[FICTION]

[02/06/26]

Living Sensibly in the City

by Rachel Nielsen

I can’t go back to my apartment where I’m miserable and alone so I’m waiting to hear from John at the deli where everything smells like grease and old meat, even Javi. I stare into Javi’s salami eyes and beg, “Can you pretty please spot me a pack of cigarettes?”

“Again? Josie, this’ll come out of my paycheck.”

“I swear I’ll pay you back as soon as I’m paid for this thing I’m writing. And whenever we get married, you’ll be entitled to half of everything I own.” 

If he’s smart, he’ll say no. 

He rolls his eyes but fishes behind the counter anyway, and I am relieved when he hands me the pack. Our fingers touch, and he smells like ham, salty and fatty and luscious. And in this moment, I’ve never loved anyone more. It’s only Javi from now on. Forget everyone else, even John. I am complete.  

But then my phone shakes with a location. I text John, I’m on my way, because I can’t stay at the deli forever and I can’t go home.

“I owe you,” I wink.

Javi gives a half-smile that’s half-disappointment and half-flirtation, so when I leave, I do my best to saunter. I owe him that. I’m almost to the door when betrayal comes from my ankles, heels wobbling in the longness of night.



I arrive at a party on a boat. There’s metal everywhere and lights along the railings and music bouncing from downstairs and it is exquisite. I immediately see John, all eyebrows and shoulders. He kisses my cheek and puts his arm around me. I am warm and chosen. He introduces me to: 

Chase, an aspiring model; 

David, who’s chasing Chase; 

Tiffany, who’s chasing them both. 

She smiles at me like we are the same. My association with John doesn’t translate to her desperation because John and I have a mutual respect. I swear. David fawns over my fur clutch, stroking the soft strands over and over. “It’s beautiful,” he says. It used to make me feel like I was at a 60s cocktail party. It’s seen better days.

“Thanks,” I say, and shake off his hand. Enough is enough. He should ride out his high somewhere that’s else. “Where’s the bar?” I ask.

John offers the escort downstairs since we both appreciate dying beautifully and there’s nothing more hideous than falling down the stairs. We descend into darkness where music pulses the dark together and apart, together and apart. I think we reach the bottom together, but John gives someone the eyes while mine adjust. “See you soon, love,” he says, and lets go. The wobbling again—the room begins to spin. It’s a game I don’t really want to play, but I fall on the clean-cut, dark-haired man and his teeth sparkle in the murky black. 

“You alright?” he asks.

“Looks like it,” I say. He holds me up and his eyes are green like leaves in the rain forest.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Vodka martini.”

He leans me against the bar as he orders, one hand low low low on my back, the other holding a bill to get the bartender’s attention. “A vodka martini and a whiskey. Top shelf.” He winks at me and his eyes are green like the pea soup at the deli.

He asks, “What’s your name?” 

“Josie. You are?”

“Todd.”

Of course it’s Todd. He’s wearing a blazer on the darkness boat, a starched shirt in the pulsing night.

“And what do you do, Todd?”

“I’m in real estate.” I can smell the devastation from his daddy complex. There’s only way out of this conversation and it’s dying. Only dying and John, who can make me festive enough to be someone’s mommy.

“I’ll be right back,” I say.

Todd frowns into his starched white shirt.

I find John talking up some glitter-bomb so I delicately sandwich myself between them. “I need you,” I say. John gives me the stinkiest eye I’ve ever seen. “It’ll take, like, five minutes.”

He sighs and promises his new friend he’ll be right back.

I pull him into the ladies’ room and with an open palm say, “You need me to make my own fun tonight?”

He glares before extracting two pills from the secret pocket in his pants. He artfully crushes them into neat little lines that go up my nose and straight into my brain and I can see the electricity and suddenly it’s sort of okay being alive.

“And now you’re on your own, pussycat.” He kisses me on the forehead then disappears into the void.

I don’t care about his disappearance. I am renewed. I am whole. I am Mother Earth. Gaia if he’s nasty. I go back to Old Pea Soup, energized. To Todd anxiously searching the room like a child abandoned at the mall.

“I was starting to worry,” he says.

“That’s sweet,” I say, because now I’m his mommy.

I let him buy me more drinks and we find a corner where he tells me about his Pea Soup life. The electricity vanishes from my brain and I am catatonic, empty, unable to follow his sentences. His thin fingers find their way between my legs and he kisses me. Wet, sloppy kisses like no one taught him how in his whole life. I don’t like it but at least there’s something to feel.

I push his face away to finish my drink before leading him to the ladies’. The stalls are sour with too much party but he pushes my hands against the wall and lifts my skirt. I feel him inside me. It’s not much more than his fingers. I hear brief panting then he’s done.

