A Familiar Sight [ Katherine Souza ]

The various youth’s faces sported complete abject hatred. Sure, all five of them were across the food court by the noisy arcade with anime figurines for prizes. And half of them were nose-deep into their phones. But the disdain was undeniable. As one leaned like a blonde reed to their pink-haired friend, I knew they were sharing some lawless dereliction, plotting to make a ninety-second video about why people in their fifties had officially lost the plot.

And there I’d be in a low-res frame, purchasing my stupid, polyester blouse for my insipid, terrible nine-to-five that I definitely only got from a family friend, and I didn’t even need this job as badly as them because my mortgage was half paid off and they couldn’t get a decent job through the AI pachinko machine that was online applications.

The polyester blouse with purple flower prints was a sad wad in the gloss-paper bag. I should’ve bought the damn cotton blouse, it could at least decompose as a dirty mass in a land fill when I hit my sixties and lost the confidence to wear low necklines. The cotton blouse was twenty dollars more expensive, but it’d be worth it. Oh wait, then I’d really be out of touch. Who can afford nice clothes in this economy? Ms. Gen-X over there apparently, who probably has a husband that pounds Coors Light at home and thinks grunge is still hard.

“I actually don’t have a husband and prefer The Japanese House! Even before they collabed with Charli xcx. Never been one for grunge, haha,” I blurted out while pushing a bleached strand behind my ear.

“Yo, word,” said a twenty-something passing me by. Permed hair in imitation of Timothee Chalamet bounced as he wiped one thumb on his mouth and laughed.

The group with the hateful eyes held their phone up, they were filming something. This is why people didn’t talk to anyone anymore. Everything would be filmed, ridiculed, picked apart, and I’d be in the thumbnail making an angry face because they caught this very moment where I—

“Achoo!” I sniffled. “Augh….”

“Gross,” said one of the youths by the arcade, pointing to something on their phone.

There it is, the perfect invitation for them to enact their loathing onto me, an unwavering edifice of Reagan-era privilege that had stripped everything from those below. I promise, those were the boomers, they’re the selfish generation. They hated my generation too, calling us lazy, indecisive, burnouts in the 90s, here comes Gen-X, undefinable, laidback, lost. And then they did it again fifteen years later! Called millennials selfish, participation-trophy-loving liberals. If only the youths knew how my friends and I in college, well we’d stick our fingers up to wall-street fogeys, curse their obsession with leaded oil and corporate conformity.

And here I was with my polyester blouse, stomping face down in my flip-flops to the linen-only boutique on the other side of the food court. I needed a new flare skirt for the warming autumn days where mosquitos would still pester my legs.

“So cringe,” the pink-haired one said as I walked by.

My ears went flush and I felt my heart-rate spike with the confirmation that I was indeed out of the loop. I was regretfully out of touch. I was tragically cringe.

They noticed I’d stopped and so hushed their voices. Colorful eyeliner, a star-patch on a chin, striped crop-tops and basketball shorts, they just stared at me. I was staring too, I suppose. My hand was sweaty on the polyester chord handle of my bag.

“Do you need something?” one asked with a shitty sneer.

Oh, look upon the oldie and despair, for this too is where you’d be in thirty years. Staring into the faces of youth even more excluded from life, losing a game they had a late start on, thinking you’d never kowtow to the demonic nine-to-five and that you’d couch surf abroad for the rest of your days, well that is until your friend strikes it lucky and gets a promotion out of the mail room and puts in a good word for you to have a stable job and you’ll take it because you have some health issues in your family history and you don’t want to be unprepared if breast cancer shows up on your annual exam and it probably won’t but you can’t expect to get cancer treatment while living on a couch so you save up enough to buy a house with maybe a friend maybe a lover and in the blink of an eye you’re now here. And you’ll wonder how you became the very thing you dreaded and ask if it was too late to try to be cool again.

“I— I promise, I didn’t vote for Trump,” I said.

“Well, that’s good at least,” said pink-hair.

My eyes scanned their shoes, all platforms and sneakers. There were keychains dangling from one’s bag and round buttons of album covers on the other’s. I didn’t recognize any of the bands.

I nodded and carried on. The flare skirt wouldn’t buy itself and I was having an out of body experience and should probably steer my saggy little body into the store.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the sheep-headed boy from earlier amongst the group, passing out matcha lattes.

He gestured with a cup-laden hand to me and the others whispered.

He’d tell them I liked The Japanese House. He’d let them know I wasn’t out of touch.