Carol house furniture

Can we buy furniture again or is it just prefab? There are furnished and unfurnished rooms for sale so I’m like sweet, unfurnished please. But I either haven’t unlocked the ability to buy furniture yet or it doesn’t exist. So like … does Link just live in an empty house now?
And like yeah I could build Big Chair. But I want cute little chair. And then I want to obsessively rearrange those chairs until I randomly remember that the princess is in another dragon.

My partner and I are fostering a 2 year old blue heeler / rat terrier mix, just got him two days ago. The hope is to adopt him, but he has some pretty significant issues. We are definitely willing to making the investment in long term professional training, but also want to be sure he's not the wrong dog for us before making that commitment. He is mainly good around the house. He is pretty calm, friendly, good with us and other people. He has some boundary issues, like jumping and getting on furniture, being too eager and possessive with toys and food. All things to be expected with a rescue. He has a tendency to nip at people if they touch his back or legs, or surprise him, which is a major concern for us as we would like to have him around small children. Outside, he is extremely leash reactive. Pulling, barking and growling at dogs and people, unresponsive to commands, trying to chase squirrels, you name it. We had a play date with him and another dog off leash in a fenced yard and he did fine, though was clearly a bit fearful.
Our goal is to have him be a go-everywhere dog - crowded places, hikes, patios, running, hopefully dog parks. We also would like to be able to have him off-leash but he is extremely prey driven. We also want him to be more respectful and responsive to commands, and to limit his biting. It's pretty clear that he has almost no training up to this point, but he is super cute and we are hoping to find a dog to adopt. Where it gets difficult is my partner is pretty much out at this point. We spoke to a professional trainer who basically told us we could pay for all the professional training in the world and work with him constantly and he may never stop biting at people who surprise him, and that a lot of our issues may be just breed inherent. We really don't want to have to worry about that, and since we aren't professional or even very experienced trainers ourselves, and don't have a ton of time on our hands to work with him every day he may just not be right for us. I'm super torn because I already love him and really want to make him into a success story, but also don't want to end up with a problem child. I know there's no guarantees one way or the other with how he might turn out with the right training, but would love some advice from the experienced people here.

My partner and I are fostering a 2 year old blue heeler / rat terrier mix, just got him two days ago. The hope is to adopt him, but he has some pretty significant issues. We are definitely willing to making the investment in long term professional training, but also want to be sure he's not the wrong dog for us before making that commitment. He is mainly good around the house. He is pretty calm, friendly, good with us and other people. He has some boundary issues, like jumping and getting on furniture, being too eager and possessive with toys and food. All things to be expected with a rescue. He has a tendency to nip at people if they touch his back or legs, or surprise him, which is a major concern for us as we would like to have him around small children. Outside, he is extremely leash reactive. Pulling, barking and growling at dogs and people, unresponsive to commands, trying to chase squirrels, you name it. We had a play date with him and another dog off leash in a fenced yard and he did fine, though was clearly a bit fearful.
Our goal is to have him be a go-everywhere dog - crowded places, hikes, patios, running, hopefully dog parks. We also would like to be able to have him off-leash but he is extremely prey driven. We also want him to be more respectful and responsive to commands, and to limit his biting. It's pretty clear that he has almost no training up to this point, but he is super cute and we are hoping to find a dog to adopt. Where it gets difficult is my partner is pretty much out at this point. We spoke to a professional trainer who basically told us we could pay for all the professional training in the world and work with him constantly and he may never stop biting at people who surprise him, and that a lot of our issues may be just breed inherent. We really don't want to have to worry about that, and since we aren't professional or even very experienced trainers ourselves, and don't have a ton of time on our hands to work with him every day he may just not be right for us. I'm super torn because I already love him and really want to make him into a success story, but also don't want to end up with a problem child. I know there's no guarantees one way or the other with how he might turn out with the right training, but would love some advice from the experienced people here.

As the title says, I've only ever had dogs and pet rats. I LOVE cats but never got to have once since my mom doesn't like the cat hair and smell. I currently am living in my parents RV until I get my tiny house built. I'm going to be adopting my friends cat that she has been fostering. She also lives in an RV so the cat is already adjusted to RVs. The cats name is Ruby and she's almost a year old. She hasn't gotten spayed or her shots yet so I'll be getting that done asap. She's already litter trained and doesn't scratch furniture. She seems like an amazing cat and she's super friendly and cuddly. I plan to catify the RV and put the litter box in the shower (since the shower is broken). I already know mostly everything about what the cat needs. It's more about the training and behavior of cats that I'm not too sure about. I plan to train her to be on a leash and to do a couple tricks (I've trained dogs and rats, but dogs and rats are similar imo). So if anyone has any advice on training and behavioral stuff that would help so much. Also I plan to use Pine pellets for litter and I'm not too sure what food to get her yet, but I was thinking about feeding her Purina Pro. Also I know she reacts to Catnip but I'm not sure what brand to get it from. Alot of the pet foods for cats seem to be bad for them, so any recommendations for that would help ALOT.

I am donating blood and this movie is playing rn. I tried looking it up but I can’t find anything on it.
It has these people in a room talking and this man (I think his name is Logan) explains in a flashback (year 1993) about him and his friend Danny being Football heroes in high school. This girl (I think named Carol) introduces to one of them another girl named Rachel. Then it has a scene of the high school boys and one other guy, break into a house owned by a couple named Kevin and Missy. He has a bat and goes downstairs to call the cops, and one of the guys beats him severely, but he lives. Another chases the wife and beats her (she lives). The two teens go to prison (year 1996) and Kevin comes to visit them and forgives them after speaking to a woman (named Johana) the night he planned to kill himself. Fast forward to the year 2008 and it says Danny killed his wife and right now it’s a funeral for the woman Rachel and Carol is giving the Eulogy.

Hey guys! Does anyone know of a company that can help move really heavy furniture out of my house? I have a massive dresser and armoire that we need to get out from the last owners and we can’t do it ourselves. Wayyy too heavy! Any leads would be amazing.

My mom is a hoarder. My dad and my aunt and uncle are trying to get her to get rid of stuff, it’s been slow and difficult and my dad is an enabler. The house my dad lives in and rents has rooms stacked to the ceiling with boxes of her stuff plus furniture in storage. My mom lives in my grandma’s house down the street (grandma is in memory care home) and her room is so full of stuff you can’t open the door all the way.
