Airhorn alarms were already blaring from telephone poles when I pulled into the driveway for my first delivery of the day. Pad Thai, Drunken Noodle, Curry Puff.
This shift was a big one for me. After years of work, just four more stops and I’d hit the YumRun Double-Diamond 50,000 Orders Milestone, a nearly impossible feat which conferred upon achievers a sizable bonus, paid time off, and the opportunity to buy into real honest-to-god insurance coverage.
So I thanked the gig economy angels when an emergency alert buzzed in my pocket to declare the earthquake was hundreds of miles off the coast, far from anyone.
The city would be unaffected, I could finish the route. Eventually, I could vacation, have healthcare. Everything felt precarious, sure, but I hopped off my electric scooter, lifted the helmet’s visor, swung the large square insulated YumRun backpack around to my front, pulled out a bag, double checked the receipt, and headed up the porch to ring the bell.
The house was huge; it would be a minute before anyone emerged, from their study or den or lounge or whatever. While waiting, I mapped my route on the YumRun app, previewing vibrant lines and turns and stop lights that would precede my celebration. Just a bit more work, and I’d have my first annual check-up in who knows how long. I imagined explaining to my younger self that this is what would excite me now. That, with any luck, I could barely achieve the last thing any kid would want: affordable doctor visits. And that I would cry upon pulling this off. A pop-up ad appeared on the YumRun app, offering some kind of “Loan Cream.” The ad showed a picture of a person slathered in a dark ointment and insisted I “lubricate my finances.” What did it mean? I had no idea. Because of consumer protection laws, I was able to click the info icon to see why I was targeted for this advertisement: the loan cream company wanted to reach 1) anxious people with 2) precarious financial situations who 3) were directionless in life and 4) had limited to no personal connections and 5) had nobody to turn to for support in making good decisions and 6) suffered waning physical health because of their own poor choices.
With the takeout bag hung from my wrist, I rubbed my hand along my forearm and considered the many ways I’d mistreated my body over the years. It’s all picking things up and putting them down, at home and at work, and I was starting to feel it. Aches, pains. Knees, shoulders. I didn’t have a home like these people, sure, but I had a YumRun tent tucked in a case on my scooter, which was better than nothing, and which meant I could sleep close to where the orders came from, under a bush or something, which was great. The tent was really efficient, too, in that it used very little material and was sort of basically useless, which is a sign of good, lean design. While working for YumRun, I’d eaten terribly, drank too much, and generally neglected my health, but I nevertheless enjoyed picturing what it would be like to explain all this to a doctor, my doctor, a person who I’d get to know over years of coverage, and who would know all about me and my body and what hurt and what didn’t, not some random urgent care MD prodding through my medical history. I reminded myself that it’s possible to feel different, to feel better, for things to change. I pictured the doctor hugging me. I pictured the doctor holding me. I imagined someone loving me. The airhorn alarms continued their screaming. It was a beautiful day, dry and breezy. I looked out from the porch, from which this family had a wonderful view, down the driveway, across the garden, and toward the valley, all trees and city and sky. And now here I was enjoying it, too. I reminded myself that things could be worse. That, at times, they had been worse. That in fact I was lucky. So lucky. For this job, this day, this view. A voice resounded from all around, “Hi, what are you doing out there? We can see you. You look weird. We’re waiting for you to leave so we know it’s safe. Just put the food down by the door. And then go. So we can come and get it. Thank you. Por favor. Gracias.” I placed the Pad Thai, Drunken Noodle, and Curry Puffs down on the porch, logged the order “complete,” jogged back to my scooter, and zipped into the street.
