When it came down to it, Aubrey’s job amounted to that of a fortune teller.
It was veiled behind a fancy title, an eye-watering salary and bone-rattling stress levels, but the expectation was essentially the same: predict the future.
Instead of connecting with a supernatural realm though, Aubrey waded through an ocean of historical market data, and in place of a crystal ball, she used artificial intelligence.
The only — teeny — problem was that, even with the use of cutting-edge technology, nobody actually knew what would happen from one minute to the next. Least of all, Aubrey.
In the moments where that soul-crushing reality threatened to derail her entire career, Aubrey would open her personal trading app and purchase shares in her favourite new start-up, a vegan dog food company whose products were favoured by Trevor, the rambunctious labradoodle she and Nathan got last year after spending an entire Sunday hunched over a spreadsheet calculating the cost of raising a child and deciding that kids were not in the equation.
Adopting Trevor had not involved any of the research that in hindsight would have been useful, such as whether he was likely to become a 120-pound behemoth.
After an afternoon spent watching the market blow a hole through her latest algorithm, Aubrey tapped a new order into her trading app. But as she hit “Buy,” she accidentally dropped her phone. Fortunately, she managed to grab it just before it hit the ground and after a quick glance to confirm the trade had been successfully filled, she put her phone away and returned to the impossible task of guessing what fresh hell tomorrow had in store.
What Aubrey had failed to notice was that as her phone slipped from her grasp, her fingers had grazed the wrong letters for the ticker symbol. Instead of buying 50 shares of the dog food company, she accidentally bought 50 shares of a company that made submersible temperature gauges.
By the time she discovered her mistake months later, the stock had soared, making her a small, though unintentional, fortune.
When she shared the news with Nathan, he strongly suggested she buy property instead of gambling the money away.
“Trading isn’t gambling,” Aubrey said, with enough conviction that she almost believed it herself.
The following week, markets went up, which would have been positive, except that Aubrey had predicted they would go down. She soothed herself with some vacuuming.
Trevor danced around the whirring machine, trying to decide whether it was friend or foe. He pounced and retreated around the tiny apartment, his back side bumping against the media cabinet, causing the television to face plant onto the floor. As Trevor dodged the falling device, one of his paws got sucked into the vacuum’s roller. Yelping, he leapt onto the couch, his voluminous tail hitting the vase Nathan’s parents gave them as a housewarming gift. It teetered briefly before smashing into a pile of jagged shards against the faux maple laminate.
Aubrey took one look at the mayhem’s aftermath and sighed.
That night, between bites of spinach ravioli, Aubrey announced that they needed a bigger place. Maybe something near nature, where she could find....you know....a little peace and quiet.
“Something near nature” ultimately entailed moving to the rural perimeter of the city, into an outdated rancher where each morning, sunlight hit Aubrey’s pillow with such force, she woke feeling as though she were being interrogated.
After months of starting the day by cursing whoever thought putting a skylight in a bedroom was a good idea, she eventually took matters into her own hands and stuck up a pillowcase to block out the unwelcome blaze.
No sooner had she solved that problem then, in the middle of a shower, a tree root pierced a water pipe and the spray ceased just as she began rubbing shampoo into her hair. Aubrey spent several weeks bathing in an oversized bucket.
Then there were the raccoons that claimed squatters’ rights in the garage. Despite chasing them off each evening when she got home from work, they kept returning to confirm the eviction was indeed a permanent arrangement.
It was hardly the tranquil existence Aubrey had envisioned. Trevor, on the other hand, was having the time of his life, with no shortage of tree stumps to claim or spots to bury his various treasures, including Aubrey’s left Fluevog, which she had resigned herself to believe was lost in the move.
Finally, after a sleepless night tossing and turning because the market fell 12 points, instead of Aubrey’s anticipated nine, she was bludgeoned by a noise like someone was jackhammering on the roof. Nathan rolled over and bunched the covers around his shoulders, his slumber shockingly unaffected by the racket above.
As the steady rhythm continued, Aubrey sprang out of bed, pulled on her robe and raced outside to confront the culprit, catching the suspect red-handed. Or rather, red-headed.
A woodpecker lifted off and flapped into the distance.
The last thing Aubrey needed as she clambered precariously up the 30-foot ladder, was a bear meandering beneath her. The hulking black animal plunked itself down and proceeded to chew on some grass. Aubrey was unaware bears ate grass, she thought they were all about berries, salmon and small children, but now was hardly the time to worry about that.
She clasped her homemade woodpecker detractor — a rope strung with CDs — and carefully climbed another rung.
“Did you see the bear?” Nathan appeared at the window, his forehead pushing against the screen. “He looks comfortable.”
He pointed at the contraption slung over Aubrey’s shoulder. “Is that my Billy Joel CD?”
“Necessary sacrifice,” Aubrey said, and took another step up.
“For what?”
“My sanity.” Aubrey leaned back as far as she dared until she could spot the metal chimney pipe. She swung the adorned rope a few times before hurling it towards the pipe like a lasso.
She missed. The contraption landed next to the bear, who investigated it curiously, drawing its claws across the shiny surfaces.
“Great. It’s gonna be totally scratched now,” Nathan said.
“We don’t have a CD player. You couldn’t listen to it if you wanted to,” Aubrey said. Her hand was starting to ache from clutching the ladder so tightly.
“Be careful,” Nathan said.
“It’s secure, don’t worry.”
“That’s not what I mean. You keep trying to one-up nature…”
“So?”