My bf and I are moving in together in 2 months. We both have 1 bed apartments. My family moved around a few times while I was growing up, I moved between dorms in college and I moved to my current place from a place with roommates last year. It’s never been the moving that stresses me out, I’m used to that. It’s how much stuff I have. I threw out a ton of my stuff and donated a ton of clothes when I moved to my current place, and I’m going through my stuff to toss or donate again. I just sent a bunch of clothes to an online consignment store to sell and donated a bunch more clothes. I see stuff that I haven’t used in a while (ex. old toiletry products that I used twice, charging cords that I don’t know what they go to, my graphing calculator from college, etc). And I see them and think oh that will be useful later. But then they stay in storage. And I panic thinking about it cause I don’t want to be wasteful and ex. throw out that bottle of mousse that made my hair look like ramen noodles but what else do I do with it. I don’t want to move stuff I don’t need or am not going to use to our new place. My bf has a lot of stuff too but he is a collector as a hobby so that is different. Idk I’m just not sure what to do with these feelings and how to also not feel wasteful. I get scared that holding onto things will make me like my mom but I also dont want to destroy the environment.

My partner and I moved into a nice suburb a week ago and have had a great time expect for our neighbors. The night we moved in, I saw them literally standing in their front door window staring at us as we unloaded a few essential items from our cars. We brushed it off as just normal curiosity of who the new neighbors are. The next day, we brought a U-Haul to unload our bigger things and as we were pulling up to the house, a friend of ours said she saw someone in an upstairs room recording us with their phone. We thought it may have just been a misunderstanding.
THEN, as we’re unloading our furniture, a man comes out of the house and starts doing what looks like meaningless “yard work” that seemed to just be snooping. We laughed about it but again, nothing crazy. A few days later, we decided we would go introduce ourselves since they seem so curious about us. A man answered the door and he was super charismatic and funny, but told us that he was in fact recording us (he even said he recorded the delivery people when we had a TV delivered) because he thought it was funny and he wanted to show his wife. What’s super weird is he didnt seem to think this was an issue at all, and he even told us that him and his wife look over at our house all the time and commented on how many packages we receive.
We obviously were super creeped out by all this information so we bought a security system from Ring and installed a video doorbell. Yesterday, we saw him walking through our back yard around 6pm to get to the house on the other side of us. This was honestly the last straw for me.
We’ve only been here 7 days and I’m already worried this is going to turn into a NFH situation. I plan to communicate with him if I see him walk through our yard again that we don’t feel comfortable with that, but the constant recording and snooping is SO creepy. Any tips on how to keep this under control would be greatly appreciated! I am an anxious person and I do not like to start conflict so I’d rather keep the peace and set boundaries amicably, but I don’t want to be a pushover either.
Side note: my partner and I are quite young for the neighborhood (in our 20s) and these neighbors are at least in their 40s with 2 teenage children, so I feel like some of the respect they have for us goes out the window there. Also, the neighbor told us that they were among the first houses in the neighborhood when it was still “all dirt”, so I can absolutely see how he may feel entitled to doing whatever he wants since he and his family have been here for so long.

Hello all. I have written here before about my job at Ultima Resort (1,2,3,4,5,6,7), though I know it has been a while, sorry about that. We were trapped for some time, my phone died pretty quickly, and I wasn’t able to recharge it again until the water receded. So, I haven’t really been able to write. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me get you up to date, then it will all make more sense.
I opened a door and peered into the closet, but the noise was quieter here, if anything. I shut the closet and continued down the hallway. The dripping had started out intermittent. The gentle plip, plip, plip was barely audible over the normal sounds of the hotel, and we had assumed it was related to the steady rain that had been drumming on the building for a few days, at that point. But the frequency of the dripping had been increasing steadily, and now was concerningly loud and constant. It was somehow audible from every corner of the hotel, and it was only a matter of time until the guests complained. They were already irritable because of the bad weather, which had kept them stuck indoors. As I passed a window, a flash of lightning lit the forest behind the hotel. The lights flickered ominously but it stayed on. The clap of thunder rattled the doors in their frames. I spotted Vincent hurrying towards me from down the hall. His face seemed pale.
“Well, did you find the leak?” I asked.
“Umm… you could say that,” he replied, uncomfortably, eyes shifting to the storm outside.
“What’s wrong?”
“It… well, you should just come see.”
I followed him down the hall to the ballroom where we had hosted the anniversary party some days back. It had been a nice event. Less deaths than I had expected. The hors d’oeuvres were pretty good. There was still a bit of smoke damage on the west wall, but we had cleaned it off as best as we could and the place looked presentable again, though I was now thinking we should put on a new coat of paint. It was hard to decide, when I wasn’t sure if the room would even be here next week. Vincent opened the door on the back wall and gestured me inside. This was new.
It was some sort of small storage cupboard, with dim lighting and a low ceiling. It was full of what looked like furniture, draped in white cloths for storage. I wondered what the furniture was made of, because the room had a strange fetid odor, that reminded me of rot and death. I covered my nose with my hand instinctively, but it did little to help. The small window in the back showed that the rain continued to fall outside, but it didn’t seem to be the source of the leak, as the floor around it was dry. Still, the leak must be in here, because the sound was louder than ever. I took a step forward, to get a better look at the room, but Vincent grabbed my arm and pulled me back, pointing towards the ceiling. I looked up to see a large dome light. It had a strange dark tint, and hardly any light made it through. But something else was coming from the dome. Drips fell in a steady rhythm, and as my eyes tracked them, I saw them splash into a widening puddle on the ground. The puddle was viscous and black, glimmering in the dim light. I looked back at Vincent.
“What is that?” I raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t really look like ordinary water to me.”
“I don’t know. Maybe… it is picking something up as it drips through from the roof?” he did not sound particularly convincing.
“Maybe,” I tried to play along. “Though, I am not sure I want to know what that could be. Did you check if it is coming from somewhere upstairs?”
“Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary on the floor above, and I can’t find any signs of a leak anywhere else.”
“Alright,” I backed out of the door and closed it behind us. “Well, I am sure whatever that is will work itself out.”
“What? We’re just going to leave it? Why did we even bother looking, then?” Vincent protested.
