On the morning of their half birthday in their thirty-first year around the sun, Wilder wakes in possession of Magic.
One might contend that things don’t happen that way, that adults do not simply wake to Power. But one might consider this: adults often wake up to terrible things, like they have thrown their back out while sleeping or they have cancer or someone they know has perished in the night. Why shouldn’t it be something nice for a fucking change?
When Wilder pictures themself, they see only their conscious thought, a cascade of pure blue light, a being created of twisted, rain-heavy cloud made solid and brought to earth. But outwardly, they do live in a meat sack. They are pale, not quite so luminously white as linen sheets, but not far from it, with freckles that stand out against their skin like they’ve been drawn on. Their hair is naturally orange and sits atop their head in a wild, gnomish fashion. Like a Troll Doll. They have the crooked teeth of someone whose parents never dreamed of incurring dental fees. They have breasts they never think about, which are currently cocooned under a quilt made of old T-shirts and topped with a cat, her long fur just as marmalade as Wilder’s coiffure.
It is early for Wilder, which means it is a normal morning time for everyone else. They have six shitty gigs, and they squint at their cracked phone trying to decide which combination of them will net the most money today. Will it be Taskrabbit? Instacart shopping? It is very cold out; should they hop on Fiverr and try to get eight hours’ worth of transcription? Or copywriting? That way, they won’t have to leave.
Wilder loves not leaving their apartment. They are a rock in the middle of a river—everything rushes around them while they stay still. Or one might even think of them as the river. Ever-flowing, slow but impermanent and, therefore, aloof. At least that is what they tell themself when they try to narrativize why it is they have no friends, no family they speak to. The truth is, of course, much simpler and far harsher: they see other people only as rivals. Everyone is vying for the same limited resources, and resources are always limited. It is a very lonely existence, actually.
Their cat, the Lady Anastasia, makes biscuits on their chest, which gets them out of bed fast. They scoop food into her bowl and stretch their arms out to their sides. When they do this, they can put their palms flat on each wall. It is both depressing and comforting. Wilder likes a cave; their room certainly is one. Everything in their apartment is thin and long, railroad style. They have a twin bed shoved in a corner, a stack of library books next to it topped with a cold mug of tea from the night before. A wire rack of clothes. A small closet that can’t open all the way, its door impeded by the steam heater. Legally, this counts as a bedroom.
Something about the day (they do not yet know what) quivers with possibility; they hope it is some good omen that they are about to make a lot of money. They charge the most for research tasks and their bank account has fifty-two dollars in it because they just paid rent. So it is time, they think, for Taskrabbit above all else. They accept a “research” booking, which is personal assistant stuff, never truly interesting. Their task today: plan a vacation for two people with a budget of ten thousand dollars.
It turns out it is extremely demoralizing to plan a vacation for two when the budget is what takes them nearly a third of a year to make. They have never seen this number in their bank account balance, not ever, not once. They decide to fortify themself with coffee. Wilder jams their glasses, taped at the hinge, onto their face, wraps their quilt around themself, and steps into the cold kitchen-dining-living-room-foyer. The floor is freezing and the zing on their toes wakes them up enough to make it across to the kitchen in a pre-caffeinated state. On their way, they pass a tired man in a janitorial uniform—their roommate. He is eating cereal. They grunt “hey” at each other.
Wilder scoops coffee into a shitty percolator; their roommate watches Netflix on his phone and chews loudly. Wilder’s roommate is a gentle, quiet dude named Andy who works as a night janitor at New York University; he is just getting home now, and Wilder presumes he’s about to go to sleep. His phone rings while Wilder silently chugs a glass of water. Their roommate is as taciturn as Wilder is, as content (if one can call it contentment) to be alone, so when his phone rings and interrupts a confectionary war of some kind, it is the reasonable assumption that he will begin speaking in Spanish to his parents or his sister, the only people he regularly talks to, perhaps ever talks to. Indeed, he picks up the phone and says, “Hey, Mama.” His mother is a loud talker. Wilder can always hear her clearly, though the phone is never on speaker.
As they pour nearly expired milk into their coffee cup, the volume makes eavesdropping on the exchange unavoidable, which is less a conversation and more their roommate’s answering to rapid-fire grilling—how is the school, do you think you’ll ever go to the school, why is the school so expensive—in an exhausted tone that suggests this is, perhaps, the hundred and twelfth time he’s had this “conversation” with his mother. Something nags at Wilder, but they still fix their coffee, take one sip, and trot back to their room. They are so pre-exhausted by the day that Wilder has forgotten they do not speak Spanish, have never even studied it. Uneasy without explanation (or rather, with the usual explanation of “capitalism”), they close the door and set about planning a vacation to a place they will never visit.