# Pearl Street Cafe

## Short Story by Bram Noidz

Trevor woke up at the usual time, naturally, without an alarm clock. A lot of podcasts are discussing the topic of mental health, and apparently waking up with an alarm is bad for anxiety. It took a couple of weeks but Trevor finally tuned his circadian rhythms to obey his schedule, rather than the other way around. He flops out of bed.

The brain fog was especially thick this morning. Trevor went through the process of malaise attribution. Perhaps it was because of the six o'clock coffee the evening before? Or could it be work-induced stress? He had just recovered from a bout of illness due to the latest strain of respiratory viruses circulating around. Maybe that was it. Nothing the cold plunge can't thaw. Trevor prepared the ice bath while contemplating whether the social stigma around caffeine addiction is morally justified.

With the morning routine out of the way, it's time to grind. Work must follow every morning routine, otherwise there is no point to the routine in the first place.

Trevor grabbed his 15-inch MacBook Pro from the nightstand and stuffed it into his messenger bag. He boarded his self-driving SUV and hitched a ride by himself to the local coffee shop. Pearl Street has about three or four coffee shops that are worth the time spent indoors, and several others that are not. Only two of them have WiFi that is reliable enough for Laptop Work. And out of those two, only one of them actually has coffee that tastes beanworthy. Navigation complete.

The barista got to work on Trevor's double shot, low foam latté. He takes a seat in the corner of the café where the best reception is available. It always takes a few minutes after opening up the laptop before Trevor remembers what his job actually is. Something with numbers. A transponster? Colleagues whom he's never actually met had sent messages during his cold plunge and while he was sleeping soundly, and reading them allows the work gets context switched back into local memory. Sometimes he wonders if Ms. Trish and Mr. Herb are actually North Korean remote workers, scamming fiat to fund the regime. He realizes that he doesn't care.

Two hours fly by in an instant. Almost time for lunch. Usually it is only the Numbers and lunch that occupy Trevor's mind at this time of the day. But this time he was feeling pensive for some reason. Mom once asked Trevor what he actually did at his job. She worked in a grocery store with her hands so she wanted to know the concrete details about what he did during the day that let him put food on the table. Ultimately it just came down to typing and clicking on a computer. That's it? Someone's paying for it so it must be worth something.

Trevor was halfway through eating his Spam Sandwich when everything came crashing down like a house of cards. Production was not even remotely the point of his job. A modern economy functions much like an electronic circuit, where electrons move from one point of high electric potential towards another point with lower electric potential. Without this difference in potential between two points, the circuit is inert and useless. If Trevor wasn't welding steel beams or fixing toilets, then he must be located in the opposite polarity. An electron sink. A ground prong. A consumer.

So what, then, is the point of doing the Numbers? Sending messages to Ms. Trish and Mr. Herb? It's to justify Trevor's consumption. Consumption without work, no matter how fake the work is, is not sustainable after millions of years of cultural evolution that put selective pressure on becoming a productive member of society. Trevor's job is not the Numbers. It's the Spam Sandwich.

Terror turns into loathing, and loathing turns into acceptance. Tyler Durden took a different path halfway through this revelation, but Trevor's feels more peaceful and more righteous. Wonder what's on TV tonight. ■