“I was worried it was a roof leak, something we needed to handle with routine maintenance. That does not seem to be the case,” I raised a questioning eyebrow. “Do you know how to fix whatever is going on in there?”
“No…”
“Me neither. In this place, when the ceiling is dripping black ichor, it is probably for a reason. I assume we’ll find out when one of our guests gets involved.”
Vincent opened his mouth, as if to protest, but even as he did, the sound of the phone at the desk echoed through the hotel. Vincent sighed,
“Alright, let’s go see what fresh hell awaits us today.”
I heard a small chuckle inside my head. I resisted the urge to ask Al what he knew. He answers were rarely helpful. He didn’t seem to lie, but he was often intentionally misleading, saying whatever he thought would elicit the most drama. I was tired of giving him the satisfaction. I was sure I could sense his disappointment when I refused to engage, but maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. I couldn’t blame Vincent for being apprehensive about what the guests’ inquiry might be. The three men had arrived to participate in some sort of golf event, but they been here for 3 days now and since it had poured every moment, the event was not taking place. The guests were very unhappy about this turn of events, and they had mostly been killing time by taking it out on us. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. The rich ones were always the most demanding, unused to being told ‘no’ even when the question was ‘has the rain stopped yet?’, and based on the Bugatti they had arrived in, these men were quite rich. I answered the phone on the desk, already suppressing a sigh.
“Ultima Resort, front desk, how can I help you?”
“You can come and open the bar,” the voice on the other end snapped. “It’s past noon and the sign says it should be available by now.”
“I apologize, sir. I’ll be right there.”
“You had better be. The service at this place is frankly astounding. Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone ever stays here. I have half a mind to leave a review warning people away.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I know your stay hasn’t been ideal, but please bear with us and we will do everything we can to make it right.”
“You can start by hanging up the phone and getting me my drink.”
The line went dead in my hand. I sighed and replaced the phone on the cradle.
“Let me guess, they wanted to give us a large tip and leave early?”
“Don’t quit your day job,” I chuckled. “You wouldn’t make it as a psychic. Come on, let’s go open the bar, before we have a mutiny on our hands.”
I grabbed the key to open the shutters from the desk and we headed into the dining room. Our three guests were standing around the locked bar, making a show of checking their watches. I struggled to keep my eyes from rolling. It was 12:03pm.
“You know,” Jack turned to the man next to him, but spoke loudly enough to be sure I could hear. “This reminds me of some of the dumps we stayed in before we made our fortune, you know? The little rat trap motels in the port towns we had to stay in.”
“The customer service certainly leaves something to be desired, for a 5-star resort,” his companion, Stewart, sniffed. “For the amount we are paying, I would expect better.”
I turned the lock, opening the bar. I let them vent; I didn’t particularly care if they left us a bad review, and I certainly couldn’t do anything with a good tip, so they were free to hate it here if they wanted. It mattered less to me than they could possibly imagine.
“Can you both hear that leak from your rooms?” the final man, Lesley, asked.
“Can we? I swear it is audible from everywhere in the hotel. There must be a dozen leaks in this old roof,” Jack laughed.
“It would explain that,” Stewart gestured to wet stain on the carpet across the room, oozing out from under a door I didn’t remember being there yesterday.
I glanced over to Vincent, he shrugged,
“I guess we’ve got a new connection to the ballroom. That’s kind of handy,” he said quietly to me, stepping behind the bar and reaching for the rum to pour; it was all they ever ordered.
“That’s another thing that reminds me of the old days,” Jack elbowed Lesley. “You would think a landlocked hotel would be drier than a yacht, but here we are. Maybe you should get out a mop, see if you remember how, Les.”
Lesley stiffened,
“I don’t do menial labor anymore, Cap.”
“Of course, of course,” Jack clapped Les on the shoulder. “Just a joke, mate. The usual, my good man,” he smiled at Vincent, who began pouring drinks.
As day transitioned into evening, I left the dining room in search of absorbent material, to put down on the leak that was spreading persistently into the dining room. I found some cat litter in a back closet, and it seemed like it would do, for now, so I returned and began spreading it over the growing stain. Jack at the bar looked up blearily, watching my work, before finally declaring,
“Oh, so it’s shit, then. That would at least explain the smell.”
“I think it smells more like a rotting carcass,” Stewart interjected.
He had a point there. Maybe I should get some baking soda from the kitchen.
“You know what?” Jack concluded. “Let’s get this next bottle to go. We’ll take it to our rooms for the night. I can’t stand the smell down here another minute.”
He grabbed the bottle from the bar, then he rose and led his friends out of the dining room. I couldn’t say I was sorry to see them go. Vincent circled out from around the bar and approached the soggy patch on the floor.
“So, is that the storage room?”
Now that we were alone, I risked turning the knob and I opened the door to see the same storage room we had entered earlier, though now the light fixture was pouring dark liquid onto the floor, the drip having turned into a deluge. I slammed the door again.
“Maybe we should get Manny,” I concluded.
Manny stood back, watching the ichor pour down like a waterfall. It was pooling around our shoes now, even standing outside the doorframe. He stroked his chin,
“How long has it been like this?”
“I don’t know,” I frowned. “It’s certainly sped up since we found it several hours ago. Any idea how we stop it?”
Manny closed his eyes for a moment, then frowned.
“I think, perhaps, that we should move the food and water from the kitchen, so they don’t get spoiled.”
“Move them where?” Vincent asked.
“To the top floor storage closet. It’ll be safest there. Come help me gather things up.”
“What, exactly, do you think is going to happen?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s just get to work, we probably don’t have much time.”
Manny turned and strode into the kitchen. Vincent hung back and tapped my shoulder,
“What does he know that we don’t?”
“I have no idea, honestly,” I shrugged, and Vincent headed off towards the kitchen. “Do you know?”
I kept my voice low, so the others didn’t hear.
Oh, are you speaking to me now? Al sniffed.
“Depends, are you going to say anything useful?”
Perhaps for a…
“If you say ‘for a price’ we can go back to not talking. I am not trading anything for this.”
I think you will find I am much more helpful if you are willing to make a trade.
“I categorically disagree with that statement.”
Fine, I could feel him scowling. I can give you a hint for free. Maybe try asking yourself what he’s hiding from you?
“Your free hint is that he is keeping secrets?” I raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that true of all of us? That isn’t exactly helpful.”
