Taxing Time - Part I

A short story I wrote while doing some canvassing on the West Coast.

Curst had enough familiarity with the world to navigate the nanny state. She knew how to avoid tickets for biking without a helmet. She poised, like a pillar of the setting, sailing through the city streets on her bike. The young flower child passed street punks on corners, and commuters stuck in traffic. Everyone’s strategy for survival differs depending on how quickly their cards empty from the deck.

“Excuse me.” Curst said to an elderly man on the sidewalk. He wore a tired, grey suit. Time had trampled over it. Still, it wasn’t entirely time’s fault. The old man knew that he, himself, had walked over the jacket on more than one occasion, and his dog routinely chose it for a bed.

“Oh pardon me, my dear.” The old man replied. He stepped aside giving Curst room. She rounded the corner of Johnson and looked for somewhere to lock up her bike. This had little bearing to her fate in the stable unreality of the city. The familiar three-digit marker of her fundraising office appeared. Inside, the scattered misfits of modernity chatted and killed the minutes before their work shift. It was likely a specific trait that drew Curst towards them. Perhaps their perception of time matched Curst’s reality. The young anomaly had long given up on the math, but at the rate her years kept advancing one could be fairly sure that she had aged at least a week on her way to work. Her phone flashed.

“Hey you close?” The text read. Curst didn’t see the point in answering. She put the phone back in her pocket and walked through the door. Daron wandered to the stairs ahead of her. She didn’t increase her pace. They’d all hang out in their strange little office for at least an hour before hitting the streets. Curst’s words were held captive by her eyes during most of this period.

“Hello there, my young dear!” A troll called out from his cave. He smiled under his long, red beard and bulbous nose. The troll charted out the streets, and handed out directions.

“Hi Leif.” Curst replied. Her voice mimicked the cheerful salutation. In two years she’d be bent with age and Leif would be unchanged. He’d still be popping out of his cave from time to time for greetings and farewells. Inside the little office, Adrian and Joe talked loudly of a revolution neither was sure they really wanted.