Greetings from Quarantine!
I hope you all are safe and well, and holding it together during these interesting times. We’re still all good at the Smomestead as we move from the cold-wet season into the hot-wet season (there are really only two seasons in a year around here), with a generous sprinkling of thunderstorms and tornados. True story: Dobby woke me up at three in the morning last night to take her outside, which is always a mixed bag, since I’d just barely gotten to sleep and find it difficult to fall back asleep once I’ve been awakened, but on the other hand, I’d much rather go a night without sleep than scrub the carpet. But I digress. Dobby woke me up, so I dragged the minimum amount of clothing I’d have to wear to avoid arrest should the Prude Police happen by, and we went outside.
Beautiful night, full of stars. There has been a sliver of a silver lining in this whole ordeal, in that we’ve seen some of the manmade damage roll back around the world, and although the air quality is pretty good where I’m at anyway, the stars are so much dimmer than I remember them being as a child. But last night, they were beautiful. Warm night, with an oddly chill breeze blowing through off an on, just to remind me it was there. A few clouds smudging up the sky, mocking me with my inability to paint clouds realistically even though real clouds barely look realistic. Just a calm, quiet, dry, clear night.
Ba-ZORP. Insta-lightning out of nowhere, slicing down out of NOTHING, so bright it left greenish burners floating across my vision and so close I could smell it. And you know what they say, if you’re close enough to SEE lightning, you’re close enough to get hit by it. I bolt (ha-ha, get it? Cuz it’s lightning) back to the house so fast, I practically outran the thunder, which hit like a bat made of air on the top of my head. You know that thunder that kind of grabs the house and shakes it, just to remind you why you buy homeowner’s insurance that covers Acts of God? Yeah, that kind.
Cue me, shivering in the entryway, wondering if I should run up to hide in my room like a frightened child or run down and hide in the storm shelter like a sensible adult? Should I wake up the others or let them fend for themselves. Apocalypse Rules in storm season. Should I get my laptop?
Gradually, I become aware that there is no actual storm. When I gather up enough courage to peek outside, it is a beautiful calm clear night, full of stars. Apparently, Zeus just dropped one of his javelins, probably while sneaking out the window of some sleeping sha-boopy before she wakes up and recovers enough presence of mind to wonder what the hell she just did with that mysterious platypus.
So I went back to bed, which is not quite the same thing as going back to sleep, and as a result, I am very tired as I write this, so I’m going to make it short and just say that a new chapter of my fanfic, Everything Is All Right, Part IV: New Faces, Old Bones is up on fanfiction.net and archiveofourown.org, whichever platform you prefer, so if you’re following, head on over and check it out. If you’re not following yet, it’s unlikely that I’ll change your mind and convince you to give it a try with another snippet, but I’ma give it a try anyhow. And to all of us, here’s hoping for another uneventful week, with clear nights and bright stars, and no random lightning this time because that shit’s scary.
Stay safe!
Her phone buzzed only twice over the course of that day. The first time, it was Yoshi, wanting to know if she wanted food yet. She told him she was fine and to just get whatever for himself, then made half an effort and asked how things were going out in the shop, just like he was on the other side of the world and not right across the driveway.
“Can’t go faster than the scanner,” he replied in a tone of cheerful apology. “But every little piece is progress. You?”
“Same,” she said and that was more or less her last word (apart from those she muttered without conscious thought) until the next buzz. That time it was Shelly. She was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but against her better judgement, she answered and then had to spent an interminable seven and a half minutes convincing him that she really was in another state and not available to come that night, not even if he paid her cash under the table. No matter what she told him or how often, he just kept saying the town needed decorating for the holidays and he had a deadline to keep and in thirty years he’d never missed it, and then he’d dangle another ridiculous incentive in front of her.
“I’m not in Mammon,” Ana reminded him crossly. “You know I’m not! What do you expect me to do, drive a hundred miles just to hang your fucking wreaths and drive back?”
His flustered harrumphing told her that was exactly what he’d been leading up to.
Ana had withstood the conversation up until that point without once thinking she was in danger of losing her temper, and to be fair, she still never thought she was in danger of that. There must have been a dozen lines to cross between the mild irritation she thought she was feeling to rubber-legged, white-hot, adrenaline-fueled rage, but she jumped them all and before she knew it, she was yelling, “I’m not there, you idiot! If not missing your stupid fucking deadline is this important to you, then get off the fucking phone and go hang the fucking wreaths yourself! How did you run a company for thirty fucking years without realizing that sooner or later, you’d have to fucking work?”
Maybe he took her advice. He hung up, anyway.
Ana stood for a while in the shower she had, mere minutes ago, been contentedly caulking, just feeling her heart pound and hands shake. Her first conscious thought to pierce the residual fog of anger was, ‘You just lost your job. You know that, don’t you?’
“Yeah,” she said. Her voice bounced off the tiles, flat and unreal on her ears.
‘You just love making life harder than it has to be, don’t you?’
“I guess so.”
rleesmith 