Well then, perhaps you would like to make a trade?
“Why do I even bother?” I sighed and headed into the kitchen to join the others.
Vincent was helping Manny load food onto a rolling cart. The Chef was, fortunately, nowhere in sight.
“Grab another cart and start loading the soft drinks and bottled water onto it. We don’t have much time before we need to be in our rooms,” Manny instructed.
I heaved a case of bottled water onto the cart, and we all got to work. By the time we made the final trip the carpet in the hall squished under my feet, oozing dark, foul-smelling liquid. It was coming in fast, now. Manny was probably right; we wouldn’t want the food supplies getting contaminated with… whatever this was. After he finished stacking the last bag of rice in the closet, Manny closed the door and turned the key in the lock.
“Well, we should find our rooms. It is getting late, and I doubt they will be in their usual place.”
As he turned to walk away, I noticed blood dripping down from his fingers onto the carpet.
“Manny, wait, your arm,” I pulled up his sleeve to reveal a thin, but deep cut running up his forearm. “What happened? Are you alright?”
Manny yanked his arm away,
“It’s nothing. I must have scraped it moving a box.”
It didn’t look like a scrape. It looked clean, with sharp edges, like a knife wound. But before I could say anything more, he was gone, disappearing down one of the halls.
“You ever wonder about him?” Vincent asked.
“Wonder what?”
“What his deal is. Come on, don’t play dumb. You’ve noticed how strange he can be. How he seems to know things about this place he shouldn’t. Surely, you’ve considered that he might be… one of them.”
“One of them?”
“You know, one of the things that run this place, like the Chef. A demon.”
“Manny? No, that’s ridiculous.”
“Why? He was here before you, maybe he was always here.”
“He is nothing like the Chef or the Masseur. It’s obvious that he is a person.”
“Is it? Maybe that’s just another trick. Maybe he is here to torment us, to steer us wrong.”
I shook my head,
“No, he’s helped us, helped me, many times. It’s impossible.”
“Alright,” Vincent shrugged. “But I have a bad feeling about this one, Lucy. Something about that… water. It isn’t right.”
“You always have a bad feeling. Come on, it’s time to get to sleep.”
“Right. See you tomorrow.”
However he knew, Manny was right. I found my room on the 2nd floor, in a back hallway. Since it wasn’t in its usual place, it took longer to find, but I did manage it before the deadline and locked myself in. Somehow, I could still hear the sound of flowing water, though. I could hear it everywhere in the hotel, in fact. In a way, it was soothing, people liked the sound of flowing water, right? So, keeping that in mind, I allowed it to lull me to sleep.
The morning arrived without fanfare, or a discernable difference in the light coming in through the windows. The storm continued to rage outside, and the clouds were so thick and dark that it was impossible to tell that dawn had broken. Still, my watch told me that day had arrived and so I left the room prepared to mop up whatever water had pooled downstairs and try to serve breakfast. No food had appeared in my room last night, so breakfast sounded very appealing. At least I could sneak a muffin or something. As I arrived at the stairs, I saw Manny standing on the landing, gazing down at the lobby.
“Is the mess bad?” I asked.
“You could say that,” Manny didn’t turn as I approached.
I reached the railing and gasped. The lobby was gone. The whole first floor was gone. All I could see was dark water, lapping against the stairs.
“How is that possible?”
“That’s not really a relevant question, in this place,” Manny noted. “Let’s just call it a flash flood.”
I jogged over to look out one of the windows, lightning flashed, illuminating an alien view, the lawn and garden were also gone. The only thing in sight was a sea of dark water, with the occasional tree protruding from the surface.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“What we always do. Vincent has headed upstairs to lay out some food. We can help him, then lock up the rest and go clean rooms.”
“And if the water keeps rising?”
“We keep moving up the floors, I suppose.”
I stepped down the stairs until I was next to the water, and reached out a hand to touch the surface, wanting to test its temperature and texture.
Stop!
I froze in place, hand hovering above the liquid, the command so urgent I couldn’t ignore it. Trying to act casually, I rose and headed back up the stairs,
“Alright, I’ll go help with breakfast. Maybe we should put up a sign directing the guests to the 5th floor?”
“I’ll handle that. We will have to ration the food carefully; we don’t know how long we will need to make it last. Whatever you do, don’t show the guests where the food is locked up, and only bring out enough for us to have a small meal.”
“Right,” I nodded. “See you up there.”
I turned and headed up the stairs. I waited until I was out of earshot to ask,
“Ok, what was that about?”
Do not touch the water.
“Yes, I gathered that. Why?”
Because you belong to me. And I need you alive.
“What is the deal with that water, exactly?”
But only silence answered. He was done volunteering things for the moment, apparently. I sighed and continued up the stairs. Vincent was waiting for me on the fifth floor, hovering by the landing, looking down over the dark, gleaming surface of the new lake below.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” he asked as I reached the top of the stairs.
“Nope, this is a new one.”
“I wonder if this is what being on the Titanic felt like?” he mused. “Water rising, nowhere to go, just waiting for the end.”
“We aren’t on a ship, though.”
“No. Does that make it better, or worse?”
I shrugged and Vincent passed me a bagel,
“I figure we should eat the breads first; they’ll go moldy in this humidity. We can save the rice, potatoes, and canned goods for later.”
“Makes sense. Do we have a way to cook any of those things?”
“I looked around. Some of the rooms have fireplaces, I guess we can hang a pot over the fire, cook that way. But maybe all this will stop before we get to that point.”
“Maybe,” I wasn’t exactly feeling optimistic about it.
I helped Vincent lay out some fruit and soft breads on the hall table, so that when the guests awoke, they would have something to eat.
“What exactly are we going to tell them when they get here?” Vincent asked, putting out some bowls. “We can’t exactly say that the hotel is sinking and it’s all perfectly normal, can we?”
“What else is there to say?” I shrugged. “It’s some sort of flood. We don’t know any more than they do. It’s the truth, right?”
He considered that for a moment, then nodded.
“I suppose it is.”
A sudden commotion from downstairs drew us to the railing. The three guests were standing on the 2nd floor landing, looking down at the water, Manny was saying something I couldn’t quite hear, but the response was clear enough,
“What do you mean, underwater!” Steward shouted. “This hotel is on dry land. We specifically avoided anything near the ocean or any major body of water. Where did all this even come from?”
