2H2K - August 2050 - “No faiR"

MUDC work train on the 3rd Avenue El. [This is the sixth short story in a series, the 1st story is here, the 2nd is here, the 3rd is here, the 4th here, and the fifth.] 

His phone vibrated a warning. Rush hour. Dean realized. He could feel the heat rising across his face. You're such a fucking fuckup.

He'd missed the early morning free ride by two minutes; pictured himself looking in the mirror one last time Pausing to The faRe had gone up to 45 minutes. It would clean him out. Two fucking minutes - classic.

Whether or not he got the job he wouldn’t have enough to get home, much less eat for the next 16 hours when his Gimmie would come through.

Dean paused at the entrance. If he waited the three hours until the faRe dropped back down to 25 minutes, he'd be late for the interview… Fuck it.

He pushed through the turnstile. He had ten minutes left If he got really hungry, it was enough to get a coke or a candy bar. But not both.

Either way, it would have to hold him over.

He had nothing to do for the rest of the day anyway. He could always walk back over the bridge.

Dean looked at his sneakers, disposable orange Juntos. Or at least they used to be orange. They had seen better days. Not the best gear for a job interview. Much less a long a walk... 

Dean watched the well dressed commuters passing through the turnstile, as if 90 minutes a day meant nothing. It probably doesn't.

It was a week night, the faRe would drop to zero after nine. I need this job.

It was a nice day, not too hot, he could always find a park to a hang out in. With that decided, he wondered what would happen if they wanted him to start work today. One Problem at a time Dean.

2H2K - August 2050 - #adviceforyoungjournalists - An Introduction:

The Craven Family, Peter Manzel (2001)

When I started working on this series of short stories about the second half [2H] of the 21st Century [2K] I asked my friend Felix Salmon: "What kind of company would the 'Felix Salmon of 2050' work for, and what will he be doing?" This was well before Felix was "post-text" - well before there were even rumblings of him leaving Reuters (the only job I had ever know him in up until then). I asked Felix because I trying not to imagine dystopian 2050, but instead, I had set myself a more difficult goal: to imagine a "well-paid middle-class lifestyle down the road." Since then I have tried to imagine a future in which there is a place for Felixes, lots of them. He is not the type of person I have had in mind as I've written these stories - he is EXACTLY the person I have had in mind. So I was not surprised when he advised young journalists yesterday: "if you’re more career-oriented, and want a good chance at a well-paid middle-class lifestyle down the road... if you enter the journalism profession today, have probably never been lower." The reason I wasn't surprised, is because it agreed with the answer Felix gave me to my question over a year ago; an answer that didn't discourage me, but pointed me in the direction I have taken with these stories.