First-Responder

During the time when Eli was cruising off to his favorite lunch spot in his Lincoln—Octavia was hanging out at the laundromat with her gray pit-bull puppy, playing with the dog outside in the grass while she waited for her clothes to wash—Samuel was out of town, setting everything up with his band on a stage in the middle of a big stadium, preparing to open for a larger band’s concert—and Mohinder was enjoying a peaceful lunch break on his own.

He had been working as a first-responder for many years now, and being an EMT in the town of Wallace was a rather mixed experience. Some days were incredibly peaceful, with no accidents, no adrenaline, and no grisly sights to lay eyes upon. Other days, however, were precisely the opposite, and those rougher and more frightful days often left him with disturbing memories, as well as countless bizarre and unique stories to tell, though he didn’t often have many people to tell them to, aside from his girlfriend.

As of right now—Mohinder sat at a table in the corner of Elroy’s Diner, eating a large slice of pizza with one hand and scrolling through his phone on the table with the other. He found himself switching between watching random TikToks and responding to his girlfriend’s messages.

The waitress approached him with a pitcher full of iced sweet tea, her dress and apron a mixture of white and pink, and her hair long, wavy, and brunet. She offered him a polite smile.

“Need a refill, hun?” she asked.

Mohinder blinked and looked up from his phone, then glanced at his half-empty glass. “Oh… sure. Yes. Thank you.”

The waitress nodded and poured more tea into his glass.

“No girlfriend today?” she said.

“Oh… no, not today,” Mohinder replied. “She’s a realtor, and she’s showing a house right now. It’s just running a bit longer than normal this time, so… no meeting up for lunch today.”

“Aw… that’s too bad,” the waitress muttered. “Well, hopefully you can spend more time together soon. Just holler if you need anything else, all right, hun?”

Mohinder smiled politely and nodded, watching as the waitress walked away.

Then, he looked down at his phone again, sighing and feeling strangely at ease sitting here alone. It was common for he and his girlfriend Rachel to meet here during their lunch breaks and eat together in the middle of the day, but he didn’t feel lonesome as much as he felt peaceful on the days when he had to have lunch by himself.

Rachel was nice enough, and she was very pretty, too, but she often didn’t have a lot of understanding when it came to Mohinder’s management of time, even when it involved emergencies that arose during his job. He’d met her on Tinder, and they’d been dating for about seven months. Quite honestly, he felt a bit exhausted most of the time nowadays, because all of his time now went to work, errands, and prioritizing Rachel as much as possible, because that was what she expected of him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like spending time with her, but now that his routine was so much busier, he couldn’t help but savor these little moments of peace when they arose.

Just when he lifted his pizza slice to take another bite—his phone began to vibrate atop the table, and Rachel’s face overtook the screen alongside the words INCOMING CALL.

Mohinder set the pizza down and stared at the phone, suddenly feeling the strangest urge to lie down on the table and simply fall asleep there. He wiped his fingers on his napkin, grabbed the phone, and sighed before answering the call.

“Hello, sweety.”

“Heya, Hindy,” Rachel’s voice echoed from the phone. “So… I am pretty sure I just wasted my entire morning here.”

“Huh. How’s that?” Mohinder asked, using his free hand to quietly steal a bite of his pizza while they talked.

On the west side of town—Rachel stood alongside the driveway of one of the larger houses in the neighborhood, a two-story home with vanilla walls and neatly-cut grass, her realtor sign posted at the edge of the yard, and the couple who had just viewed the home were now climbing into their blue Honda and preparing to drive away.

Rachel was a woman with movie star looks, from her hourglass figure to her wavy black hair, though most of it was tied back in a low ponytail during work, leaving stylish and curly bangs to dangle over her pale, flawless face, her lips ruby red, her eyes a shiny hazel, and her black mascara complimenting them in a way that made her eye color sparkle even brighter. She stood on the side of the driveway with one arm tucked other the other as she spoke on the phone, her suit jacket tight, leather, and crimson, and her skirt matching its color almost perfectly.