I push him off me and pull my skirt back down. His blurry face bears down on me and I have to get away. I find the stairs, pull myself up by the railing, pulsing darkness tearing apart my head. I find my way to the edge of the boat and throw up everything, it’s all gone. I fall to the ground. I fumble inside my bag for a cigarette, my phone. I text John. FuckXX thisprty. What’sNeXXXt

I get a response. Go home. I’m getting laid.

Tasha or Tiffany or Tyson or whoever sees me sitting on the damp deck of the ship. Maybe she’ll help get me a cab. I try to wave but she disappears down the stairs pretending she can’t see me.

Perfect. I take off my golden slippers and walk the 25 minutes home. I wave to my fellow night people, the glittery sidewalk beneath my feet like spinning stars.



The world’s worst hangover. I head to Starbucks with my laptop. The coins from the bottom of last night’s bag get me a single shot of espresso. The barista in her green apron with a mouthful of pity gets me a large coffee instead. 

I need to actually finish this writing assignment. Roxanne will kill me if I miss another deadline. So I sit down and stare at my blank document’s cursor, blinking with menace. 

My head sinks into my keyboard. Zdslkfjoiweur andf yowaihiawe. A brilliant opening line for a fun editorial about living sensibly in the big city. Delete. This was assigned to the wrong person. Detox sweats out of me and I type, The city’s expensive. Delete. There’s a lot to do in the city. Delete. I’m going to get fired.

I take online personality quizzes. My pirate name is Black Mary No Beard and I should dress as a wardrobe malfunction for Halloween. The results deconstruct into abstract shapes until all that’s left are colors and their emptiness. Flashes of Pea Soup emerge in the quiet and I scratch at my wrist with my fingernails until I hear sharp static.

I check my email. Late bills, rejected payments, sales at Sephora. Outside, people wear red, white, and blue and wave the American flag. I text John. Did you know it’s nationalism day?

John makes the bold move of calling me. “So you’re alive. You got home okay?”

“No thanks to you. I should’ve just fucked you last night.”

He laughs. “Not enough MDMA in the world for that to happen again.” Pause. “Maybe. What are you doing?”

“Trying to work on this stupid article. Who thought I was qualified?”

“You did, apparently.” He’s disinterested. I pivot.

I ask, “What’s happening today?”

“A friend of a friend of Bobby’s is having some fête tonight. Should be good. Or mediocre. Either way, it’s at his place and he has a balcony. I want to see fireworks.”

“Are you a 12-year-old?”

“Fuck you. Are you in or out?”

“I’ll never say no to you. My place for pregame?”

“Sure. I can show you my goodies in private.” He moans before hanging up.

My forehead is back on the keyboard doing subpar work. My forehead refuses to use proper grammar or separate words. I could pitch this as gonzo, but that’s just another check I can’t cash.



John arrives around 10 wearing sequined American-flag booty shorts. On his tank top, Uncle Sam points at me accusingly. He kisses me on the cheek and lets himself in. “Is that what you’re wearing?” 

I’m dressed in all black. “Don’t worry, I’m wearing sparkly blue heels in the tradition of American tacky.”

“Let me see.”

I walk to my pile of shoes, stopping to run my fingers over this crack in the wall I just noticed. I try to remember falling into the wall, attacking it with a chair. It might just be a crack in the foundation, but it’ll be the end of my deposit.

I show John the platform glittering shoes. He accepts them as the bare minimum before finding some giant blue barrette I don’t remember buying. “You look mod,” he says, running his fingers through my hair. I want to close my eyes into the softness, but he puts his palm against my forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Unwell,” I say. “What’ve you got for me, doctor?”

John reaches into his crotch and pulls out two baggies. “Behind door number one, we have something to fix the past. Behind door number two, we have something to fix the future.”

I ask for both. 

I find a blue plate up high in the cabinet that looks clean and I bring it to the table for the master to work. “Booze. Stat.” He pushes his dark hair out of his eyes and gets everything ready, like he’s a chemist mixing until everything collides into a beautiful combustion.

I present two glasses filled with, luckily, chilled vodka. “I still have a few benzos for later.”

“Perfect for the comedown.” He gestures to the four lines ready and waiting. “Ladies first.”

The lines create a beautiful tingle, the promise of an unblemished future, of a safe past. John’s shorts shimmer beauty in the dim lighting. I am calm. We belong together.

“I love you, baby.” He kisses me on the forehead and I know it’s true.  

We’re out the door just in time to see the fireworks begin. They peer from behind buildings in a game of hide and seek. We turn the corner just in time to see the smiley face burst onto the night sky. I grab his hand. “You’re beautiful,” I say.

“And so are you. Happy Fourth, pussycat.”



I have no clue how I got home but my dress is off. A panicked match strikes inside me but John’s snoring puts it out. My headache blares and his snoring isn’t helping any. I do the only thing a good friend would do and shake him violently until he wakes up.

“What? What do you want?”