“We are located on a flood plain. It is possible that the dam broke upstream,” Manny explained calmly.
Dam, huh? That wasn’t a bad explanation.
“If that is true, where are the authorities, shouldn’t someone be here to evacuate us?”
“I am sure they will be here when they can. Until then, we just need to stay calm and safe. There is breakfast laid out on the 5th floor, please stay away from the water and we will relocate your rooms to the upper floors.”
The trio of men grumbled, but eventually they headed up the stairs. Vincent and I ducked back to our places. As they grabbed fruit from the table, Lesley scowled,
“I told you we should have left days ago. We could have moved to another hotel. Now we’re trapped here, in this dump.”
“Oh, relax, Les,” Jack chuckled. “We’ve been in worse scrapes before. This isn’t a big deal.”
“And if the water keeps rising?”
“I bet we could manage to make a passable raft, eh Stewart?”
Both men chuckled, sharing a private joke, but Lesley still looked anxious.
“I didn’t ever want to be out on the water again. We agreed.”
“Seriously, Les, just keep it together, alright? Let’s just eat something and find some way to kill time. I am sure the authorities will send a rescue crew and we’ll be out of here in no time.”
I opened the storage closet and felt my heart sink as I looked on the nearly empty room. We were down to only a couple of boxes of crackers and a few bottles of water. We had rationed the food carefully, but it had been over 2 weeks now, and we had almost exhausted our supply. I wasn’t looking forward to telling the others. Things had been getting tense. The power went out on the third day, and by now every cellphone we had was dead. Not that anyone could get a signal before that, anyway. The water had risen all the way to the fifth floor, so we were all trapped together on the top floor of the hotel, with nowhere else to go, if it rose any further. The guests had mostly given up hope for rescue, and the rest of us knew that was never a hope to begin with. So, now it looked like the six of us were just going to be trapped up here to starve, if we didn’t drown first. I covered my face with my hands.
“That bad, huh?”
“Vincent. No, it’s… it’s not…” what was the point in lying about it? “Yeah, it’s that bad. We are almost out of food, and the water has risen at least another foot since yesterday.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I have no idea. Let’s just get back to the group. We shouldn’t leave Manny alone, in case the guests come out of their rooms.”
“Right.”
We walked back to the central hallway together. As we entered the room, I saw Manny with his back to us, removing a soaked shirt. Even in the dim light, it was clear that his back was webbed with dozens of scars and cuts. Vincent cleared his throat and Manny hurriedly tugged on a dry shirt.
“I patched the hole in the roof,” he explained. “The rain should stop getting in from there, at least. And I brought down a full barrel of rainwater and replaced it with an empty one.”
“Thank you, Manny. At least the water from the sky is… normal. Because we are going to have to start drinking that water from time now on, I think.”
“And the food?” Manny asked.
“Some crackers, nothing more.”
“Well, I guess we will all need to tighten our belts, then.”
A moment of heavy silence passed between us, before a door burst open and Jack emerged.
“Where’s the food?” he barked. “We’re hungry and the table is bare.”
“Food’s gone,” Manny replied coolly. “There is water in the barrel, to take the edge off.”
“We can’t survive on only water.”
“We can, for another couple of weeks.”
“So that is your plan, to slowly starve to death?”
Manny shrugged but didn’t reply.
“Well, suit yourselves, I have a better plan.”
Jack turned on his heel and stormed out.
“What do you think they will do?” Vincent asked.
“He said already, didn’t he? Build a raft,” Manny replied.
“Maybe that isn’t a bad idea,” I offered. “We could help, try to get out of here?”
“Has attempting to leave ever worked?” Manny asked. “No, all we can do is hunker down until this resolves itself. And I don’t think going out on that water is a good idea.”
“Should we try to stop them, then?”
“No. If they are focused on building, it will keep them off our backs, for the time being. Let them do what they want.”
Vincent and I spent the next few days watching the three men lash together furniture using heavy objects as improvised hammers and strips of torn bed linens as ropes. They seemed to actually have some idea of what they were doing, and they quickly fell into a rhythm, with Stewart and Jack doing most of the planning and construction and Lesley being ordered to fetch supplies and carry heavy objects. He grumbled about it, but did what they told him. They mostly didn’t even notice we were there, as long as we made a show of occupying ourselves with some cleaning task or another. They never even bothered to ask why we were still cleaning and maintaining a flooded, sinking hotel all day. It was hard to tell if they just paid so little attention to us that they didn’t notice, or if they simply figured it was our way of coping with the situation. Occasionally, they would ask us for some material they needed but could not find, and we would help as much as we could, then they would go back to ignoring us. On the third day, when the raft was beginning to look seaworthy, Jack sat back on his heels, admiring their handiwork.
“Well, boys? What do you think? Will it float?”
Stewart rubbed his nose with his thumb,
“I think it’s as fine a vessel as we have ever crewed, captain.”
Jack laughed,
“And you thought we had left those days behind us for good, eh chief?”
“They are. But it looks like it will come in handy for us, one more time. Good luck, huh?”
“Good luck?” Lesley’s face turned dark; he had been increasingly dour over the last few days. “I don’t see the good luck in any of this. I think we are reaping our just reward.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Les, this flood has nothing to do with us.”
“No? You think all this is normal, then? It’s been raining nonstop for weeks, the water keeps rising, no one has come looking for us. It’s like…” he hesitated before continuing. “It’s like we are alone in our own private hell. Just us and dark water everywhere. I don’t know how you aren’t thinking about it. I can’t stop. I see his face whenever I close my eyes. I see the dark puddle in the bottom of the lifeboat. Maybe this is what we deserve.”
Jack backhanded him across the face,
“Pull yourself together, swabbie. And don’t speak again until you’ve regained your composure,” he turned back to Stewart. “Now, we need to get this to the roof before we finish lashing it together, or it won’t fit. Then, we can either find a way to launch it, or we can wait until the water rises enough, what do you think, Mr. Stewart?”
“Well, captain, I say we rig up some ropes to lower it, because if we wait until the water is that high and anything goes wrong, we won’t have another chance.”
“Very good. Alright, Les, help us lift these pieces.”
