Free Like a Boss by Adam Rakunas

the mourners filing out of Longxia Cemetery a block away and cursing my landlady for saying the flat had a “territorial view” instead of “a living room overlooking a bloody graveyard.” I lit the candle.
    And there I sat: bottle, candle, the dancing flame. My little room, now bathed in the warm glow. Me, sitting in this chair, at this table, in this flat, in this neighborhood, in this city, on this planet, in this system, in this cluster, in this galaxy, in this universe. I let myself drift outside my tiny frame of reference, let my mind float farther and farther back until I was lost in the great sea of stars. I had no idea how many of them were full of life or strife, how many were being born or dying. I knew I had a place somewhere in all of that, and I had a short span to make it count. I had this time, this place, and this one sip of Old Windswept.
    I unscrewed the bottlecap and took that tiny sip. The warm line of rum ran down my throat into my belly, and I imagined that heat shooting up my spine into my brain. All those spots that got screwed up by my transit, all those neurons fried by the hibernant or business school or bad luck, none of that mattered for this moment. Here and now, I was whole and healthy, and fuck you, The Fear.
    “That looked delicious.”
    I jumped out of my chair. Rum sloshed out of the bottle as I held it in front of me. A woman sat in my overstuffed chair, her hands on the armrests. I did a quick look behind me to make sure no one else was hiding in my flat. I moved to the nearest curtain and threw it open. When I saw who was in the chair, the bottle dropped, along with my jaw.
    Leticia Arbusto Smythe, the President of the Santee Anchorage Chapter of the Universal Freelancers’ Union, gave me a polite smile, her un-inked cheeks glowing. She uncrossed her legs, her cargo trousers rustling and clinking. She had her electric green hair tied up, a sign that this was a business call. That still didn’t stop me from saying, “What the fuck are you doing in my flat, Letty?”
    She reached into her jacket and produced a cigar. “Your landlady let me in.”
    “I’ll have to file a complaint with the Housing Committee, then. No one’s supposed to come in here without my say-so.”
    Letty shrugged as she fiddled with a matchbox.
    “Or smoke.”
    She glared at me. I shrugged. “It’s in the lease.”
    Letty hmm ed, then tucked the cigar back in her jacket. She nodded at the bottle on the floor. “You gonna waste that?”
    I looked down. Old Windswept came in triangular bottles of sea-green glass. This one was open. Once upon a time, I would have dived for the floor to keep any of the rum from spilling, but I had learned that, once you owned your own distillery, that kind of thing just wasn’t done . I picked up the bottle and put it away.
    “Not even a finger for the Prez?” said Letty from her chair. My chair.
    “I’m always happy to serve my guests,” I said, closing the cabinet. “My invited guests.”
    She laughed. “Oh, come on , Padma. You still owe me a drink.”
    “Since when?”
    “Since that night you dragged me to karaoke.”
    “First of all, that was nine years ago. Second, you dragged me to that crappy little bar. And third, you didn’t even sing .”
    She shrugged. “I don’t like the way my voice sounds.”
    “You give weekly speeches on the Public.”
    “That’s speaking . Singing is another beast. Besides, this was the only way we could talk without all the eyes and ears of the world watching us.”
    I tapped my temple. “We both have video cameras in our heads.”
    “But they don’t work when I have this.” She held up the matchbox.
    I blinked back my pai’s buffer and got static. I put my hands on my hips. “Letty, are you jamming me? In my own home?”
    “I am indeed.” She pocketed the jammer. “Because the Union needs you, Padma, but no one can know about it.”
    I walked to the door. “Thank you for visiting, I’ll be sure to take this