Macrophobia — Fear of Long Waits
“Will Your Apartment Survive The End of the World?”
Last week I felt like the world was ending, and today a stranger hands me a survivalist prepper handbook and offers me the chance to rent an apartment in a nuclear hardened silo in case the shit hits the fan. In case of nuclear war.
I started a Medium because the internet says journaling is good for mental health. I’m using a pen name because I don’t want my girlfriend — let’s call her Cielo — to find it. I have a worry disorder, and I’m worried protesters like her will start a revolution.
All I wanted was to get to Slow Joe’s Fast Coffee, the Eureka Valley oasis of free tables and cheap acidic espresso.
Today The City pulsed with electric charge. Nothing had changed, but the sky crackled. The static in the cloud vapor felt charged to capacity. Ready to snap. Same with the driver of the overcast blue 60s Oldsmobile Toronado who tried to run me over in the crosswalk. He snapped. The car swung low around the corner and squeaked its comical bassoon horn — like a real horn. THonk tHONK. Almost killed me.
I get to the corner alive but fuming about my pedestrian right of way. A tin can extended from a sleeping bag on the sidewalk and rattled itself.
I deposited some coin and received a gruff, “Hey, no small change,” in exchange. The can upended and pennies rang out on the cement, and I agreed, and felt guilty. I also wanted big change.
I kept on going, though. Wasn’t about to pull out my wallet on Market Street in the dark of an overcast day.
I stop on the corner and look back. Then a stranger bumps me. I whipped around, and felt a second tap, and it was a guy tapping to get my attention. He held out a flyer and said, “Hey, having a good day?” He might have been Green Peace or something, but his shirt was royal purple; he wore a green reflective vest over it. In case a Toronado doesn’t see him in the dark of an overcast San Francisco day, I guess. I took the flyer, to be polite, and, to be polite I said, “Good, thank you,” and avoided the guy’s eyes. I crossed when the light turned green, and he called after me, “Nice meeting you, check out The Warren on our site, Warren.com. When the Shit Hits The Fan, S.H.T.F., you’ll be glad to have a place in our community!”
#SHTF? WTF?
I read the flyer walking. “Will Your Apartment Survive The End of the World?” My first thought was . . . probably not? I wondered what the Warren was, some kind of nuclear shelter? But I was feeling so anxious with the city bumping and jolting me, I didn’t care about whether my apartment would be blown to heaven in a nuclear war. I just wanted to get to Slow Joe’s, the one place that didn’t burst with laptop people for hours, so I could sit at my laptop for hours without people standing over me with their clay latte cups overflowing.
I lunged up Market past a sign outside a gym that somewhat cruelly said, “What we fear of doing is often what we most need to do.” The cold clouds covering Sutro Tower and the real hills past the Castro created the illusion I was mountain climbing, even though it was one of the least steep of the way more than seven, possibly up to forty-three hills of SF. At the corner of Castro and Market, I came across the most fear-inducing obstacle yet: two bros throwing a football across a parklet, one of them (only in this city), on vintage roller skates. Like circa ’77 roller skates, like roller skates eleven years older than I am. The football arced through the sky — the rainbow flag above the Soul Cycle and Instagram-perfect backdrop — and Roller Skate Guy faded back to catch it.
Every step under that arc, I stepped in fear of a thump on the noggin. If they hit me they’d come over, apologize, and I would feel bad and say don’t worry, no problem. When what I really would have wanted to say was, couldn’t you go to Dolores Park or something? I fumed waiting for the light. Thinking how I spend every moment of every day terrified of making mistakes — and I never hit anyone in the head with a damn football.
My Warren flyer crumpled in my fist; cheap blue, black, and gray dye smudged my fingers. I checked out the flyer again and asked myself if I wanted to survive in the Warren when the shit hits the fan with those bros.
I wanted peace and quiet and solitude. I ran the last block, impossibly uphill again, to Slow Joe’s.
Slow Joe’s Fast Coffee, the Eureka Valley oasis of affordable coffee and library silence, was closed. Phone out, I scrolled. Wasn’t really scrolling for a coffee shop; I knew the Yelp map of coffee shops like the back of my own hand. But nobody just stands around doing nothing anymore. Can’t just wait anymore. Phone’s gotta be out, gotta scroll. In my mind’s mental phone screen, Slow Joe’s hours scrolled by as posted by the sign on the window on the other side of the phone I was pretending to look at. Closed. Closed on Sunday. Closed at five Monday through Saturday. Why hadn’t Google told me this?
“It looks like you’re walking to Slow Joe’s. Did you know it’s closed on Sunday?”
“No, I didn’t. THANKS, Google!”
I had the choice of three trending trendy cafes with a line out the door and a laptop person’s butt in every seat.
Behind me, a bus braked with a brassy squeal, shuttered its door open in clacks, then stepped on it again, leaving me to breathe in smoke fumes. One of its passengers shoved me to get onto the sidewalk. I watched a shock of lightning jump between the wire and the bus. Like a class in pairs for a field trip, a dozen Millennials in purple T-shirts carried signs off the bus as if they were coming from a protest. The signs all said the same thing: “Coalition and the Tri-City Green for the Environment!” on one side. On the other, “❤ I’m A Lover Not A Fracker.” The hair on my arms stood; maybe the guy who bumped into me passed on some static. Was there a protest today? Did I miss it? Was I supposed to be there? Did Cielo message me to come? Had I forgotten another rally she invited me to? This happens all the time. My girlfriend says we need to turn out, and I forget, and she gets rightfully hella mad. I started to freak out a bit, but when I checked my phone, there were no new messages.
It concerned me, too, that these dozen purple T-shirted activists would beat me to get in line at Third Love Coffee. And take up all the tables, and all the seats. And the coffee shop would run out of beans. And I would have to retreat from this city that kept bumping and jolting me, to the safety of my own apartment, which was what I truly in my heart really wanted all along. As I moved along behind them, my stomach teemed in little jolts. I just couldn’t put my finger on why The City felt different today. Why hadn’t Google told me Slow Joe’s was closed?
Read Part 2 of Ernest’s Street Odyssey: Nucleomituphobia — Fear of Nuclear Weapons.
This is a work of fiction — a fictional millennial with an anxiety disorder is writing a Medium account under the pen name Ernest Salvador. Start reading the Sky’s Falling series from the first short story, The Cool Kids Are Building Bombs