The raft was relocated to the roof and the next 3 days were spent lashing it together and making the ropes strong enough to lower it the ever-dwindling distance into the dark water. When they were finally ready to launch, Vincent, Manny and I gathered on the roof to watch. I had to admit, I was really beginning to hope they succeeded, even if it didn’t seem likely. We were still rationing out the last few crackers, but three or four crackers a day did little to even take the edge off of the hunger, which gnawed on my guts like an animal. If this didn’t work, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I looked over at Manny, his face grim and starting to look a little gaunt. As he turned to face me, I saw blood coating his neck and seeping into his shirt collar from a cut near his ear.
“You’re bleeding.”
He reached up and touched his neck, bringing his hand aways stained crimson,
“Shaving cut,” he offered, wiping it off absently with his hand.
I raised an eyebrow, but let it go. I had noticed Manny with little cuts or scars before, but he was always doing landscaping work or maintenance, so small cuts and injuries didn’t seem unusual. But suddenly, in such close quarters and confined indoors, it was apparent that he seemed to injure himself more than I would expect.
Curious, isn’t it? Al asked, speaking up for the first time in sometime.
“You have something to tell me?” I mumbled under my breath.
No, just noting that there is power in blood. I wonder what he uses it for?
Power, huh? That was probably worth thinking about. Later. For now, my attention was drawn to the makeshift ropes lowering the raft into the water. The raft settled into the water with barely a ripple, the liquid was entirely too thick and seemed to stick to the wood like oil, and the sound when it hit was less a splash and more of a splat. The three men looked at each other, confusion and concern on their faces.
“That doesn’t much seem like normal water, Cap’n,” Lesley noted.
“Probably lots of mud and silt mixed in, it’s nothing,” Jack waved away the concern. “Get down there and then you can help us down.”
Lesley shook his head, mutely.
“Fine, Stewart?”
The other man didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded apprehensively and moved to the edge of the roof and clambered down onto the raft. As it bucked and shifted under his weight, he lay down, waiting for it to stabilize, but instead, the rolling and pitching seemed to increase. Then, from the water under the boat came dozens of pale human hands. They were terribly bloated and marbled with green and grey. Corpse hands. Stewart looked down, terror written plainly on his face.
“No! It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t cause it,” he shouted at the corpses looming under him in the dark water. “You want the captain, not me!”
If that was meant to mollify them, it didn’t work. The hands gripped the wood and pulled, capsizing the raft and pitching Stewart into the water. He screamed as he hit the surface. Not just from fear, but pain. He tried clinging to flipped raft, but hands wrapped around his torso, trying to pull him into the dark. I could swear I heard whispers rising from the surface: Join us.
“Help me, please!” he cried.
He was too far down to reach from the roof, but maybe there was another way.
“Hurry, if we can get to the windows on the 5th floor, we can pull him in,” I shouted.
Vincent nodded and we ran down the stairs, searching for the room closest to him in the water. The screaming helped. When we dragged him inside, he was covered in scratches and bites from teeth that looked very human, some very deep and freely bleeding. His skin was stained from the dark water. The hands continued to reach for him, so I slammed the window shut, leaving them to paw at the glass, just as Manny burst into the room, followed by the other two guests. Seeing the seriousness of his injuries, Manny moved closer, kneeling next to me.
“Some of these are very deep. We need to get pressure on the wounds. Go grab some towels,” he instructed Stewart’s companions.
He inspected the bites and scratches more closely,
“Lucy, this bite is on an artery, press down on it hard, or he will bleed out. Vincent, go get some soap and water, we will have to clean this as best we can, under the circumstances.”
Vincent rose and Manny and I were left alone with Stewart, who seemed to have passed out.
“You seem to know what you are doing,” I noted, pressing down on the bleeding wound.
“I… I was a doctor, once,” he didn’t meet my eyes when he said it.
“Wow.”
“It was a long time ago. Another life.”
“Why didn’t you ever…” I was interrupted when Stewart’s eyes snapped open.
“I need a priest,” Stewart grabbed Manny’s collar, his eyes fevered and unfocused. “I need to confess my sins, before I die.”
“You aren’t going to…”
“We killed him,” he pressed on, oblivious to my objections. “Alan Ross.”
“The billionaire?” I blurted, surprised. “But he died in a… shipwreck…”
I fell silent. I remembered the news stories; Ross had been on a luxury yacht on the way to the Cayman Islands when it wrecked in a storm. The entire crew was lost, except for the captain, the chief mate, and a single deckhand, who had survived in a lifeboat. Ross was in the lifeboat as well, but he had already drowned, before they were able to drag him on board. They had drifted for over two weeks, with his corpse, before they were found and rescued. It had been a major news story, about a decade ago.
“It wasn’t like the news reported,” Stewart gasped. “When the yacht started taking on water, we should have stayed and helped to organize the evacuation of the crew. But Ross wanted to leave right away. He offered us money if we took just him and abandoned the others. We agreed, the captain and I. Lesley was just a deckhand, but he saw us leaving and followed. We quietly launched a lifeboat and fled, leaving the others to their fates.”
“How did Ross die?” I asked.
“He had a bag with him. It was so heavy he could hardly carry it. When he put it in the boat, it fell open and it was filled with diamonds. He was taking them to the Caymans. When we saw that, we… well, we decided. If he didn’t survive the shipwreck, if the diamonds were never found, who would know? We drowned him and hid the diamonds. When we were rescued, we waited awhile, then we sold them, made millions. But it wasn’t worth it… it wasn’t worth this. The guilt…”
He slumped to the ground. Manny met my eyes over the body,
“I think we lost him.”
As I looked up from the body, I saw Jack and Lesley standing there in the doorway, towels in their hands. There was an ugly look on Jack’s face.
“I wish he hadn’t told you that.”
“Told us what? He was raving, delusional,” I attempted.
“We were standing right here,” he replied.
I swallowed hard. Jack advanced into the room, holding a broken table leg like a club.
“We’ve kept this secret all these years, it isn’t getting out now.”
“We won’t tell anyone,” I protested.
“That isn’t a chance I am willing to take. Besides, with the food supply exhausted, it was always going to come to this, eventually. Might as well get it over with.”
“What are you doing?” I heard Vincent call from the doorway.
“Lesley, take care of him, will you?” Jack continued to advance on us.
“Please Jack, hasn’t there been enough death?” Lesley protested.
“Don’t act all innocent, you agreed to this, just like the rest of us. In for a penny, in for a pound, my friend.”
