Waning Real World

FICTION

by Trevor Slowinski

Just last month, Tamir was halfway across the country, camping at the top of the Devil’s Tower, way out above the rocks and the pines. The fire burned higher than the setting evening sun, the tents were pitched near the edge of the sky, and his stomach was full of grilled meat and drinks brought back from a faraway world. He and his friends told stories about the beasts they’d slain, the spirits they’d seen, and the quests they’d gone on in the time they were apart, and they joked about how easily those giant Winged Cobras went down on Highway 24; how that was one of the simplest monster-slaying jobs they’d ever done. They cleaned and polished their silver weapons, stayed up well into the night, pointed out the constellations and talked about which were immortal and which were long-dead, and when they slept, they talked to the gods that lent them power when they were young, curious, and afraid. Back then, they lived each day like their last, dodging monsters left and right, wondering why they had to be born with magic in their blood, asking why they were cursed to attract the unnatural. 

When morning struck, the tents came down, and a question was in the air: 

“What’s next?” 

Layla was heading to Toronto, where a cryptid-chasing forum user was paying her to kill a grizzly bear the size of a city bus. Collin, who they’d met recently, was taking a contract to capture a rabid sasquatch in Maine. Grayson, who they’d known the longest, opened a swirling portal with an artifact from his pocket and stepped through without a thought, gone to pick up some armor from another dimension. 

And Tamir? 

Tamir hoped nobody would ask, but he was heading back to New York. It wasn’t for the next hunting job—gods knew he tried to find one, but where his friends got good deals, he was shit out of luck—and he wasn’t heading to the city, just the state. Upstate. Once he said his goodbyes, he’d take buses, trains, taxis, and whatever else he could manage to get to that college town near the Canadian border, about an hour and a half north of his childhood home. He liked to tell anyone who asked that he was a student and he went to school there, but as much as he wished he had that kind of life, he hadn’t gone near a classroom in years. 

When he couldn’t find any creatures to hunt or realms that needed him, he was a couch surfer and a Starbucks barista. His friend who skipped a grade, went straight to college, and lived off campus let him use the basement room as long as he paid a share of the rent. It was less than everyone else in the house paid, and he knew they thought less of him for it, but it beat going back to his resentful mother, and it definitely beat sleeping on the streets. He’d take a stiff back and dusty air over the sleeping bag or the car-seat. The rough, cold mornings in the beat-up work uniform were well worth having a place to stay, and Starbucks, as shitty as it was, was the only low-level job he could handle while he waited for someone to hire him to deal with the real or metaphorical skeletons in their closet. 

Way to go, Tamir. Way to make it in life. Not a champion of yore, but a champion of customer service. Not a brewer of godly meads or nectars, just a brewer of overpriced, overly sweet, and frankly bad coffee. He didn't need his friends telling him he’d ‘figure it out eventually’ or his mother blowing up his phone to know he was going nowhere fast. Training with his blessed ax and hitting the gym felt good, but when he hadn't seen a monster in three weeks and he wondered if a chocolate bar and some rolling paper would break the bank, knowing how to kill a three-headed dragon or survive a run-in with a possessive spirit wasn't much help. 

He imagined higher income, higher education, and better prospects as he tied his apron and fit the green hat on his head. He looked twice as tired beneath the shadow it cast. His boss hated it. She told him that if he wouldn't get sleeping pills or therapy, the least he could do was try makeup or a bowl of ice water in the morning—he did once, it didn't help—and he knew no sleeping pill would stave off his constant nightmares. And he couldn't afford therapy either, not that they’d think he was telling the truth about the fantasy creatures or the god in his dreams, and he absolutely couldn’t fall back on his family or his school like the college kids could. 

Gods, he fucking hated them. They were the only ones that bought this crap, save the occasional dolled-up office worker on her morning commute to her do-nothing job. Nobody else who lived this far up, where your eyelids crusted over and froze together if you blinked too long, would order a huge Frappuccino with caramel drizzle and whipped cream at nine o'clock in the morning. He had to whip up twelve of those glorified milkshakes every few minutes until the clock read eleven and his co-workers arrived and watched, mesmerized, as he held down the entire store on his own. Tamir hated how they worshiped him like the patron god of the Starbucks counter, he didn’t care if it was the only reason he still had his job. He was the sole worker of the busy, soul-crushing morning shift, and when that lanky comp-sci guy with the patchy facial hair entered alongside the brunette majoring in communications, they always prayed that wouldn't be the day the boss realized Tamir could do all their jobs without breaking a sweat and decided to fire them. 