You felt yourself recede, threading through traffic, along shoulders, onto bike paths. Your next order—Crispy Calamari, Mango Salad, Pineapple Fried Rice, and Green Curry—was just a short drive down the hill. Another well-off neighborhood of too-nice houses and big porches. You pictured the condo complex where you’d grown up and wondered: Do I belong here? Approaching the gated community’s stone entrance, you knew the answer was no. The airhorn sirens—which you’d somehow forgotten about or gotten used to on the ride over—took on a discomfiting rhythm. More intense. Shrill, insistent. Were they after you? For going where you shouldn’t? Or was it an aftershock? You tested the ground to ensure it remained calm and unmoving, then proceeded cautiously on your scooter into the winding road of Lantern Hill Estates.
Rounding a corner, you saw the first hot-air balloon.
An enormous balloon rising into the vast blue sky.
The tall, yellow bulb carried beneath it a large passenger basket, within which stood a harried couple carrying one small dog. A labradoodle, you guessed.
Approaching your destination, you saw two, then three, then four more large, skinny balloons lift off from launchpads atop nearby homes, then more and more, each emergency vessel ferrying its own well-dressed family into the heavens.
You hopped off your electric scooter, lifted your visor, swung the YumRun backpack around to your front, pulled out the next bag, double checked the receipt, and headed up the porch to ring the bell, just as your phone began to shake and shriek. Waiting at the door, you checked the alert but had to read it twice:
“TIDAL WAVE IMMINENT IN ALL PACIFIC NW. >10 MINUTES TO ARRIVAL. SEEK SHELTER AND HIGH GROUND IMMEDIATELY. LIFE THREATENING CONDITIONS AND DEVASTATION. DO NOT TRAVEL ON ROADS.”
This was interrupted by another pop-up featuring an actual picture of you looking like a bruised apple, accompanied by one word: Alone? A tube of “financial cream” glimmered in the background: “Wear it and feel the debt melt away!”
More balloons dotted the sky. New ones every second. You looked at your pitiful electric scooter. A cool breeze blew across your face, then died out; in the quiet, you tried to sense the wave, looking around and listening like an idiot. Nothing. Just a terrifying stillness and calm. You felt the bag of crispy calamari, mango salad, pineapple fried rice, and green curry in your hand, and then rang the doorbell furiously, despite such behavior being distinctly frowned upon by YumRun etiquette. What the hell were you supposed to do? If you got injured in this wave before you finished your orders, you’d have no insurance to cover a damn thing. You could just about see the last ten years of your life washed away into a gutter. And your future? Also in that gutter. The doorbell did not care about tidal waves, or you, or the YumRun 50,000 Orders Milestone. Fuck.
“Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing down there? Hablas ingles?” You looked up to a man speaking from the roof. He wore a light blue sweater and an L.L. Bean jacket and was perhaps the whitest man you’d ever seen. “Delivery,” you called, waving the bag. “You’re gonna die out there,” he said, “this is the valley, there’s nowhere to go. Muy peligroso! It’s the big one!” A rope careened down the side of the house. “We’ve got room,” he said, a woman appearing by his side, “climb up, and quick.” You grabbed hold of the rope, tugged a little to test its give—but then remembered your insulated YumRun backpack with two remaining orders, waiting on the back of your still-running scooter. How long could this tidal wave really last? What if it was a false alarm? Were you willing to throw it all away? Shit. Life threatening conditions and devastation. And what about your YumRun tent, which was essentially your home, tucked in the side case? How long could you last without that? “What are ya doing? This train is leaving the station!” L.L. Bean man called out from the roof as you let go of the lifeline, hopped off the porch, ran across the driveway, slid on the gravel, snatched the YumRun backpack from your scooter, fumbled a bit but ultimately abandoned the tent, sprinted back to the house with knees howling, swung the square case onto your shoulders, lept up the porch, grabbed the rope, and started to climb—to deliver crispy calamari, mango salad, pineapple fried rice, and green curry.