I glanced around for a weapon. Between the three of us, we should be able to take him, but I didn’t much like the look in Jack’s eyes. Manny had stood, backing slowly away as Jack advanced. Then the captain took a swing at him, Manny jumped to the side and the makeshift bat shattered the window behind him. Jack’s expression turned to one of horror as a pair of pale hands gripped the doorframe and a body began heaving itself through the open window. The broken glass sliced its bloated flesh to ribbons, but it didn’t halt the creature’s ingress. Dark, thick liquid that smelled of death oozed from its wounds.
“Alan!” Jack exclaimed, backing away swinging his bat at the creature.
“You owe me,” it gurgled.
We all backed out into the hall, but the creature advanced, slowly, leaving a trail of black liquid on the carpet as it walked.
“Is it money you want? I can get you your money back, your diamonds,” Jack offered.
“What use do I have for money?” it wheezed. “You owe me a life.”
Jack hit the body with his club, but it didn’t slow its progress. He screamed as it reached out a hand and closed it around his throat. Jack was lifted off his feet and the creature carried him to the stairs and plunged him into the dark water. At first, he flailed and fought, but a dozen hands rose from the water, gripping every part of his body. When he was completely immobilized, the corpse released him, letting him be dragged down into the depths. Then, it turned,
“Now,” it spoke to Lesley. “Will you fight, or come willingly?”
Lesley was trembling so hard he could barely stand,
“Please, I’m sorry, I beg you, spare me.”
The creature’s lips curled into a grotesque smile,
“Do you regret what you did to me?”
“I do, I do. I never should have agreed with their plan. Please, have mercy.”
“Did you have mercy on me, when I begged?”
Lesley shook his head.
“Then accept your fate.”
“What… what do you want me to do?”
“Walk into the water. Give your life willingly. Perhaps they will spare you, if you do,” the creature laughed, dark liquid bubbling from its mouth.
Lesley nodded haltingly and began to walk towards the stairs, stepping into the water, he walked down until he was submerged up to his waist. Then, the hands wrapped around his arms and torso and abruptly dragged him under. For a long moment, it seemed like he was gone, the same as Jack, but a moment later, he was thrown back onto the landing. Lesley raised his eyes, now as black as the water, and the creature smiled again, a tooth falling from its mouth as it did.
“Very good,” it burbled. “You have been baptized and born again into a new life.”
Lesley nodded, a serene smile on his face. Without a word, he rose and walked back into the room we had vacated only a moment before. Outside the window, the raft had been righted and floated serenely on the water. He looked down at Stewart’s body, then picked it up and draped it over his shoulder. Glancing back at the three of us, he winked,
“A snack for the journey.”
Then, he stepped out of the window onto the raft and drifted away.
“Don’t suppose any of you would care to join him?” the corpse of Alan Ross inquired. “Be born anew in the cleansing water?”
We all shook our heads silently.
“Oh well, another time, then.”
And with that, the corpse walked into the water and disappeared.
That night, our usual meals appeared in our rooms, and by the next morning, the water had receded, as if it had never been there. The electricity came back on, and the rain stopped. I was finally able to charge my phone and post this account. I tried asking Manny for more information about his time as a doctor but is as reticent as ever. I will keep trying, though, because Vincent and Al are right about one thing, there is something suspicious about how much he knows that he shouldn’t. But, that is a problem for another day, after all there is no need to rush, we aren’t going anywhere.
Until next time,
Lucy

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It’s a rare day when I have to squint at the sight of a house, but this one was shiny. A giant ball woven out of the brightest metal wires I’d seen in a while, all gold and copper in complex patterns. It made my head hurt to look at. Probably imitation metals, because surely that would be impractical and expensive to use actual gold. But what did I know? Not my species.
I squinted as I walked up with the package, wondering if that was rude of me. My little human eyes probably always looked like I was squinting though, compared to the big bug eyes of the Mesmer who lived there.
And the one walking beside me. Zhee was nodding quietly to himself while he took in the sight, with his vibrant purple praying-mantis exoskeleton looking right at home. If I hadn’t known that one of his people lived here, somehow I feel like I would have guessed. It was flashy in the extreme.
And so was the walkway, a glittering stripe of vivid red that curved through a garden full of alien flowers that probably didn’t bite. I didn’t like the looks of the local butterfly analogues, though; they had stingers I could see from here. I was glad they were keeping their distance.
Zhee reached the door first — a solid slab of bronze with an inlaid galaxy of gemstones, naturally — and he found the doorbell while I ducked under another butterfly. The chime was a brief melody from an instrument I couldn’t identify. It sounded like a violin invented by people whose earliest music was made by rubbing their legs together.
The door pulled inward and slid to the side, showcasing the homeowner who must have been waiting right there for us. Up close, the side of the house had window space visible between the weave, ideal for peeking out but not being seen until you were ready for your close-up.
“Good greetings!” announced the Mesmer woman who towered over both of us, a spectacle of metallic rose-gold coloring. Surely that couldn’t be natural. I’d never seen a Mesmer yet with metal tones; this had to be like full-body nail polish. But I sure as heck wasn’t about to say a peep about it now. I’d ask Zhee later.
“Greetings,” Zhee returned, urging me forward. “Your package.”
I handed it over, wondering if I’d get to see how the thing opened. It was one of the plastic puzzle box dealies that had been a popular way to ship valuables lately. There was one button on top and no visible seams.
Even with that thought, I was surprised when she grabbed it with her pincher arms, kicked a side table into view with one leg, then set it down and tapped out a rhythm on the button. The box split open to dramatically reveal the custom stained-glass lamp that we’d delivered in perfect condition, thankyouverymuch.
“Exquisite,” she said, holding it up to let the light shine through all the aquas and teals. “Just what the blue room needs.” She looked at us. “I have one of each color, you know.”
Zhee nodded like that was normal and admirable. “Excellent.” He held out the electronic payment pad without being so gauche as to mention it out loud, and the customer chattered away about her house as she set down the lamp and paid.
“…The yellow room was the biggest hassle, of course, but I’m most pleased with the rainbow room. I have art, rare plants and a few select exotic animals in there. Those have been a different type of challenge, especially the new one.”
That caught my attention. As I was wondering how best to ask what kind of animals she kept, Zhee beat me to it.
“Animals, you say?” He gestured theatrically toward me. “Robin is an expert in animal care, if you need a consult.”
