Sporemageddon

I left that night. Not that I didn’t intend to return, I just... I needed some space, and I figured my mom did as well.

So I went out and found Bet. She lived in a smaller house, with one parent. It was in a neighbourhood that had been, recently, next to the slums, but which had been swallowed up as they expanded outwards. Now there was a whole second level of housing above the first, with every bit of yard space taken up by corrugated tin walls and shoddy homes. I had to circle around a gaggle of bare-footed kids that ran by, and was watched by several stern-eyed women.

The city never stopped expanding.

It was kind of strange to me. If people were so poor, then why would they have more kids? But maybe that was putting logic before humanity. There was something intrinsic about wanting to spread out and be human when, especially when, things were going poorly.

There were also just more people priced out of the nicer neighbourhoods. The cost of those hadn’t dipped at all, because when did the cost of anything ever drop?

I knocked on Bet’s door, and she eventually opened it and let me in. I could tell she was somewhat self-conscious about the state of her home, but it wasn’t that messy.

We talked. I had been hiding a lot of things from her, some for her own safety, but I decided to come clean about some of that.

I basically told her that I was partially responsible for what was almost certainly going to be the fall of the city, and that I didn’t plan on sticking around. I had money stashed away to make a run for it, to take a train out, and I wanted her with me.

That meant taking her mother along as well. The woman had been working at a nearby office for the last couple of years, making enough to make ends meet, which was impressive enough, all things considered. Her father was no longer in the picture. I didn’t press.