Two micro fictions by Matthew Jakubowski

This kind of freedom

On what epidemiologists would later mark as the single deadliest day of the early 21^st Century in America, Sophie was drinking gin and tonics and dozing off by the pool at the place in the Poconos she was housesitting  for three nights for three hundred bucks. It had six bedrooms and three bathrooms. The couple who owned it had left Sophie a fully stocked bar and fridge. No pets to care for. A security system. All the entertainment subscriptions. A hundred-dollar Visa gift card to order takeout, plus a chest freezer in the garage with pizza, ice cream, mac ’n cheese, and dumplings. 

Two years later, alone in her small West Philly apartment with long Covid, which her health insurer wouldn’t acknowledge as a real thing, eating eighty-four cent ramen that used to cost thirty-two, hoping her shitty older brother who lived across the city in their dead parents’ house was, at the very least, worried about her sometimes, Sophie remembered what the tan handsome husband  had said years ago outside that huge empty house the day he and his wife got back from one of their many pandemic getaways: “We have a such a beautiful country! It’s important for us all to get out and see it, you know? I really hope you get to someday, when you’ve earned this kind of freedom for yourself.”

Alight, Astray

The six of us skipped school and found ourselves tip-toeing east on the sidewalk trash like each bit was a stepping stone. Downtown we observed Mr. Tuesday trying to witch someone’s finances with angry moths and diseased cats, saw him batting at smoke-and-mirror joy with tentacles and tongs, gnashing despair between his teeth. It was hard not to stare as he let the day flog him and his colleagues chained to the feet of another Tuesday, those who live to keep the wealth-floated buoyant, who walk backwards slowly each morning to the elevator the chair and desk to present face present teeth present the daily stagecraft of the unspoken echoing within. We stole a fancy lunch and saw the sky not wondering at all if a thing like Tuesday was happening, or if paths lead into parking garage shadows, the salvation of sleep, or the families in apartments all day together chewing one another’s loneliness. My skin sucked no emotion from what we saw, but as we escaped it, like tourists, I felt absolutely elated to know none of us would ever work downtown. The wind left more trash behind us. We collapsed on our front steps. Someone smashed the last bottle. Everyone cheered. I dropped a cigarette to burn the path we’d taken.