“How’d we get home last night?”

It takes him seven centuries to sit up before squinting his eyes, one eye slightly more than the other. He looks around then closes his eyes before waving me away.

I get up and scour the kitchen for anything to make me feel better. Water, coffee, Gatorade if I believe in miracles. My cabinets offer a few clean mugs, two cans of tuna, and the rest is storage for my clothes. The refrigerator is no better. There are three eggs; I’m not sure when they arrived. The only viable solution is the vodka in the freezer.

I pour myself a healthy glass and wander to the window. No idea what time it is, but it’s day and the streets are littered with snapped firecracker carcasses and broken bottles of booze. I take an American Spirit from a half-empty pack on the table.

The rooftop barbecues are starting up and it smells like summer. Smoke wafts into my kitchen and the odor turns to rotten, rancid meat. I pound this drink then pour myself another, waiting for a feeling to stop me from falling.

John comes into the kitchen and wraps his smooth arms around my waist. I lean my back onto his shoulder and he takes a drag from my cigarette. “I’m taking off,” he says.

“Not yet. Give me a party favor before you go, like they did when we were little.”

“I don’t know what kind of birthday parties you went to,” he says, searching for his patriotic pants. He pulls out a near-empty baggie, a light flurry of snow. Unseasonable for July, but here we are, waiting for any storm to end the drought. We each do a line, his shorts shimmering once again in daylight. “Alright, I’m outta here,” he kisses me on the cheek.

“Don’t go,” I say. 

“Don’t you have an article to write or something?” he says. He closes the door behind him. I watch from the window and count the seconds until he disappears behind tall buildings.

I hate when he reminds me of responsibility. 

I search for my phone. I throw piles of clothes with no success. I turn on my computer and use Google to call myself, and the tonal scream calls from my bed, clinging to its last moments of life, and I plug it in to see my boss has already called. It’s the Fifth of July, not a workday, but she’s left a voicemail. “Hope you had fun yesterday. And I also hope you have those words on sensible living that’re past due.”

I’ve been trying to convince her to give me a column that doesn’t revolve around frugality. You’d think after three years of this she’d realize I’m terrible with money, but she leaves me trapped in the cage. Something about paying dues I can’t afford.  

I delete her voicemail and see a text from Javi. I don’t remember giving him my number, but there it is. Hi, Josie. It’s Javi, your husband. Haha. What’s going on?

Hi husband! I say. This exchange seems doomed. I haven’t been to the deli in like a day. ;)

Glad you’re alive. :) I was thinking we could go to the zoo today…?

The zoo must count as sensible living.

What time?

2:30?

I look at my phone and see it’s already 12:13. I make a wish that this article will write itself.

Meet you there, I say.

I have no zoo-specific attire, so I throw on tall boots, my pleated skirt, a fur vest. I take a shot on my way out.




I get to Central Park twenty minutes late. The familiar smell of ham tickles my nose. Javi’s jeans are clean, his faded green polo ironed. “Hey,” he says. “You look pretty.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“For you, my lady.” Javi hands me a pack of cigarettes. “On the house.”

“Thank you!”

I move to hug him but he pulls away with a funny look on his face like he smells rotting garbage. He asks, “Is everything okay?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Are you drunk?”

“I was at brunch with friends,” I say. “What’s the big deal?”

“No deal,” he says. “I guess it’s a little earlier in the day than I usually see you.”

He looks me up and down and this is not the Javi I plan on marrying. This is just some average guy who smells like sandwich meat. 

Javi pays for my ticket—a good tip to add to my article: Find someone to pay for you—and we walk past the tropic zone where bats hang upside down and birds squawk and lizards do nothing at all.

“There’s a special pigeon there,” he says. “It’s blue.”

“A pigeon? Like these?” I point to the birds eating trash off the concrete.

“A different pigeon. You know, they’re smart birds. People don’t give them enough credit.”

My body is buzzing and I’m shaking and my vest is so hot and my boots are so heavy and I’m dragging my feet because it’s too difficult to lift them up one at a time over and over again and I know there’s some giant serotonin crash in my brain and I hate that because I start feeling sad to be alive. I hate Javi for making me come here to see a pigeon that’s blue instead of gray, like that’s some kind of feat.

Javi clears his throat and asks, “Want to see the penguins?”

“Are they far?”

“On the other side of the sea lions.”

“Is that far?”

“I guess not.”

He’s quiet and I regret coming. It’s the look of vile disappointment cast down onto the hot cement. It’s him realizing I am not who he wants me to be. It’s me realizing I will never be who I want to be.

I tell him I’m going to the bathroom because there has to be something in my bag to make this better. I walk back toward the entrance and in a stall, I rummage through my bag and there’s not even a Tylenol. The leftover baggies from the other night are empty. Still, I wipe my finger all inside them and rub the remains against my gums because this is torture. I bang my head against the stall door because if I have a concussion I can go to the hospital and maybe the hospital will give me something good.

