April 2019. 07:00.

Kiri could swear she saw a distortion in the air. It was off in the distance, hovering above the golden grassy plains like a tiny, jagged window. It had strange, iridescent squiggles at its edges. Within was a blur, almost like one shouldn’t perceive it. At first, she thought her exhaustion was giving her an ocular migraine again, but she didn’t see it when she blinked hard, nor did it move when she moved her eyes.

She was walking when she saw it. She’d spotted it between two houses at the edge of town on her usual route to work. Her uncle walked with her today, nose buried in his presentation packet, so he hadn’t noticed her slowing down behind him.

Keeping her eyes pinned to the distortion, she scampered to catch up to him. “Uncle Jim, do you see that distortion over there?”

He was mid mumbling a sentence from a page when he glanced over. She had to pull him back a couple of steps so a building wouldn’t block their view.

He adjusted his round spectacles and leaned slightly toward the distortion, squinting.

Kiri waited in silent anticipation, then he said, “I don’t see anything. Are you sure it isn’t just some dust they’ve been kicking up at the construction site?”

He was referring to the new box store construction site the town had just approved, despite protests from archeologists, First Nations advocates, and environmentalists. Excavation had just begun a month or two ago. It seemed a little too far left of the distortion, but Kiri could come to believe it was just some dust that had blown away. Maybe her eyes were also going bad.

She finally peeled her eyes away from the distortion. She knew that look on Uncle Jim’s face. He could only ever look at that site with disappointment. A bit of disgust, even. But he was good at bottling it.

Kiri tried to lighten the mood. “Or maybe we’ve been trapped in a bubble all along and never even knew it. And now the bubble is finally beginning to rupture.”

Uncle Jim closed his packet, finally. Took a deep breath. “It does feel that way, sometimes.”

Kiri let out a faint but sad chuckle. She looked back at where the distortion was. It was gone.

The two of them continued down the road silently until they reached a junction in the peaceful, still suburb where they’d part ways. The birds chattered in the trees along the road. The last bit of crisp coolness from the night before slowly warmed as the sun rose. It was Kiri’s favorite part of the day, though she wouldn’t have been awake if she was on her preferred schedule.

“Well, have a good day at work and class, Kiri,” Uncle Jim said. “I’ll meet you this evening at the Portal Festival, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ll see you at our usual spot by the stage just before the choir starts. We can figure out where to eat after, if you’re not busy.”

“As if I’d be busy. I don’t need anyone else to hang out with.”

He pouted.

Kiri sighed. “I mean it! I’m quite content.” She attempted to sound convincing, but Uncle Jim wouldn’t look sated. She hurriedly changed the subject. “Anyway, that’s not important right now. Good luck with your presentation.”

“Yeah.” He shook his arms as if shucking off extra invisible weight. “Yeah… I’ll need it. Thanks.”

As he turned to leave, Kiri asked. “Hey, do you think they’re really gonna choose to let the data company build over such a huge section of the protected habitat?”

When her uncle didn’t move or speak at first, she feared she had hit a nerve. Instead, he turned back to her and proffered an unreadable smile. He said, “It’ll be fine, Kiri. It’ll work.”

Kiri was about to respond, but her eyes drifted down, and she nodded. She wasn’t about to give away the fact she couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

They waved goodbye to each other. Split ways, Uncle Jim to the fate of this small town and Kiri to her next shift.

♦  ♦  ♦

Kiri felt stuck in her own liminal space at her job. It was at a chicken farm, and she couldn’t remember how she’d started working there. She’d always volunteered at her uncle’s suggestion, and at some point, started getting paid.

“Golden Egg Farms,” said the rusty old sign out front the visitor center with a tacky logo of a chicken in a police hat, holding its wing out in a “thumbs up.” Her uniform was a just-as-tacky blue collared shirt over khakis. The same logo stood out on the back of her shirt, giant and obnoxious with the caption “No Fowl Play Here.” She almost hated it more than the job itself.

It wasn’t grueling work, but it was excessive. Her coworkers were primarily old ladies, and they’d hoist off any physical labor they could onto her. Why they couldn’t just hire more people? She’d rather clean chicken poop with her bare hands than ask them. All morning, she’d listen to them barking contradictory orders at her. They often disagreed on methodologies, and she was stuck in the middle of their frustration.

