text: Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Wake up earlier. Frankie woke up with the afternoon sunlight in her eyes. The room smelled of dust and sweat and old fried chicken. It was one thirty in the afternoon on January first. Frankie had gone to bed at half-past three. Not because she’d gone out. She was new in the city and had no friends here yet, and hated parties and wouldn’t have gone to a New Year’s party even if she had been invited to one - which she hadn’t been. No, she’d spent New Year’s Eve alone in her half-furnished studio eating spicy Korean chicken from the take-out place across the street and watching episode after episode of Indian Matchmaking. Then, for something completely different, she’d watched all three Die Hard movies in a row. The new year had arrived unnoticed sometime between the second and third Die Hard. At half-past two, Frankie had stood on shaky legs and arched her stiff spine. She reached her arms above her head and clasped her greasy fingers together, and then stretched her whole body by swaying left, then right. She’d left her apartment and pounded down the stairs to the ground floor, pushing outside, inhaling a lungful of cold air. Frankie found her new neighbourhood drenched in wet shadows and deserted. Her sneakers slipped on the frozen sidewalks. It was drizzling in December, the sleet shocking on her hot face, a welcome contrast to her too-hot apartment. She’d forgotten her coat and it was cold, but it was nice to feel cold, to feel something jarring after hours and hours of sitting in a hot, dry room with grease on her fingertips, bathed in the hollow white light of the television. She veered left and walked aimlessly, her mind energized, spinning plans for 2024. Get a pet . Like a dog (a small dog) or a cat (a calm one). Something living to share the apartment with, to breathe the same air as her; a warm body to touch when her mood dipped into moroseness. Frankie was used to being alone; she was an introvert, but something about being in a brand new city with nothing and no one familiar made her feel exposed. She’d moved to Calgary late last summer, just as the Winnipeg mosquitoes were getting fat and lazy. She’d left her mom back in Winnipeg, and her dad lived in Germany and called her once a year on her birthday. Her parents were both old, in their late sixties. They’d had her late in their marriage, almost like an after-thought that they later regretted, like they’d looked around and said, “Hey everyone else has a kid, why not us, eh?” And later realized they were too old and set in their ways to tolerate the scuttle of new life in their orderly home. Frankie grew up odd, without siblings or pets or many close friends. She chose a reliable-sounding major in university and dated Brian Liu for three years until he came out as gay and, last she heard, was married to his college roommate, Julian. That was all years ago. Three years and four months ago. Water under the bridge. Frankie reached a crosswalk and stopped to stare at the dark suburban street ahead. She heard car tires crunching on snow somewhere in the distance, but here on Frankie’s street, the traffic lights changed uselessly for an empty intersection. She frowned, turning back towards home. Frankie resolved to get a cat. From the shelter. She fumbled in the dark to take out her phone, planning to search up shelters in Calgary right then, but the falling sleet fogged up the screen and she hid the phone back in her jean pocket. It was getting too cold now, no longer a pleasant shock but a jittery painful one. She made her way back to her building, back up the concrete steps to the third floor, a trail of wet footprints in her wake. She stepped out of her shoes and kicked off her damp jeans and fell on the mattress that was the focal point of her apartment. She stared up at the ceiling. Buy a real bed. She’d already looked online, but all the beds were overpriced and hard to assemble, and it had seemed easier to just keep sleeping on the mattress. She did need a sofa, maybe a dining table. The studio was small, but even so, it looked sad and bare with nothing to fill it. Decorate. Get a plant. Buy a painting. She did own a proper desk that she’d bought off Kijiji for thirty five dollars. She worked remotely, so she’d needed a desk right away. Frankie worked for the same company she’d worked for in Winnipeg, writing and proofreading copy for technical manuals. Speaking of which: Find a better job. It was the main reason behind the move. She felt like Winnipeg held no jobs for her; none that she was qualified for, anyway. Winnipeg was a city she knew, a city with old disappointments. Calgary was something with promise, more people, mountains. She’d browsed Indeed a few times since she made the move, but everything she could realistically apply for paid less than the current job that she was sick to death of. She’d be a fool to quit one easy, work-from-home gig that paid well to work in a department store or wait tables. Not that anyone would hire her as a waitress. Frankie had an awkward air around her that made people uncomfortable and disqualified her from most jobs in customer service. So scratch that last resolution. She’d keep her old job, but do better outside of work . Be a better human being. She just needed...more energy. She needed to wake up, shake herself off. Exercise more (or start exercising). Go for brisk walks. Join a gym. Get moving. Frankie had fallen asleep with that thought pulsing at the forefront of her mind, a resolution to be active. She saw herself running and running and running, her blood thrumming in her body and her breath burning and something just a few feet away. If she could just run a little faster, a little harder, and there it would it be...