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 Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2021 4:16 pm
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Quote: Fall Fatigue (4): As the year winds down, a nasty ‘bug’ is being reported. In this new fall chill, people are reporting feeling particularly drained and fatigued. Scientists are puzzled because up to 25% of the city has reported experiencing this unnatural fatigue--and, more than that, the strange, foggy memory loss that accompanies it. It’s probably just a product of the season that people report seeing strange colored people and weird costumes before passing out. Most people make it back home and crash for twelve or more hours, so this isn’t a health crisis--just an inconvenience. Destiny City asks that you eat a balanced meal, get a lot of rest, and take care of yourself.
While Safiya herself had yet to catch this mystery bug going around, it had been affecting her work all the same. Espurresso, the 'catfé' she'd started working at last year after she'd turned 18, had started closing early, due to staffing shortages. Too many of her co-workers had been afflicted with this seasonal flu, calling out of work, to where there weren't enough staff on hand to keep things operational. Given the small crew size, being a small business and all, it didn't take that many people calling out to really put a hamper on things.
And so, Safiya had found herself with the rest of the evening off, since crew shortages meant once more, there weren't enough hands on deck to keep things running for the full hours of operation. Sigh, if this kept up, Safiya was possibly going to have to look into filing for partial unemployment... or something. In any case, having the evening off meant time for running errands, and trying to figure out what to get for dinner. Safiya was no cook, and neither were her roommates, so they often got takeout, or things that were ready for nuking in the microwave or sticking in the oven. She was also, of course, picking up another tub of ice cream, because fall meant limited edition pumpkin ice cream, and she loved that s**t, just about as much as she loved sea-salt ice cream. Her birthday was coming up at the start of next month, and while she largely didn't really celebrate it (because who would she celebrate with? birthdays were overrated...), she felt she had earned the right to treat herself.
What (or rather, who) Safiya didn't expect to encounter while doing her grocery shopping, though, was her cousin Cinta, who seemed to have come down with the fall flu that had affected many of her co-workers already, judging by the way she looked like she'd been hit by a bus. Although she wasn't exactly the type for grocery store gossip (Safiya rather disliked the people who would block the aisles to chatter), and although she technically preferred to have no contact with her extended family, she couldn't help but feel a rare sense of... concern?
"... You look like s**t," Safiya told her cousin, very bluntly and getting right to the point.
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Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:59 am
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“H-huh? Oh Safi, to think I’d see you here,” Cinta smiled a bit and her brows furrowed slightly. She wasn’t one to pick on the crass language her cousin Safiya occasionally used. After all, Cinta understood that everyone is different from one another, and that includes their preference over the use of language. In this instance, however, that wasn’t quite nice to hear. It admittedly stung a bit, since the truth this time has been annoying her as of late.
Cinta really, really didn’t want to be feeling ill at all, to begin with. Alas, she’s been in and out of this for days, and it’s quite frankly a weird seasonal illness that is stubbornly overstaying.
In the back of her mind and for days since she had to live with this weird illness, she has no choice but to deal with it. No one else was going to help her do some nonessential grocery shopping and the like, after all. Disregarding her current condition, Cinta still felt determined enough to ensure that her nonessential food stores and craft supplies don’t run low. After all, chances to engage in cat sighting remain… or that some of her other friends could just randomly show up and could invite her for a grand ol’ time in the city. For the most part, however, it’s all but a fantasy at this point, as Cinta was warming up to the idea of holing up and recovering properly. Maybe having a nice cup of warm tea and folding origami to the pleasant tunes of seasonal instrumental music playlists of her choice could be a thing to do later today.
She dryly laughed a bit and sighed, “And yeah… that’s one way to put it. Looking like this, I mean. I don’t know why, but I feel rather fatigued… and could be better, as you could see. How about you, Safi?”
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Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:58 pm
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"I mean," Safiya shrugged, not really sure what to really say, "Could be better, could be worse, I suppose. Work's been closing early- not enough hands on board."
Which had meant that other than a loss of pay for those missed hours, she'd been having to pick up the slack, something Safiya detested. She wasn't a social media influencer in any official capacity, at least not in terms of the pay that online searches told her she should be making, but as the only one who spent enough time around social media just shitposting and running meme bots, well.
She really didn't care that much as long as she could spend less time on the direct customer service side of things.
"If you're feeling fatigued, you should stay home."
Or... don't. Actually, why did Safiya even care? She'd made a point of distancing herself from any blood relations she had in this city, after all, even if Cinta's parents had been the ones to 'adopt' Safiya after she had arrived here from Indonesia, after the mysterious death of her grandmother.
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Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2023 8:23 am
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“Of course I would do just that, but I needed to go run some simple errands, so here I am,” Cinta attempted to shrug casually, but instead, her shoulders hung heavy instead and sighed. “I’m on my way home, at least…”
She didn’t mean to appear in front of her cousin appearing this kind of awful, but what could she do? She wasn’t sure if she should continue the conversation at all, but since she didn’t really see her cousin regularly, it would only be polite to keep up with their conversation until they separate for real.
“Oh.. Looks like we could part here?” Cinta suggested as she reached the corner where they usually separated, but suddenly, she felt an eerie sensation.
“Huh, what’s that over there? If I’m not wrong… why does that person look entirely… Orange… And green… Like a pumpkin?” asked Cinta. She couldn’t help but wonder if her eyes were tricking her. And if they were… how embarrassing! Only, she could frankly couldn’t care less about that, because she couldn’t think quite well, feeling a strong sense of brain fog.
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