“M’yeah… I don’t think they’re interested in this house,” Rachel remarked, turning and watching as the Honda steadily rolled onto the street and drove off. “And… I don’t think the people before them were interested, either.”

“Hm,” Mohinder murmured, trying to chew and swallow his food a bit faster.

“Buuut… it did give me an idea,” Rachel smirked, whirling around on her heel and gazing up at the house with a look of vested intrigue. “How would you feel about getting this house?”

Mohinder gulped and took a drink of his tea, then hesitated, making an odd face.

“Ah… I think it’s probably out of my price range,” he uttered.

“Nooo… you just get a loan,” Rachel told him.

“Sweety… I wouldn’t get approved for a loan that’s big enough to cover the price of that place,” Mohinder explained.

“Maybe not by yourself… but if it was both of us, then we could definitely do it,” Rachel said hopefully.

Mohinder paused for a second. “We’d have to be married.”

“Yeah,” Rachel beamed.

There was another pause, this time a longer one.

“It’s just an idea,” Rachel laughed. “I know how much you wanna get out of that apartment… and you know how much I want an actual home.”

“Yeah,” Mohinder managed. “Well… um… we’d have to talk all that out at some point.”

Rachel turned away from the big house, her smile waning.

“You don’t sound super happy about it,” she noticed.

Mohinder sighed and sank deeper into his seat. “Well, I jus… I dunno… that just kind of came up out of nowhere.”

Rachel frowned. “Okay… but… even if it’s surprising, it should still be happy surprising.”

Mohinder rolled his eyes and swallowed the urge to sigh again. The shift in her tone and the implications of her words set off a small alarm in his mind, and now, he knew for certain that he would be hearing about this again later. Sometimes, it was a bit difficult to navigate through a conversation with Rachel without saying something wrong somehow.

“Unless the thought of us ever getting married is just not what you want,” Rachel added, her voice sharpening.

Mohinder closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose, wincing slightly and feeling another peculiar urge to sleep at his diner table.

“Rache… we’ll talk later,” he said. “I’ve gotta go back to work in less than five minutes.”

Rachel scoffed. “Tch… yeah, okay. Love you too. Bye.”

She hung up abruptly.

Mohinder simply stuffed his phone dismissively into his pocket, eating the rest of his pizza and putting her out of his mind. Earlier in their relationship, whenever she would retort with something passive-aggressive, he would feel obligated to talk it out and fix whatever had her so upset—but now, he merely felt tired of it, and he didn’t want to be bothered by it in the middle of his workday yet again.

“That’s getting old,” he mumbled to himself, cleaning the remainder of the grease off his hands before balling the napkin up and dropping it onto his now empty plate.

Afterwards—he stood, paid for his dinner, and finished off his tea before marching out of the restaurant and strolling around the corner. Elroy’s Diner sat on the corner between old Wallace and Northshore Avenue, where many of the gas stations, pawn shops, and car dealerships resided—and the parking lot for the diner was around the back of the building, where his ambulance currently sat parked and waiting for him.

He approached it, pulled the passenger door open, and climbed inside, swinging the door shut and glancing over at the man in the driver seat.

One of his partners on the job—Alexander—was the man he most often rode around with on the day shifts. Alex was older than Mohinder, with a dark brown beard and hair to match, some of his hairs just beginning to fade silver. He was a burly, stocky man, and he was seated in the driver seat munching on one of his burritos from Taco Bell, as he preferred eating fast food during his lunch break over visiting restaurants.

Mohinder glanced over, seeing that Alex’s phone was propped up on the steering wheel, playing the VOD from a live stream that had been broadcasted earlier in the morning. The video contained voices from people who were taking turns speaking in a rather echoey room.

“What’re you watching?” Mohinder asked.

Alex finished chewing, wiping a spot of refried beans from his bear and wagging a finger at his phone. “A live stream from this morning. This girl online… Ozzie… she arranged an impromptu rally at the courthouse for this morning to protest against the data centers being built here and whatnot, but I had to work, so my wife went without me, and I wanted to watch some of it today if I found the time.”