“Maybe you ought to try being at one with it?”
Aubrey laughed so hard it caused the ladder to shake, which attracted the attention of the bear, who looked up at her and swatted a paw across a rung, as though slapping a friend on the shoulder. The ladder clattered against the eavestrough as Aubrey gripped the sides and silently admitted that nature was not the source of zenful rejuvenation she had hoped for. It was, she surmised, an awful neighbour intent on destroying her.
She peered down. “Bad bear,” she growled.
The bear made an insulted grunt, dropped the CD string and lumbered into the trees with more speed than seemed necessary, like it was trying to get away from her.
The next morning, the woodpecker did not hammer on the chimney and Aubrey awoke feeling more rested than she had in months.
Nathan was already up and dressed, perched on the edge of the bed tying his shoelaces.
“Trevor’s gone,” he said.
Aubrey flopped back on the pillow, bliss once again little more than a fleeting dream.
“I’m sure he just got out during the night and is wandering through the forest.” Nathan leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ll find him on my run. He must be getting hungry.”
The front door slammed as Nathan left. Aubrey was about to throw off the covers, when a low rumbling filled the room.
Forty-five kilometres southwest and 10 kilometres below, a fissure opened in the earth, releasing tension with the relief of unzipping one’s pants after a large meal.
The bed shook with the erratic jolts of a glitchy carnival ride. Aubrey clung to the duvet until, as unceremoniously as it began, the trembling stopped.
The house — the world — was disconcertingly quiet. Aubrey thought she heard her phone release a series of high-pitched beeps, but it could have been her brain buzzing. Either way, she became acutely aware of being inside a disaster, similar to when she sat in front of a market downturn knowing there wasn’t a darn thing she could do about it.
She grabbed her phone off the nightstand to call Nate, but she had no service. An alert on her screen confirmed that the earlier beeps she heard were not her imagination (much to her relief) but that they had just experienced a serious earthquake (which was much, much worse and reversed all her previous relief). Everyone was directed to remain calm and prepare to rely on their emergency kits for at least the next 72 hours.
Aubrey and Nathan still hadn’t gotten around to getting a kitchen table. Disaster prep wasn’t even on their to-do list.
Aubrey found Nathan curled up in a ball on the driveway. After ensuring they were both okay, they surveyed the damage. Even though the house seemed to have withstood the tremors, they decided they should stay outside in case the earth suffered any further indigestion.
With the power out, they rescued what they could from the fridge and transferred it to a makeshift cooler they devised with an empty planter and two forgotten trays of ice cubes. They dragged their mattress to the far corner of the yard and dug a latrine behind some bushes in the opposite corner of the property. Then they assembled the barbecue that had been sitting in a box for months. Just as they were about to light it, Trevor casually trotted into the yard.
They rushed to engulf him but pulled back when they saw the squirrel dangling between his jaws.
Trevor proudly dropped the squirrel in front of them as if to say, “I’ve taken care of dinner.”
The squirrel scrambled to its feet, more surprised than anyone by its survival, and scurried up the nearest tree. Meanwhile, Trevor released a huff of disappointment.
As the three settled into their al fresco bed for the night, Aubrey stared at the sky. She had no way of checking the markets, but she knew the world beyond their meagre surroundings would’ve kept on turning. It was with bittersweet triumph that she realized her prediction had been accurate: nature really was intent on destroying her.
The sky merged from deep navy to faded denim, at which point Aubrey carefully shifted the limbs of Nathan and Trevor until she could covertly depart the bed. She crept through the forest, tiptoeing over rocks and roots, climbing a moss-covered cliff in hopes of finding a sliver of network reception.
She slipped, multiple times, and wrestled with more than a few stubborn branches. Nature refused to make the journey easy, but every obstacle only made her more determined to re-establish her connection to civilization.
When she finally arrived at the summit, scratched and bruised, she clamoured over the rocky peak, holding her phone as high as she could.
“Come on…” She jumped up and down, stretching for a signal.
The "No Service" label remained steadfast.
With a cry of frustration, she hurled her phone over the cliff edge. She peered over the side and watched with a detached fascination as a wave carried the device off the shore and into the wide expanse of the sea. Before she could even consider what she’d done, the next wave unfurled over the pebbles and then also retreated into the crisp blue depths. One after the other, after the other, the waves came and went, changing cadence, yet constant and unceasing. Aubrey sat, mesmerized, until the sun made a full appearance.
Her reverie only broke when she heard the woodpecker tapping on her chimney in the distance. But rather than filling with rage, she suddenly understood why he’d chosen her chimney in the first place — the sound really did travel well. He’d find a mate in no time. Aubrey was honoured that her home could help, a feeling she never would have predicted.
After an engineer inspected the house and declared it safe — “battle-tested” was the word he used — Aubrey and Nathan moved back in.
Trevor quit befriending squirrels, Nathan found them a dining table, and eventually, life returned to normal.
Well. Sort of.
Aubrey once again found herself sitting behind her computer watching the market rip her latest forecast to shreds. Except as she traced the angry red line along its plummeting trajectory, she experienced none of her previous angst. Her bones didn’t rattle. She had no desire to vacuum.
It occurred to her that markets fall, and markets rise, just as tides turn. The economy, like nature, has its own rhythm. Everything, she acknowledged with a newfound calm, is a cycle of building and breaking. It’s how things perish. And how they grow.
Aubrey closed her computer. There’s always another wave, she thought. She’ll just catch the next one.
- Cecilia Brooke, Coquitlam
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