Chapter 1, Part 1, Verse 5
Harrison was allergic to corn. Deathly allergic. To the pollen maybe, or to the leaves, or something. He walked out of a cornfield once covered in scrapes from the leaves and bloated like a toad for four whole days afterwards. He couldn’t go to school, could hardly eat, and just laying down was a pain. All he could really do was sit in a hot bath and watch as much bad nineties romance anime as he could find on legally-provided websites with ads that he would feel more than comfortable showing to his dear grandmother at his grandfather’s funeral (God rest his soul). He did not walk through cornfields from then on without extreme protection. He bought a gasmask and everything for it, although he didn’t know you needed to buy filters as well.
Besides the fact that he was allergic, he hated the stuff anyways. Corn was nasty. A big lump with knobs. It has the juice. He could not imagine a more horrible thing. His grandparents had a farm growing up; pigs, chickens, cows, corn, squash, the whole nine yards. And every weekend they would have corn. So much corn. Frozen corn, cob corn, corned cream, corn mash, cornmeal, corn syrup, too much god damn corn, all the corn damn time. He was sick of it. He had no desire to ever again taste corn. As a poor college kid it was quite rough as he seldom could find an instant ramen cup that didn’t have some amount of corn in it. He stuck to the blocks themselves. He risked it no further.
He still had that gas mask somewhere. Some part of him was paranoid that perhaps one day it would become necessary. Perhaps the apocalypse would open up, as apocalypses are wont to do, and the earth would bathe in fire. But he would be safe, because he learned how to tie knots with the Boy Scouts and how to find berries with the Boiz Clout (the local stoner band that at far too young an age took Harrison under their wing and showed him how to do smoke rings in the air as well as ruined his music tastes forever with horribly distorted guitars and mumbling words). He could survive any attack, he liked to think. Of course he knew deep down, between his medications, history of lung disease, and general disregard for personal health or safety, he would probably be among the first to go. He was less a Sarah Conner and more an Extra #3, probably uncredited. He wondered vaguely sometimes if he would have a body double made so when a monster ripped him apart, they could actually show it. In a way, that was cool. In another way, he dreaded the idea of there being another of him out there, somewhere in the world. Even a facsimile. Who knows what a thing like that would be capable of?
He stepped across the threshold of the grocery store’s door and entered the blinding fluorescent lights and aisles upon endless aisles of food colored goodies and produce and other things that he considered edible. He looked around vaguely, scanning each aisle, until he inevitably had to look again. He was supposed to be wearing glasses, but he had lost those so long ago and hardly had the funds to re-up his prescription. So he wandered around aimlessly, picking up things that Antoni could possibly cook with, or himself, if he ever felt so inclined. He was the only one of the three that couldn’t cook, and he would be lying if he said it didn’t bring him down at least a little bit.
“You find what you’re looking for?” That was Sam, the local stocker girl. She had blue hair and, as her pin professed, pronouns. She was nice to Harrison in high school, but she was also far better than him at art, at singing, abt basically anything harrison had aspired to be any about of good at. He didn’t hate her like he hated Antonio. He might have even had a crush on her at some point. But he wasn’t the most in-tine with his emotions, and the level of self-reflection required to recognize a feeling like that was a littl ebeyond his wheelhouse at the present junctuure.
“I’m gine, thank you” He said quietly.
“Well, just let us know if you need anything.”
Harrison nodded, anc continued down the aisel.
“BNy the wayl,” Sam said,” the friends chicken is in the back if you’re looking for it. “
Harrison dnondded. “Thank you.” Did he really come here that often? He supposed he did. He supposed he came fairly often when there was nothing left to cook in the house, because Cassandra and Antoni worked normal people cjobs like normal people. An office assistant and an engineer are normal jobs, he reckoned.
“Is an engineer a normal person job?” He wondered out loud.
“Of course it is,” came a voice. It sounded weirdly feminine to be his inner monologue.
“It’s kind a cool, when you think about it,” he mused. He wanted to build things when he younger was. But he was frankly kind of dogshit at math, and that turned out to be a large portion of building anything. Buildings, cars, spaceships, robots.
“Puts a damper on the whole thing, don’t it.”
“It sure does. I wish iI Didn’t need math.”
“Who says you do?”
“College.”
“You think college is right?”
“Worked out for Cass and Ant”
“And they still ended up with you”
“The economy’s rough. Engineers are getting laid off left and right. You saw how many there were last week alone. She graduated just before a crash.”
“Doesn’t Cass not even want to be an engineer?”
“No, she does. She just also likes theater.”
“The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“Have you ever seen Cirque De Soleil?”
“No, but I’d love to.”
“I watfhed them on UYOutube once. My mom likes them a lot. I don’t know if she’s seen them in mperson, but teyre’ pretty freakin sweet, not gonna lie.’
“Do they count as circus?”
“Well it’s stunts and swinging around and body paint and the like. What, do you want there to be a freak show?”
“The only monsters paid to put their ass int hose chairs”
“I agree”
Harrison blinked, and realized someone was standing in front of them. “My apologies, I didn’t see you there. I’ll get out of your way.”
Sam laughed. It was a nice laugh. Harrison wished he could laugh like that. “I figured you didn’t. Youre a weirdo, yknow that Harris?”
“I’ve been told once or twice.”
“Do you have a problem with it?”
“Hardly. It’s true.”