“Ah.” Mohinder made a nod, leaning slightly closer and stealing a better look at the video. “Huh. That doesn’t look or sound like a protest…”

“No… Ozzie went into the commissioner’s meeting and streamed the whole thing,” Alex explained. “This motherfucker from California is a fuckwit , man…”

Mohinder breathed out a laugh and looked away. “Heh… well, I wouldn’t really know.”

Alex turned his head and squinted at him. “You don’t keep up with local politics at all…?”

“Not really, no,” Mohinder chuckled. “I’ve got quite enough of my own problems to deal with right now.”

“Yeah… I get that,” Alex muttered with a sideways nod. “But, y’know… this stuff is our problem too, if you think about it. Data centers take up a fuck-ton of water and power.”

“Well… getting more involved with the community would be nice, but that’s not a luxury I can afford to have,” Mohinder remarked. “I don’t have the time, money, means, or energy to do anything extra right now. Maybe later, when things get more stable… if any life plans ever actually manage to pan out…”

Alex read his expression astutely.

“You just got off the phone with Rachel, didn’t you?” he guessed, flashing a smirk behind his bushy mustache and beard.

Mohinder’s head was rested back against the seat, and he rolled it to the side, giving him a flattened sort of look.

Alex laughed. “Ye’ap, I knew it. That woman always leaves a very specific look on your face.”

“Well… I can’t help it,” Mohinder mumbled, facing forward again. “I’m just tired…”

“Yeah… that’s what happens when you date a vampire,” Alex chided, slapping him playfully on the arm. “Maybe try dating a person next time, see how that works out.”

Mohinder sighed heavily.

“So damned aggravating,” he uttered. “On the one hand… we like a lot of the same movies, and music, and restaurants, and jokes... and it can be so nice on some days. Then, on the other hand, I don’t even wanna answer the phone when she calls because I know one wrong word will activate whatever emotional landmine is rigged to pop in her brain, and then I’ve gotta deal with whatever arguments and passive-aggressive jabs follow that for the next few weeks thereafter…”

Alex nodded quietly.

“And you know what she just did right before I came back out here?” Mohinder said, meeting his eyes again. “She just brought up the idea of us getting married out of nowhere.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. “Ooof. My condolences.”

“I never imagined I’d bother spending this much time on someone I didn’t intend to marry. I figured that was always my game plan for the future… once I found someone,” Mohinder mumbled with a sigh. “But something about her saying that just set me on edge right out the gate. Not sure what to do.”

“Well… no judgment towards her, and no bias… lemme just ask you one thing,” Alex said intently. “The way you feel right now... and the way you always seem to feel now… is that how you wanna feel for the rest of your life? That’s all you really gotta ask yourself, man. Then you’ll have your answer.”

Mohinder’s brow hardened, and he pondered on this for a moment. Then, he turned and gave Alex a questioning look.

“Do you ever feel this way with Sheryl?” he wondered.

Alex opened his mouth, then choked out a laugh and shook his head. “No… no, I definitely don’t. I mean… we’ll have an argument once in a blue moon, and there are always ups and downs, but… that’s just how marriage works. I’ve never felt like I can’t answer the phone when she calls, though. She’s nothing but loving and supportive towards me, even if she’s pissed off at me… which doesn’t happen that often. I ain’t got nothing to worry about when I’m talking to her.”

Just then—a loud beep echoed from the speaker on Mohinder’s radio strap, the radio on his shoulder beginning to speak.

“E75—you’re needed at 570 Williams Street, white male displaying erratic behavior, possibly intoxicated, claiming to be suffering an overdose.”

Mohinder and Alex traded glances, both of their expressions falling flat.

“Wally,” Mohinder mumbled.

“Ye’ap,” Alex agreed, tossing his Taco Bell bag aside and shifting gears. “Well, fuck my quesadilla…”

Mohinder responded to the radio call while Alex switched the sirens on—and the ambulance turned and raced out of the diner’s parking lot, its lights flashing red and white as its siren wailed and echoed down the street.