She was the sort of person who could pull a muscle doing something totally innocuous, like putting a sweatshirt on with a neck hole that was too small. In other words, Janis was not the most athletic of women. To use understatement. And yet, contrary to what that description might infer to some people, she wasn’t fat. Or even “rotund,” to use a more polite version of that word. She was “average” (the most odious of words). Neither overly thin nor overly zaftig. And she achieved this “status” by doing pretty much nothing. Which was all any girl ever really wanted to do. At least compared with what she was expected to do—which was exercise, eat right, work some unsatisfying job, get married and have kids. Those were the key “highlights” and expectations in life, for women more than men.

Janis had opted out of those expectations a while ago, realizing that no one really cared what she did…or didn’t do. She was, as many people refused to acknowledge about themselves, just floating through life, her existence not mattering one way or another in the “grand scheme.” Whatever that scheme was. Only “God” knew, supposedly. And while Janis might not have known much, she did know that being “fit” definitely wasn’t part of the “overarching plan.” So, again, why bother? As far as she was concerned, pulling a muscle now and again while doing something mundane wasn’t that depressing of a reminder about how out of shape she was. Besides, there were so many others in her rural Texan town that were far worse off, shape-wise.

Yes, Janis lived in a town of potato people. By choice. For it’s not as though she grew up in or had any ties whatsoever to this town. Repo, Texas was just a place on the map that “spoke to her.” Mostly for its randomness and remoteness. And yes, speaking of remote, the only reason she was able to live in Repo without worry of looking for a job (so niche as the “industries” were in that town) is because she already had an online one. That coveted form of work that fewer and fewer people seemed capable of finagling despite its alleged “renaissance period” during and after the pandemic. But, for some miraculous reason, Fortune had smiled upon Janis when she was hired as a virtual assistant to the CEO of a startup who never really seemed to need much assistance. Oh sure, when he did, it was overpowering, all-consuming and utterly annoying, but the amount of “down time” she had in between more than made up for it.

In fact, she had enough down time to theoretically cultivate the “healthy habit” of going to the gym or engaging in some other such “physical activity.” Even something as “low maintenance” as taking regular walks around the small radius of the town. But no, rather than bothering with that, Janis much preferred to spend her time reading or generally lolling about the apartment that would cost probably, at the bare minimum, four thousand dollars a month if it were in a “major city.” A phrase that she had grown weary of over the years since the last time she bothered with living in one.

The entire reason Janis had moved to Repo after years of enduring “big city life” was to escape the pressures, the demands, the constant noise of what it meant to live in a metropolis. It was all starting to get to her and, one day, she was met with the straw that broke the camel’s back. Only in this case, it was her back. Like, actually. She took a nasty spill down the stairs of the subway while hurrying into the bowels of the WTC Cortlandt station. Needless to say, no one bothered to stop and ask if she was okay, even as she was splayed out on the stairs groaning in agony…as her lower back demanded her to. For that’s the part of her body that bore the brunt of the fall. And of course her first thought was: I can’t afford to go to the hospital. Janis didn’t even have health insurance; all “extra” cash was used to pay rent at an apartment she shared with four other people. Whenever she was in a real bind, she went to urgent care—but that was only if she was experiencing the kind of sickness that was tantamount to knocking on Death’s door.

This, however, was something else entirely. The sort of thing you shouldn’t “mess with.” No, instead you should be rushed to the hospital to ensure that there was no damage. But in order to be rushed to the hospital, someone would actually need to give a shit that something had happened to you. And, based on the blasé reaction of the passersby, no one did.

Eventually, Janis was able to pick herself up and dust herself off, though it felt like she had been lying there for hours (in actuality, it was probably about five minutes). Hobbling back toward the exit, she also couldn’t help but ruminate on the irony of how this fall wouldn’t have happened on the alternate plane where the MTA didn’t bother with reopening the WTC Cortlandt station. Technically, it shouldn’t exist anymore, what with having been part of the collateral damage that happened when those two planes crashed into the Twin Towers. That was when it had just been the Cortlandt Street station. Now, the “WTC” had been tacked onto it to remind people, ostensibly, to “never forget.” But if people had “remembered,” then they probably wouldn’t feel so at ease with what amounted to walking through a graveyard. A burial ground. Which all of New York was anyway, but this part of it in particular. It had taken seventeen years for the station to be reopened again. Seventeen years during which Janis had no need whatsoever to use that stop.

But now that it was back, it had served as the final nail in the coffin of her decision to leave. Something she had been thinking about for a while, but could no longer ignore after bearing witness to the extent of removed callousness that “big city folk” had no choice but to adopt after enough time. Enough desensitization. Janis didn’t want to be that way any longer. And that was at the forefront (as well) of her final resolve to abandon the place. Retreat to some unknown, bum-fuck town. Anywhere would have done. Repo just happened to call her in the moment when she was deciding on a new location and her eyes fell toward Texas on the map of the U.S.

In truth, she would have preferred to leave the U.S. altogether, but being just a “plain old” American citizen had its limitations. She wasn’t like one of those “international” types in New York City, everyone miraculously having dual citizenship as a convenient exit strategy if (and when) shit hit the fan. Which it definitely had of late. And while, in many regards, Janis was going deeper into the belly of the American beast by opting for Texas, a place like Repo was its own (mini) planet. And “Podunk” enough for nobody to pay much attention to it, politically speaking. Of course, that didn’t mean it wasn’t filled with conservative shitkicker archetypes nonetheless. But that didn’t matter to Janis, who had learned, by now, how to “keep herself to herself.” That’s also what the “big city” did to you. Turned you cold, self-isolating. Mistrustful. However, Janis couldn’t deny that one thing the “big city” also did to you was render you inherently in shape.

Perhaps that’s why she had been “average” without effort for so long. The setup of a metropolis was designed to make one work harder in terms of “getting around.” In a way that “quintessential American towns” did not. What with their primary emphasis on cars as a “natural” way of life. In turn, rendering the human body unnatural for how doughy, how potato-y it could become with such reliance on that kind of “convenience.” Janis supposed that was starting to happen to her, too. That, more than in the past, she ought to be worried about the fact that she could pull a muscle if she put a top with a too-tight neck hole on by engaging the wrong sort of movement. Because, if she was being candid with herself, she was starting to notice that things were getting more difficult for her, “physicality”-wise.

Even so, she wouldn’t trade her current Repo, Texas life for the prospect of returning to a big city where “being active” was functional rather than forced. She had made her decision to “retire,” so to speak, from that lifestyle, and there was no going back. Not now, not ever. And damn the consequences. Oh well if she dislocated a bone or two—at least she could presently afford health insurance to get it patched up at the doctor. And, who knew, maybe she might even actually make a potato-y friend or two while sitting idly in the waiting room (as opposed to inside her apartment). But no…that would be asking for too much of “everything” in just one location.