Lacey

Chapter 1

James: July 5th, 2023

God, I hate this job.

It's not the actual work that bothers me. It's quite a simple occupation, really. All I have to do is neatly crop and touch over images, then submit them to whichever publisher wants them. I've been doing this since I was 10. Only difference is that now I get paid.

And there lies the problem. My salary is basically nothing. Ever since I've started going to Yale University, I've had to juggle studying and working. The studying isn't too bad. I've already memorized 90% of the material since 9th grade that the professors teach. The real troubles are the tuition fees.

Yale is an Ivy League school, which means it's extremely pricey. I was lucky enough to even get in. But my parents are the old-fashioned kind. The types to kick their kids out once they graduate high school. So once I neared 18 before lockdown, I was on my own. Turns out that no one in retail wants to hire a guy who blanks out at job interviews.

I now work two jobs. The photoshop one and the influencer one. The influencer one hasn't really been working out too well, though. I got kicked out of a bunch of online publications because I got into a ton of controversy. Looks like there is such a thing as bad publicity after all.

But hey, at least I got some editor friends back. Still not in any of the teams.

Three Weeks Later

On a Friday evening, I hung out in a voice chat with my online friends Corianna and Darian.

Corianna is the team lead of a set of blogs reviewing indie and folk music. She is 18 - a couple years younger than me - and goes by Artsy Carolina online. I used to be on that team, until she booted me half a year ago for talking shit about the other writers and editors. Cori and I are cool now, but I'm not getting back on her website team anytime soon.

She is a green eyed and long light brunette woman with ivory skin like her avatar. In addition to books and anime, Cori enjoys bluegrass and hip-hop music.

Darian is my best friend. Unlike his raven-haired avatar with a shade more like mine, he is auburn haired with light skin and hazel eyes. We first met on a Minecraft server when I was 15 and he was 14. I didn't have many friends in school and no close ones. Admittedly, I wasn't a huge fan of Minecraft. I was more of a casual player whenever I had time. But I had heard of the anarchy servers on the platform, where rules are few and chaos is plenty. I wanted to see if I could use my programming knowledge of JavaScript and Python to survive there. Boy, was I wrong. If Darian wasn't in the server, I probably would have downloaded malware and fried my computer right there.

The weird part is, we already knew each other in real life. But until we were both 17, neither of us was aware of the other's online identities. I just knew him as D. Noir and he only knew me as Archer J. We've only become closer since then.

"So," said Corianna, "how's the photoshop gig, James?"

"Mediocre as always," I responded.

"Well, color me surprised."

I checked my other DMs for a moment before switching back to the call.

"How's it going?" I asked Darian.

"Great!" he answered. "Guess what? I got into-"

Darian's audio went out.

"I can't hear you," stated Corianna. "It sounds like a hungry person on your end."

Darian adjusted his microphone.

"Can you hear me now?" he asked.

"Yes," I responded. "That's better."

"Alright," said Corianna, "go on."

"I got a voice acting role! And it involves singing!"

"That's great!" Corianna exclaimed. "In what show?"

"I can't disclose which one," Darian answered. "The producers have a contract forcing everyone working on it to keep quiet about their involvement."

Corianna sent a smirk emoji.

"And that is why you just bragged, D."

"Well," Darian snarked back, "it's not like I'm telling you which show I'm in."

"Don't listen to Cori," I teased, "she's just trying to mess with your head. I'm happy for you."

But honestly, I wasn't happy. I wasn't content that Darian could get in with his mid-tier acting and Auto-tuned singing while I have attempted to get multiple contracts in vain. They say that hard work is what makes you succeed, but I've worked my ass off in everything and I'm still not making it that far.

I've applied to several job openings - cashier, janitor, machinery, waiter, fucking babysitting. I've tried every online gig there is: website testing, design, marketing, amateur columnist, even video editing and those random surveys. And look where I am now.

Just a boring dude renting a hotel room and working photoshop as a summer job.

(Medium teaser: https://medium.com/@SnarkyLisa/untitled-no-1-story-preview-8966ffdde73a)

(Tumblr version: https://www.tumblr.com/talesfromasnarkylisa/762236977707958272/lacey-chapter-1?source=share)