On the roof, the delivery man was dissociating. L.L. Bean Dad received his order and directed the delivery man toward the tall, hot-air balloon and into its large basket, about the length of a minivan, which sat on a launch platform next to his chimney, and where L.L. Bean Dad’s two children waited, one of whom held a small, glass fishbowl, within which sloshed a single orange fish. “I’m rescuing him,” the kid said as the delivery man swung his leg over the edge of the basket. “Just like we’re rescuing you,” the kid added. “Thanks,” the delivery man said, looking at the fish and trying to find a way to stand comfortably without his backpack getting in the way. “Do you speak Spanish,” the kid asked. “No,” the delivery man said. There were tables and chairs in the basket, and even something like a kitchenette, but the delivery man opted to lean on the rim, taking up as little room as possible, his backpack hanging over the edge. He looked around and already felt dizzy from the height. They hadn’t even taken off yet, were still resting safely on the roof. His knee hurt. He looked up at the sky, quilted now with a sea of emergency balloons. More joined the fray each passing moment, all jostling into one another. He was about to suggest maybe there was no room for them up there, that they’d better reconsider, that too many rich people had bought these emergency escape balloons and now they were pointless, it would be like slamming into a ceiling, but then L.L. Bean Dad was shouting “Okay, here we go,” as he hopped in, gave his wife a hand, and then pulled a lever that sent them—with a loud pop—barreling upward like a cork from a bottle.
As they ascended, he finally saw it. The wave.
It confused him at first, in part because the delivery man was not used to seeing something at that scale. The image was incomprehensible. From their basket, steadily moving upward, he could see the land swoop low toward the coast, all those hills dotted with houses and buildings and trees, followed by an immense stretch of beach extending outward from the shore, the water having receded dramatically—and then, in the distance, just an enormous, impossible gray wall.
It had to be ten stories, at least. And wide. L.L. Bean Dad put his arm around his wife and said the latest news put it at 700 miles across, stretching the length of Oregon and Washington, into California. But instead of seeming truly massive, the wave just made everything else small. Like toys on a beach. Fragile and light. Playthings.
The impact, which arrived quickly and brutally, and which somehow just kept coming and coming, did nothing to dispel that illusion of smallness and fragility. Rather, it confirmed it. We really were that tiny.
The delivery man leaned over the balloon’s edge, watched what looked like the whole ocean cascade through streets, forests, and parking lots, saw the homes give way and crumble, the trees sway and collapse, and he thought about how useless it is to “know” there’s a problem. What had knowing done for all the people still down there? Or for himself? So often in the past few years, in the rare times when he’d reached out, people had said, “at least you can recognize there’s a problem and know something’s wrong—that’s the first step to changing it,” as wave after wave of that very same problem washed over him and everyone he knew, dragged people away from each other in riptides of trivial nonsense, rent and childcare and medical bills and bad teeth and car insurance, whirlpools of those little details that had somehow become whole days, pulling him out to whatever deep sea of bills and forms and fines and phone apps and mistakes and Double-Diamond 50,000 Orders Milestones that he’d found himself floating in now. He’d “known” the whole time that all this was wrong, somehow. Everyone had. But it was just too big; naming a mountain won’t make it move.
“Wow,” L.L. Bean Dad said, “I bet you’re glad we ordered that Thai food now, whew.”
The delivery man did not respond but admitted privately that there was a silver lining: with all this destruction, at least his outstanding orders would be canceled, by the customers or the YumRun algorithm or both, thus absolving him of any responsibility, leaving his delivery record unscathed. He could cross the big finish line tomorrow instead, or whenever deliveries picked up again. Christ, when would that be? He didn’t want to wait, but it was better than the alternative: starting over entirely. Probably they could rebuild this whole city before he’d manage to rebuild a YumRun record from scratch. He felt dizzied by that comparison, but also by the jostling of their balloon against others as they reached the ceiling and joined the crowded armada.
