Day after
The day after Yahflay dies isn't a day when we mourn him or even acknowledge the fact that he lived at all.
I seemed to be the only one who cared that he died, surprisingly, accounting for the fact that he was A'roll's best friend. A'roll drives me around downtown to go to every shop I want to, using his mother's paycheck he snagged from the delivery robot.
I still don't understand why they send one physical paycheck and one digitally? Places only take digital nowadays anyway. Plus, it's been twenty-nine thousand years since the introduction of the digital currency.
A'roll and I stop near the tunnel we always go to after we blow a whole bunch of money, the tunnel leading to Awburg, the worst city in the Galaxy.
He parks his car by the side, hops the fence, and jogs towards the bench facing the Constantine River.
A'roll takes out a book and hands it to me.
"What's this?" I ask him before opening it.
"You'd make a good author one day, I can tell. You're always observing something, thinking you're better than everybody else." He opens a little brown bag and takes out his lunch. He's eaten a pathetic ham sandwich every day of high school life since we first started school.
Some days, I forget we're even meant to be out there getting an education. A'roll and I missed so much school together that the computer thinks we're off-world.
We're part of the planet that never really interacts with the rest of the Federation. We just do our pledge — well, the rest of them do. I can't do the pledge for religious purposes.
Or, tie my shoes on a Friday, unless it's the last day of the month; then it's okay.
A'roll looks up at the sky and points towards a constellation flickering.
"There's a battle going on there." He says.
"How can you tell?" I ask him.
A'roll shrugs; he just says whatever comes to mind, and if it sounds cool, it sounds cool. A lot of people think he's way older than he is, and me too. They think we're like in our late 20s, all that Koudzl and stress aged A'roll horribly.
"There's this girl I met at this house party the other day. She's wonderful. Her name's Anmagus." A'roll finishes his sandwich and tosses it into the river.
A garbage cleaning robot catches it and throws it as his forehead. He flinches as it hits him and tosses it in the trash can beside the bench.
"She's wonderful, man. This love stuff, you gotta try it. She's not like that Earth girl, Phoebe, or that dude Rosevurt from Torsac Nine. She's my real soulmate, I can feel it." He says, placing his hands over his lap, and he watches the second moon rise over the first.
"So, Co'ol. What do you wanna do with your life? He asks me.
"I'll become a savant in Aheia. Or something lame like an accountant. I have so many disciplinary records from bullshitting with you and the rest of the Haze, I don't know what job will hire me." He slaps a paper on my chest.
"The Goddamn army will hire you! That's what we're doing. We're both joining The Liberators on our 18th! Get ready to be a jarhead! "
A'roll exclaims and smacks the back of my neck.
"I can only join the military of states that follow the laws of A-" He punches me across the mouth.
"Drop the shit. I signed you up; you signed me up. Tell the drill instructor what religion you practice when it's time for church!"
I look at A'roll.
"Are you deadass?"
"My ass is dead." He snickers.
I turn my head around, then look at his chest.
"Your buttons aren't cameras, are they?" I ask him.
"Nope! I'm not trolling. We're jarheads now. We're gonna be in the shit soon!"
"You've only seen the military from movies, haven't you?" I ask him.
A'roll nods his head and then takes out some old family record.
"Yup, but my great-grandfather, A-real, can get us past the cadet basic training if we pass this written test and that aptitude test. All I have to do is say my mom adopted you or something, and they'll cross-reference all the pictures we have together, use some AI, and boom, now we're family!" He pats the record, and it shakes.
"What's your obsession with all this physical shit? We're digital now, old man." I stand from the bench, walking to A'roll's car.
"See, you can't fake a physical record. It's in a computer too!"
He opens the car door and shakes his slushie around, which we got from Jakar's Corner Sar.
"Damn it, they melted!" He yells.
Wonder calls A'roll, and he picks up the phone immediately.
"What do you want? It's one in the morning!" He yells.
"You and Co'ol have been all around the city and haven't brought me shit to eat. That's what I want. Tell Co'ol if he's so sad about Faye being dead, try to bring him back to life! Bye, Eggroll!"She hangs up.
A'roll looks at me.
"Don't look at me like that, dude," I say, wiping my hands over my face.
"You got temple tomorrow, so I might as well take you there." He says starting the car, taking the long way through the tunnel to get back into the city. We spot an older man walking along the bridge. A'roll honks his horn at him and rolls his window down.
"Aye, are you lost?" He yells.
"A'roll? You know you and whoever's in that car are too young to be —A'roll throws his slushie at his face, then hands me a slushie. I skyhook it onto his face, and the blue liquid pours onto his feet. The man shakes his jacket.
"You're both expelled! Both of you!" He yells.
A'roll speeds down the road.
"Damn it! My mom said if I got expelled, she'd send me to…I'm already in the military." He laughs, speeding down the road, swerving sporadically.
"You don't usually take this route." I point out.
"Shut up and watch this shit!" He drives his car through a skatepark, making it do a kickflip in hover mode. While in hover mode, he flies me to my temple, kicking me out the door.
Right then and there, the high priest is waiting for me. His arms are crossed, and he looks disappointed.