Locality
Charles Martinuzzi, 2026
“I am never drinking again!”
Vicki paused at the second story landing, folded her arms on the railing and concentrated on her breathing until the nausea passed. With the surge in her belly easing, the headache came roaring back and she rested her forehead on her arms and squeezed her eyes shut. What the hell did she drink, last night? She could vaguely remember Whelans, the “Irish Pub” on Bloor. She opened her eyes enough to make out the time on her watch. Early enough to make the 10 block hike to the lab, with time enough to hit Mighty Java and try to set things right with her body.
It had snowed overnight, heavy and wet, and the sidewalk had been churned into a track of grey slush. The occasional icy puddle at the curb or dips in the concrete made Vicki grateful that she had proper, waterproof boots on. The air had that just-above-freezing damp cold that was always somehow worse than the straight-up arctic bite of a subzero morning. Below zero might freeze her face off, but the damp just got into bones. The slush, the damp, the usual city cacophony were all just an extra layer of misery on top of feeling like reheated shit.
What the hell happened last night? Turner was there, and Vicki was pretty sure Thorpe and a couple of other people from the lab had stuck around for a couple and then left early. Turner was getting pretty chuffed about the new drug and its effect on the AI models and the organoids, but Turner was always going on at length about MOR programs, which a grad student like Vicki wasn’t allowed to work on. Thorpe was getting more and more agitated as Turner waxed on. Vicki remembered a whispered argument and then Thorpe left. “One more pint and then home” seemed like a good idea, especially since there was this creepy dude across the bar that had been ogling her all night. How did she get home? She had some vague recollections of a stumbling trek through the falling snow, with Turner yammering on about something. At some point he was wondering if they were being followed, but he was pretty sloshed, himself—then waking up in her condo. She had a brief moment of terror at the thought that her drink might have been spiked, but she still had her clothes on from the night before and everything seemed to be in the right place. She was also pretty sure that Turner is gay.
What had he been going on about? Something about entanglement… something about action-at-a-distance. Just ahead, Mighty Java glistened like a fabled lost city and the promise of a very large hot coffee made any other concern far less important at the moment.
Vicki stomped out of the cold, trying to dislodge the slush from her boots as she pushed open the Mighty Java’s glass door. She felt like she had a head full of slush. Her thoughts were a cold messy lump, despite the Advil, and she desperately needed a hot drink to melt them back into something functional. Mighty Java embraced her with its foggy warmth and the amazing smell of roasting coffee. Oh yeah, this is where Vicki needed to be. Somewhere normal.
She fumbled with her pocket, trading her glove for her phone, which she realized was offline for some reason. She toggled Airplane Mode and stepped up to the line to place her order. Her phone pinged: a text from Thorpe? Why was he texting her? She swiped the notification away and opened the wallet app. There’s too much blood in my caffeine system for me to deal with work shit right now. Coffee first.
Svea was at the till, and it looked like she might be working alone this morning. There were two people ahead of Vicki, a woman already picking up her order, and next up was a short, stocky dude in cargo shorts (in March!), hiking boots, and a camo jacket. Peak “Taranna”. The dude exuded “asshole” energy, but he wasn’t really doing anything other than standing with a pissy look on his face. Not Vicki’s problem. She was next in line after him and in a few moments, coffee would fix everything wrong with today and maybe start making up for whatever it was she did last night.
Asshole stepped up. He barked something to Svea which Vicki didn’t hear very clearly, but the tone set her teeth on edge. So far, he was embodying the “small man” stereotype. Whatever Svea said back to him was obviously the excuse he needed because he was ready to go off on her. He yelled something about “the third time you’re out of Irish Cream” and how Svea was a “bitch” and a “fucking idiot”. The slush in Vicki’s head flashed into steam. She felt suddenly ready to explode with the need to do something to Asshole to make him stop. But she knew she couldn’t just call him out. She felt the urge, but the words wouldn’t emerge from the brain fog and her normal aversion to conflict.
Asshole swiped his arm across the counter, knocking the biscotti display, and the other assorted impulse items onto the floor. His face was burning red, the colour radiating from his cheeks all the way up to his scalp, like his brushcut head was full of lava. Vicki saw the look on Svea’s face. It was all the frustration and shame of having to deal with entitled shits, of being a woman getting yelled at by a man, of needing to keep her cool in order to keep her job, and it was too much.
Vicki wasn’t mad anymore. The pressure in her head was gone. Her skin felt hot and tight with purpose, and though she was standing five feet from him, it was as if she was seeing Asshole from a great distance. It didn’t matter whether or not she should; she was going to. There it was again, the buzzing in her chest and the feeling of the “pinch” and suddenly Asshole’s pants were down around his ankles and he stopped yelling. He tried to glare at Vicki, but she hadn’t moved. He was furiously doing the math in his head. The entire shop was shocked into silence. And then everyone, except Asshole, began to laugh.
Asshole grabbed his shorts from around his ankles and tried to pull them up at the same time that he ran for the door. He was stumbling and it only took the tiniest “push” for Vicki to send him sprawling on the slushy sidewalk. He fumbled around for a couple of seconds while passers-by stared in amazement, managed to get to his feet, drag his sodden cargo shorts up around his waist and take off at a dead run.
Vicki felt as calm as a still pond. The shop was exploding with excited laughter and everyone was looking at each other in amazement, except Svea. She was staring directly at Vicki very, very intently. Vicki met her eyes again and instantly looked down.
Uh oh.
Maybe Vicki didn’t need a coffee after all.