Indigo

Dark blue was her favorite color and she tended to use that in some of her online user names as well, i.e. darkblue27, darkbluemountains, thedarkestblue99. Even as she sometimes lay awake at night, new ideas for names using those two words would pop into her head uninvited. It was hard to stop this from happening, so much so that she thought about changing her usernames to other words, trying a new theme entirely. But then, I will probably just get stuck on the new name as well and have that always in my thoughts, she surmised.

Before the internet came along and changed everything, the land where Carolina now lived was a vast plain of fertile soil for farming. Before that it had been forest, but all the wood had been timbered out by the engines of industry who built the houses, buildings, railroads, cities and towns that fanned out across the former forests and prairies. That change must have been just as drastic as the one that happened when the internet came along. History illustrates how one way of life is replaced by another, and that, in turn, comes to an end eventually as well.

Throughout that process, there are plenty of people who remain nostalgic for the past, for how they used to live, but once these people have died off, then the past is forgotten until a new past comes to take its place.

The new way of life had brought buildings and roads to the once fertile valley, the land being once again repurposed for what the people with power and money thought it should be used for, which was to accumulate more power and money. Carolina was just a silent witness, with no influence. All she could do was to go apply for a job at one of the big new buildings, because the jobs from the old way didn’t exist anymore. So, that’s what she did and the work was very dull, it made her mind wander. For some reason, one day she started thinking of all her favorite things so that if someone asked her, she would be able to respond with some kind of certainty. Favorite high school teacher: Ms. Hayden; Favorite song: Sweet Jane; Favorite food: fettucine carbonara; Favorite dessert: Lemon merengue pie; Favorite color: dark blue.

Since moving into a new apartment in order to be closer to the workplace, Carolina also started to think about her identity more, and how that should be represented by the décor that she chose for her bedroom. She lived with her sister Ava, so they both had to negotiate their own tastes and ideas for the common areas of the house, but for their individual bedrooms, it was up to each one, of course, and Carolina chose a variety of adornments that were more conceptual and non-representational in nature. She liked the ambiguity of that. Her sister was more focused and direct, so she chose pictures and paintings of common objects found in household art and decorations: plants, flowers and birds.

At the building, Ava and Carolina both worked in the same department until one day Carolina was selected by the management team to train for a new job. They even hinted that the new job might require a re-location, as they were building a new facility in a bordering state. It would be more money and more responsibility, they said, and asked Carolina to give them an answer by the end of the day.  Carolina thought “Who are these people that want an answer by the end of the day? Don’t they know this is an important decision that requires time to consider, conversations with family members, pros and cons to weigh and deliberate over?”

Actually, the management team had said, through their email, that they wanted an answer right away. It was only through a request for more time that Carolina had received permission to respond by the end of the day.

I might take it after all, she thought. Her sister Ava had been seeing this guy she had met at the building, and he had eventually asked her to marry him and move back to his hometown with him. They had been discussing this for weeks and Ava had been hinting that she would probably say yes. She was in love with this guy Júan and wanted to leave her job at the building and go to a new place and do new things. With that in mind, Carolina was pretty sure that she should say yes to the new job as well, for if Ava was leaving, she did not want to stay in this place by herself and keep working at the building. She emailed her response back to the management team that yes, she would accept the relocation offer. However, besides the fact that the new building was located in the neighboring state, she knew nothing else about the job particulars or even what town she would be moving to. They had not told her any of the information, only saying that they would tell her later.

As she was falling asleep that night, Carolina got upset thinking about how disrespectful her employer was. Even though she was realistically cynical enough not to expect anything decent or sensical out of the corporation that she worked for, she thought that she needed to let them know how she felt. They might learn something. It was wrong for them to treat her and others this way, even though they didn’t know how to act ethically even if they wanted to. Well, uncharacteristically as it was for her, she was committed to bringing it up with the Human Resources representatives in the morning.

The next day, as she received more information about her new position, she told the HR representative her complaints. However, Katie, as was her name, was only a peon just like Carolina. She could not affect change either, as her superiors, the ones who called the shots, were just shadows on a large glass window on the other side of the large atrium. Or perhaps, as Katie sometimes thought, maybe those shadows were just projections and the real managers were actually based somewhere else, or perhaps non-existent in human form at all.

Katie shrugged her shoulders and held up her hands, but with an empathetic look in her eyes and Carolina instantly understood. Katie showed her how to download the app onto her phone that would be tracking her from now on. This was also how she would communicate with the company from her new location. She would also receive eleven cents a mile for relocation expenses, and a $50 gift card. Sign here, please. And turn in your badge and parking pass. Carolina went home early since she was technically not employed at her current position any longer. It was now a previous position. She drove out of the gate and went to get ready for dinner. Her and Ava and Júan were going out to the new Mongolian Barbeque restaurant to celebrate the new changes that were happening.