His mother had heard him that morning angrily grunting to himself as he was getting ready. He had been practicing what he was going to say in the meeting. He had been practicing but was saying things that he knew in the moment he wouldn’t say.
“Mijo?” His mother wisely whispered from his bedroom door.
“Yes, Ma?”
“Anger controls you. You need to let it go. When you’re angry, that anger has power over you.”
“I’m just amping myself up for a meeting today, Ma. I’m okay.”
But he wasn’t okay. She knew. He was angry. He was angry that he was single. He was angry at the times, the Jerry’s disease which depending on the news networks was either still in the worse of it or done almost completely. He was angry at the dissension of knowledge. The media that couldn’t make up their mind to the corporations that told the media what to say, he was angry at all of it.
Alfie and Trevon spoke in front of him as they walked social distanced. That was the other thing. He had helped his mother up and down the stairs, even hugged her on occasion. When the pandemic had first happened and he saw people touch on TV shows and movies, it always surprised him. He was only sixteen and going for 6 months where human touch became taboo, it was upsetting to watch. Human contact had just drifted away from him. It hadn’t been a noticeable thing. It just happened like one day the online surveys stopped asking for race and gender because you were who you were based on your online profile. It had done wonders for discrimination or at least he hoped it had.
More than anything, he was angry at the complete feeling of helplessness. He was angry feeling so isolated.
“Hey Alfie,” Juan asked after he got tired of allowing his thoughts to make him more angry and bitter. “Did you look under the hood of your car?”
“No, why?”
“I don’t know.”