Under an expanse of inflated yellow bulbs stretching in all directions, a dense field of baskets and rope and people swayed above the world beneath. The delivery man was surprised by the close proximity of the nearest baskets and families—he could probably reach them if he stretched his arm across the void. Cords from neighboring balloons intermingled in the wind. He checked the YumRun app to confirm the cancellations, expecting to see the cartoon Goat avatar telling him to “stay safe, stay home,” as it had so often in the past during storms, but instead he was greeted by the orange exclamation point and hourglass icon that meant he was getting dangerously close to “failure to deliver, refund guaranteed.”
“Excuse me,” he said, addressing the kid with the fish for some reason, “I need to make a quick call.” The kid nodded, like he was the man’s father or boss or both.
The delivery man used the app’s “contact customer” feature to see if, amid everything, “Dave R.” still needed this delivery and, if not, to ask if Dave could officially cancel already.
“Actually, if you can still bring it, that would be great,” Dave said after the delivery man explained the situation. Dave sounded maybe 21 and the delivery man wanted to kill him. “I mean, you can cancel the order on your end if you need to,” Dave said, “and I’d totally understand, of course, but like, I just lost everything and I don’t want to lose this too, if that makes sense?”
“You don’t want to lose two pad thai, one massaman curry, and one seltzer?”
“Honestly, man, I’m kind of freaking out right now. Plus, I’m on my way to a YumRun 1,000 orders platinum customer milestone and canceling on my end would totally muck it up. I don’t want to scrub my progress on YumRun, you know?”
He knew.
“Okay, Dave. Where are you?” he asked.
“Uh, hold on,” Dave said. “I’m in like a big balloon, and uh, we’re above, hm, maybe 50th and Jefferson? Floating sort of east? How fast can you get here? We’re starving.”
The delivery man took a look at the field of sky baskets, tried not to catch a glimpse of anything like the space between him and the ground, grabbed a glance at the YumRun map to orient himself, noted the pink and blue dots representing his own and the customer’s relative locations, and replied, “Dave, I’ll see you in ten minutes.”
There’s a threshold at which a person thinks their responsibilities will wash away, that it will get easier, that none of this bullshit will matter anymore, but instead it just gets harder, more demanding, and all these things that shouldn’t matter, that don’t really matter, somehow continue to matter, and even more so, eclipsing everything else.
Two pad thai, one massaman curry, and a seltzer.
“Hey, look at this,” the kid with the fish said. Somebody turned to see the kid holding the bowl of water out over the edge. “I’m saving him,” the kid said. And then he tilted the bowl, letting water and fish slip away into the void. Someone imagined the long journey to the waves below. “He can swim,” the kid added. So can I, a person thought, but that doesn’t mean I want to jump. Somebody looked around, but L.L. Beans were busy consoling each other, murmuring, “We’re so lucky.”
Before this kid could try and save someone else, a person reached out across the emptiness toward the basket of the next family over, gripping it at the rim and pulling it closer, then threw a leg up and dragged themselves in, leaving the kid and Bean Parents behind. The occupants of the new basket, an older couple in sweater vests, were none too happy about this development and fluttered their arms at the arrival of a new person. But, as usual, not liking it and flailing? Didn’t change anything.
Someone told these two old people to just cool it, that they’d have nothing to worry about in a moment, as soon as a person could chart their next move—toward Dave R. Someone double checked the dots on the map, adjusted their helmet, tightened the straps on the insulated YumRun backpack, and began the task of traversing one emergency balloon basket after another.
Someone tried not to look down. Someone said excuse me again and again to confused families. Someone tried not to bump into anyone with their large backpack so that these people who could afford not to work could comfortably cry about the state of the world instead. A person felt strong gusts troubling the basket beneath their feet and experienced the sway in their gut. A person ignored comments like, “Well, at least you have a job! That’s a blessing,” and hugged a basket’s edge, palms up and cautious, while a family labradoodle snarled and barked. A person swung from one basket to the next, like a pirate. A person stood on the rim of a basket and steadied themselves with nylon ropes while nice fathers and worried mothers urged a person not to do it. A person could not fucking believe it but a person faced a two meter gap and literally jumped from one basket to another, over the empty blue sky, like an awful, heavy bird, slamming hard into the floor. A person hyperventilated in front of a family trying to chat soberly with their children about the state of the world while the kids prepared PB and J’s at the little kitchen counter in their immaculate emergency balloon basket. Someone pulled themselves together, slapped their helmet three times, and kept moving. Someone saw the clock was running out on Dave’s order, saw the orange exclamation point was now flashing, felt the phone frantically vibrating. But someone also knew they were close, just a few more baskets to cross.
