couldn’t justify the effort. It would take time and energy and that was as precious a commodity as some piece of paper in his pocket.

George sat a moment more, gritted his teeth and punched his leg and told himself to suck it up. Eventually he started the car. He chewed on his lip and wondered what he would do. He had no answers. No prospects. If things got really bad, he had very few options. He drove away, suppressing his anxiety attack, hoping the for a bit of sunshine that had yet to come.