My phone rings and it’s Roxanne and I definitely do not pick up. She leaves a voicemail asking me where my article is. She says a deadline is a deadline and if I can’t meet it then we’ll have another conversation. This is an awful time to be empty-handed. I remember the benzos stashed at my apartment and I wish I wasn’t so stupid, leaving the last of my normal at home. I text Javi that an emergency came up and I leave him alone at the zoo like some pervert. I feel like such a bitch and I know he’s a nice guy even if he smells like old pastrami but I need to get out of here. I need to even out or I will die.

I run home and take a Xanax with a shot of vodka and I just have to force myself to stay awake, force myself to get this article done. I open my laptop and slap myself across the face.

My phone makes a beeping noise and it’s another email and it’s Roxanne but I’m too terrified to open it so I go back to my document and start typing about the zoo and the stupid pigeon I never actually saw and how it’s a perfect metaphor for the city itself because it has a style all its own.

My phone rings again but it’s John.

“Hey, pussycat,” he says. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m trying to finish this stupid article so I don’t get fired but somehow all I can write about is this pigeon.”

“Like the diseased birds around the city?”

“No, like this pigeon at the zoo. Never mind.”

“You don’t sound great.”

“I’m coming down. Hard.”

“Do you have anything?”

“No.”

Forty-five minutes later he appears at my door to be my knight in shining armor, freshly showered, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, the tamest I’ve seen him all weekend. He comes in like he owns the place and I wish he did because I don’t know how I’m going to pay rent if I lose my job. He cuts two lines on the plate and I have no choice but to accept.

He asks, “So what’s this article about?”

“Living sensibly in the city,” I say. 

He laughs then touches my cheek. “Have you slept?” 

“Not since you left. I ended up going to the zoo with this guy from my deli.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He says, “You might need a day or two off, love. Just to reset. You know?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Do you know the last time you went twenty-four hours without anything?”

“You haven’t even gone twenty-four hours without anything. You were with me all weekend and look where you are now. Cutting lines. Who are you to talk?”

“I’m not in danger of losing my job,” he says. It stings like he wanted it to.

“You should leave.”

“Josie, don’t be ridiculous.”

I hold the front door open, avoiding eye contact as he walks out. I know he’s looking at me and I know I’ll call him in an hour apologizing but he can’t come to my house and tell me what to do like he’s some beacon of togetherness.

I slam the door shut and my phone rings again. It’s Roxanne. I don’t want to pick up, but I have to.

“So you’re alive,” she says, her voice stern and hard.

“Hi, Roxanne. How was your Fourth of July?” I say pleasantly.

“It would’ve been better if I had your article.”

“It’s almost done.”

“It was supposed to be done three days ago. What do you have?”

I stumble. “It’s about the zoo as an inexpensive activity.”

“The zoo? How many words do you have?”

“450,” I lie.

She’s quiet and I can hear her jaw tensing. “That’s not ideal. We talked about how to live affordably without giving up your lifestyle, not the zoo. You didn’t even run this by me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Send me what you have and I’ll see what we can do with it.”

“It’s not ready yet. I need to do some edits.”

“I don’t care. Send it now or we’ll have another type of conversation.”

Roxanne hangs up and I look at the short paragraph I have about a pigeon and I’m about to lose my job.

I wipe the crumbs off the plate and onto my gums and stare at my screen until logos and emails become shapes and squiggles and colors and then I stare at the crack in the wall behind my computer that keeps getting bigger and bigger and I resent it. I resent that it’s so quiet and threatening. I sit staring and staring and the wall splits open and tries to drag me in and throws the table and pulls my chair toward it and I can feel its hot breath on my face. It’s rotten and I am fighting but it pulls me against the wall anyway and I—

I slap myself hard. Stop it, Josie. I look at the wall and the crack that’s barely visible, a hairline. Still, the smell lingers.

I look at the empty blue plate. I am desperate. I smash the plate on the ground, shards of blue ceramic spill across the floor, squiggles and triangles and empty shapes. I scream at the top of my lungs. A car honks on the street. A man shouts. I go to the window and the man in his t-shirt disappears around the corner. I clench and unclench my fist.

So you’re alive.

I’m alone and it’s just me and also this emptiness that starts from the inside. This blue emptiness that watches with eyes empty like mine. Like the pigeon at the zoo that was supposed to be so beautiful with her crown of blue feathers. But she’s just a fucking pigeon.

RACHEL NIELSEN is a fiction and nonfiction writer based in Oakland, CA. Her writing has appeared in SFWP Quarterly, Peacock Magazine, anthologies, and elsewhere. You can learn more about her and her writing at rachelnielsenauthor.com or on Instagram at: @_rachelnielsen.