Someone heard a commotion ahead, voices yelling “wait” and “hold on” and “oh my god” and “no no no” amid what sounded like explosive pops and snaps and twangs and fabric rushing along fabric. A chorus of gasps erupted from all around just as an expanse of blue sky suddenly appeared right where there used to be more emergency balloons. Or, rather, balloons suddenly stopped occupying a space where now there was only sky. Someone stumbled across a few more baskets and found themselves at the edge of a great hole.
The remaining emergency balloons now formed a circle around emptiness, within which floated pieces of fabric, and into which fluttered loose and tattered cords. It had all gotten too crowded, too windy, too knotted up. And something had popped, collapsed, tumbled. A basket with no balloon, emptied of its passengers, hung sideways from a single rope, tangled on the edge of another. Far below, water raged across a highway and into a parking garage. Someone looked at their YumRun app and saw Dave’s blinking dot right in the middle of where the sky hole would be. Someone checked the area, stupidly, but saw only blue and cloud. Not a Dave in sight. And then, presumably, once Dave hit the water below, the dot sped away, getting farther and farther from anyone. Someone would not be making this delivery. A person would not hit the YumRun Double-Diamond 50,000 Orders Milestone.
Someone would not receive paid time off, a bonus, or health insurance. It was a nearly impossible feat after all.
Already the remaining balloons on the perimeter were closing the gap, the blue hole of sky and sun slowly shrinking, like it was never there in the first place.
Hands rifled around the square backpack and fished out two bags. Arms extended from body to offer nearby onlookers the remaining orders of food. At this point, what did it matter. Face looked blank, exhausted, old. Slumped against the wall, body kept one plate of drunken noodles for itself. Tired fingers pushed sloppy handfuls into mouth. Muscles in upper lip quivered uncontrollably, in a way that prompted arms to cross around chest and knees to curl up to chin, as if to hide these involuntary movements, as if an assortment of body parts could somehow be embarrassed by itself.
Limbs and digits worked in concert, extracted a phone, and opened the YumRun app; fingertips pressed into the screen until two final orders were officially canceled. The orange meter on the side of the app, which until recently was just a hair’s width from full, emptied out entirely, accompanied by the sound of a trombone note sliding lower and lower. It was done. A cartoon goat avatar appeared on screen in a doctor’s outfit and made a sad face. The app exclaimed “Delivery streak: Zero.” A pop-up ad sang about low, low financing for a new scooter, a new tent, a new life, an easy money cream. Arm reared back, winding up to chuck the phone far into the void, when a familiar ding cut through the air.
A YumRun alert. A new order.
A new order, coming in now.
Head tilted upward, shaking in what appeared to be a kind of amused but desperate disbelief, as shoulders heaved with laughter. Who were these people kidding? The delivery would require somehow getting food from the restaurant itself, back down on the ground, in the water, and then making it all the way to the customer across town. No, thank you. Hand wiped amused tears from squinting eyes and smiling face, then swiped through the YumRun options and clicked the “decline order” button, grateful for the comic relief.
But instead of the usual “that’s okay, you do you!” from the Goat avatar, red flashing text appeared, stating: “You have already canceled two orders in the past hour. Canceling a third will permanently terminate your partnership with YumRun both now and in the future.”
There were two options: “Yes, proceed, I don’t need the money,” and “No, wait, let me make someone’s day by bringing them their order now.”
The rate at which air pumped through lungs escalated aggressively.