They watched him make a green tea latte while heating a grilled cheese and pumping syrup into a coffee concoction. When they finished clocking in, changing, and getting their shit together, he was still holding it down, and he’d keep the store running until they were ready enough for him to hand off the workload. He always rolled his eyes when they took their places; slowed down just enough for it to look like they were doing something. 

"Man, you look like shit today," the comp-sci guy commented, watching Tamir make his way to the register and sip water from a Poland Spring bottle.  

"What else is new," Tamir replied, slamming the bottle down. 

"Fair enough." 

"Go do your job. We got ten more orders when you came in." 

"Alright, damn," he stretched and yawned; did as he was told, "it's not that serious." 

"It is for me," Tamir grumbled, "I live off this place."  

 * * * 

When his shift ended and he finished closing, the world was his oyster, and the sky was black. This was when most people would be doing their personal projects or going out with their friends, but Tamir didn't have the energy to try the former and the latter only met up when he had to sleep for work. There was never time. He'd lock up, step outside and zip up his North Face puffer, throw on his ragged beanie, hop into his beat-up Subaru Legacy Wagon—it ran fine and he took good care of it, but fleeing from home, being impounded, and being taken back only recently hadn't treated it too well—and head to Burger King because he didn't feel like cooking and couldn't afford better takeout. He ordered a Double Whopper, fries, nuggets, and a Coke at the drive-thru and pulled into the parking lot, slumped back in the driver's seat. Hard rock blasted through the aux as he found a decent spot and unwrapped his greasy delight. 

Punks with dyed hair and eyeliner raged against the world through his fried speakers, and he chomped and stared blankly at the restaurant's neon exterior; at the life behind the frost-covered windows. Employees cackling at each other's jokes, enjoying their jobs more than him—some high-schooler chatting with his girlfriend and her friends at the counter, they’d break up within a month—a few blue-collar boomers treating themselves to some slop. Average men, average women, average people. In a way, less gifted than him and less significant than the other cursed monster-slayers he knew, but he envied them all the same. Yes, he had things they'd never have, he had magic weapons, magic powers, and he knew about the many realms beyond their own, but when he left that all behind and came into the real world where nobody knew about those things and they were more fiction than fact, it fucking sucked. There were so many things he missed out on, so many things he would never understand. He’d been on the road, running and fighting, since he was fifteen. He didn’t graduate high school, he got a GED. He didn’t go to prom, he spent the night with the other dropouts: drunk and high, bumming around a parking lot. 

And why was it always a parking lot? Not a school cafeteria, not a nice place you'd have to pay to get into, not even someone's house, just a fucking parking lot. How did he always end up in parking lots? Why, even now, was he sitting in the parking lot, while those screaming and chortling high school kids poured through the doors, playfully pushing and shoving each other, howling at their own jokes, trying not to spill their drinks? The thought almost pissed him off. If he were born different—born normal—that could have been him. He could have had the typical upbringing, the stable life he'd always wanted. He wouldn't have to fight day-in and day-out, beating back the beasts, making ends meet, keeping the anxious thoughts and the depressive spells at bay. He was tired of fighting. Tired of the struggle. Tired of keeping on. Tired. 

When he finished his burger and moved onto the fries, the restaurant quieted down. The last person walked out, definitely younger, and Tamir recognized that paranoid, confused look on his face. Curious, he squinted—then two bright golden glows appeared in the trees, like wide, hungry eyes, and he snapped towards them—and before he could figure out what they were, a low, rumbling growl shook the asphalt. The kid looked back and started running, like he knew what it was, like he knew he had to run from it. Tamir squinted and reached for his ax. Maybe he was right about what was happening, maybe he could step in. If there was some slobbering, foul creature hiding in the foliage, he could chop it up, save the kid, and sell the parts on the black market. That’d be a few months’ rent, that’d be weed money. He really considered it. 

But was it worth the trouble? Worth letting that kid live this kind of life? A few years from now, would he be the one sitting in the parking lot? 

He stopped himself. He powered on the car, hit the gas, and peeled out onto the road. 

Rubber burned. Exhaust screamed. The kid went up in smoke.