Still, she smiled through it. Reminded herself that this job was the only one that would pay her just a little over minimum wage in this pathetic little town.

By the end of her shift in the early afternoon, the sun was blazing. She had fed the chickens, harvested the eggs, cleaned out the crates (even if a random coworker had snarky things to say about it), and organized supplies as best she could. She went to the visitor’s center of the chicken farm to change out of her diabolical uniform back into her white tee tucked into light blue culottes and a forest green cardigan topping it off.

She grew hopeful that she could duck out of work on time, for once. She was almost out the door when her boss, the eldest of the ladies stopped Kiri and said she should seriously consider working at their restaurant, grow out her hair from that “unfeminine” pageboy style, wear pigtails, and “take advantage of that untapped femininity” for extra tips. Her coworkers, somehow on break for the fifth time today, passed it off as a joke, as they always did. They said, “Oh, she’s just projecting because of her tiny boobies. You’re perfectly fine right here as you are.”

“No shit, I’m projecting,” the boss shot back. “I would’ve killed for a rack that large as a young’un. Add on the pigtails, and I could’ve had a real retirement savings.”

Kiri didn’t respond. Kept on that plastic smile she’d been mastering these past few years. When had it become so natural? She waited until there was an opening for her to excuse herself, slowly edging toward the exit door.

Her coworker wearing a polka dot blouse and permed white hair stopped her at the exit. She held up a long green floral patterned dress toward Kiri. “By the way, I found the perfect dress for you. It’s just your color and—”

“That dress again! She already rejected it two days ago, ya ditz!” the lady with the ponytail interrupted.

“Ah, then, how about this—”

“That one, too! Yer memory’s goin’ if ya still haven’t given up tryin’ to make her farm mascot material.”

There it was again. Kiri had no chance to speak over them as they squabbled over how they wanted to see her, like she was their dress-up doll. She smiled with her lips, but her pale green eyes remained glazed over as she waited for them to grow tired of the conversation. At least it never took long.

Her boss finally returned the conversation to its original topic—somewhat of a relief, though it wasn’t much better. “Kiri, how are those applications going?” she asked.

Kiri’s obligatory smile almost cracked. “Huh?”

Ms. Boss grew huffy. “You know, the universities you said you applied to!”

Kiri didn’t want to answer, but they’d talk if she didn’t. Her mind was a whirlwind of excuses as her gaze drifted to the floor. Beside herself, she answered with the truth. “I—well, one of them accepted me, but the scholarship didn’t go through—”

“Guess that just means you’ll need to save up!” Ms. Boss boomed over her. “I don’t think your uncle is going to be much help to you in the future. Everyone knows that data center’s going up. In the end, people know this town needs more jobs. People need the money to pay their bills, after all. Honestly! I keep telling him he’s wasting—”

Kiri’s mind went blank. Ms. Boss’ voice sounded further and further away, muddled like Kiri was listening below water. Her gaze drifted out the window as she waited for the rant to end.

Then she saw it. The distortion was out there again. It hovered over the chicken farm, much closer than before.

She stared at it, her heart beating faster and faster the longer she stared at it. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on-end now.

She snapped out of her trance when Ms. Polkadot placed a hand on her shoulder in some attempt to be reassuring.

Ms. Boss finished her rant. “I really mean it. If you work at my restaurant, you can earn a lot more from tips. This job is fine and all, but I can’t pay you anymore than this.”

Another coworker crocheting in the corner chimed in, cheerfully. “Or you could even try the data center when it opens. I hear tech work pays very well.”

“She’d need a degree for that, which is what she’s trying to get in the first place,” Ms. Ponytail reminded sternly.

Meanwhile, Ms. Polkadot took Kiri’s hand and placing the green dress into it. Kiri wanted to hand the dress right back. She even wanted to chuck it at one of her coworkers’ faces. But she’d already had enough for today. She forced another smile. Said, “I’ll think about the restaurant job. But I need to go to class now.”

She glanced one last time out the window. The distortion had disappeared again. She said her goodbyes, rolled up the dress, and quickly dashed out of the Golden Egg Farms Visitor Center.