Two legs lifted torso from the floor, hands braced themselves on the basket’s rim, mouth dumped a small amount of vomit over the edge, and two eyes took in their surroundings. Even now, the sky remained beautiful, a lucky view. The balloons, the baskets, their families, the thousand-foot drop, bits of cord blowing fiercely in the wind: brain did some rough calculations and estimates, sketched out a kind of plan. A terrible plan, but a plan.
Okay.
Finger pressed the screen and agreed to make someone’s day by bringing them their order now.
REPORT: Internal synthesis of the data set “vendor-L90J6” provides a clear narrative demonstrating YumRun’s minimal liability regarding any real or imagined health impacts of physical events correlated with the info stream on the afternoon in question. YumRun servers tracking IP addresses and geolocation tags show that an asset:
1) did commandeer a loose emergency basket that had become detached from its balloon at over 1000 feet,
2) did convince a set of potential customers to lower the basket toward the water by decreasing the vertical position of their own functioning emergency balloon, and
3) did attempt to navigate the detached basket as a kind of boat through the tidal surge in order to complete a delivery—and then failed, resulting in grievous harm to the asset’s body.
Subsequent synthesis of all data does not support a narrative wherein YumRun or its services or notifications or representatives or affiliates in any way coerced, intimidated, or otherwise pressured any person, place, or thing to engage in action, inaction, or any such variant on a spectrum potentially construed as “behavior.”
The data set “vendor-L90J6” is consistent with a presumed human asset making autonomous decisions of its own volition, informed by its own understanding of risk and reward regarding finance, health, and safety. The resulting injuries to the asset and associated medical service costs are the result of the asset’s own free agency, and are not in any way emergent from the evidence-based processes of YumRun services or products. The medical costs are considerable — primarily because of the asset’s choice to forego health insurance, despite YumRun gamification initiatives providing a clear path to obtaining it.
Communications contained within the data set, such as, “Why are you doing this” and “I’m just so alone” and “I thought my life was going to be different” have been deemed immaterial.
No funds will be transferred to online wallets associated with the asset now or in the future. All further partnership is hereby discontinued. A full refund and additional coupon will be offered to User N16709 who did not receive the two Carnitas Tacos with Extra Guac.
Legal counsel representing HighLyf Inc, producers of Domestic Emergency Balloon Products and Launch Systems, describing a) the rapid descent of a subset of their products from an ideal aerial position and b) those same products’ sudden arrival at a non-ideal ground position, resulting in lives lost, confidently assert that HighLyf Inc products performed as intended, without fault or failure. “The primary function of HighLyf Inc balloons is to float,” says counsel, “so how can that sole function—floating—have contributed to them falling from the sky, the opposite of floating?” A third party review of the facts surrounding the Event has revealed only one single anomalous factor: an unaffiliated entity that gained unauthorized access to numerous vessels against federal law, improperly utilized key components of HighLyf Inc products to engage in illegal movement, and was then witnessed in duress while in close proximity to the Event before fleeing. It is the conclusion of third party consultants that this anomaly, which cookie data confirms is an anxious person in a precarious financial situation with limited to no personal connections and nobody to turn to, may have been a contributing factor in catalyzing the Event, and also affirm that HighLyf Inc products and services remain safe and reliable.
You pictured the doctor hugging you. You pictured the doctor holding you. You—.
Doctor Anselm handed me the crisp, cold tube of Loan Cream and I applied it to the quiet man stretched out before me on the bed. Using both hands, I rubbed the gritty ointment into his pale damp skin, trying my best to avoid bandages and casts. I was new on the job and wanted to massage in a way that looked financial and impressive. The guy must have really needed money, I thought, because we were slathering him so much. I recall that he woke briefly and placed his hand gently on mine, rubbing softly along my fingers, before drifting back into sleep. After emptying the tube, I turned and asked the doctor how the loan cream works exactly.
“Oh,” he said, surprised. “It doesn’t.”
And then he handed me the big one.