I turned my head to stare at him with my best what-did-you-just-volunteer-me-for expression, which he could certainly see, given those eyes’ range of vision. He didn’t react.
“I would appreciate a look, now that you mention it,” the large alien said. “My prize oil-slick tentacle has stopped eating, and has begun shaking in a strange way when I get near.”
Zhee immediately haggled for a consultation fee while I wracked my brain for any knowledge of this alien whatsit. I was going to have words with Zhee afterward.
But apparently I was going to look at this thing first. The customer agreed to the price, payable afterward, and led us both into the house. It was just as multicolored as expected. Like each room had been given to a different child to design, with the instructions to use as many expensive jewel tones as possible.
The rainbow room was actually a relief, surprisingly enough. There were darker accents to make the furniture and murals stand out. And the various terrariums were clear glass. I looked between feathers and shells and flowers for anything that could be described as a tentacle.
“It’s over here,” she said, leading me toward a glass case under a spotlight. “I haven’t had it very long, but it was eating before, and I just don’t know why. The medi-scanner says it’s not ill. Perhaps I need a new scanner. What do you think?”
Feeling like the spotlight was aimed directly at me, I stepped up for a look at the thing curled up in the corner. It was, as expected, iridescent like an oil slick. But those scales were familiar.
I moved around it to get a look at the head, then smiled and stood up straight. “That’s a sunbeam snake! My favorite kind!”
“Okay, but what’s wrong with it?” the alien woman asked. “When I give it food, it hisses at me and shudders!” She waggled a pincher arm in imitation.
“It’s trying to scare you away,” I said. “They shake their tails like rattlesnakes do, though they don’t have rattles or venom.”
“Well, I don’t know about all that,” she said with a huff. “Why is it doing that? I’ve been more than kind to it!”
“I’m afraid you’ve given it nowhere to hide,” I explained gently, spreading my hands at the tank with a black floor and only a small water dish in the center. Little blobs of meat littered the area. Images of plants had been painted into the corners, but that did less than nothing to help a burrowing animal. “This type of snake needs several inches of plant life or loose soil to dig into. For one this size, I’d say at least this deep.” I held my hands six inches apart.
“It digs?” the customer asked. “They didn’t tell me that!”
“It spends most of its time hidden,” I said. “Or at least, it’s meant to. This one is extremely stressed by being out in the open like this.”
I was a little worried how she’d take the news, given that this was her prize specimen with all the lights aimed to showcase its rainbow scales. But to her credit, she listened while I suggested framing a good photo of the snake outside the tank, then only watching it during mealtime. Any visiting friends could be told how exotic and special the animal was, and how lucky they would be to even catch a glimpse of it.
“Yes,” she said, clearly thinking. “Yes, I can work with that. I’ll arrange for the adjustments to the enclosure. You said this much ground cover?” She held her pincher arms apart.
“Right, at least that much,” I agreed. “Ideally you’ll also want to bury a few things for enrichment, like rocks and bark and sections of tubing, and have a couple of those on the surface for it to hide under when it comes up for food.”
We ended up going into a different room where she could take notes, which did more to put me at ease about the snake’s future care. I waved at it as I left, wishing it well. I’d always liked sunbeams. Good thing I remembered the specifics of their care needs.
“You’ll also want a bigger water dish, so it can slither through it,” I said. “And the tank should be both warm and very humid…”
The customer took lots of notes while Zhee alternated between standing there looking smug and casting an appraising eye at the room’s gaudy features. This was the purple room, and he blended right in.
Finally we’d covered all the important points. Zhee tactfully brought out the payment pad again, then we strolled back to the front door.
“I will recommend your service to all of my friends,” the customer said as she closed up the lamp case. “Quality parcel delivery, with bonus animal care! That is hard to beat.”
“My pleasure,” I said honestly.
Zhee thanked her as well, and we exited into the garden. Zhee was still looking smug as the door closed behind us. “I am very glad I spoke up.”
I shook my head with a rueful smile. “I’m glad it was an animal I’m actually familiar with, not some independently crawling tentacle.”
“Those do exist, you know.”
I let out a deep sigh. “Of course they do. Guess I’d better do some research in case she does tell all her friends.”
Zhee strode forward with pride. “It will be good business! Captain Sunlight will be pleased.”
“It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure.” I thought of the crewmates who had tentacles of their own. “Mur will probably think it’s funny.”
“Oh, he’ll think it’s terrifying. The mobile tentacles are from his planet; they’re a venomous parasite.”
“Of course they are. Remind me to bring gloves on our next delivery, just in case.”
~~~
The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come!
Cross-posted to Tumblr and HumansAreSpaceOrcs.

It’s a rare day when I have to squint at the sight of a house, but this one was shiny. A giant ball woven out of the brightest metal wires I’d seen in a while, all gold and copper in complex patterns. It made my head hurt to look at. Probably imitation metals, because surely that would be impractical and expensive to use actual gold. But what did I know? Not my species.
I squinted as I walked up with the package, wondering if that was rude of me. My little human eyes probably always looked like I was squinting though, compared to the big bug eyes of the Mesmer who lived there.
And the one walking beside me. Zhee was nodding quietly to himself while he took in the sight, with his vibrant purple praying-mantis exoskeleton looking right at home. If I hadn’t known that one of his people lived here, somehow I feel like I would have guessed. It was flashy in the extreme.
And so was the walkway, a glittering stripe of vivid red that curved through a garden full of alien flowers that probably didn’t bite. I didn’t like the looks of the local butterfly analogues, though; they had stingers I could see from here. I was glad they were keeping their distance.
Zhee reached the door first — a solid slab of bronze with an inlaid galaxy of gemstones, naturally — and he found the doorbell while I ducked under another butterfly. The chime was a brief melody from an instrument I couldn’t identify. It sounded like a violin invented by people whose earliest music was made by rubbing their legs together.
The door pulled inward and slid to the side, showcasing the homeowner who must have been waiting right there for us. Up close, the side of the house had window space visible between the weave, ideal for peeking out but not being seen until you were ready for your close-up.
“Good greetings!” announced the Mesmer woman who towered over both of us, a spectacle of metallic rose-gold coloring. Surely that couldn’t be natural. I’d never seen a Mesmer yet with metal tones; this had to be like full-body nail polish. But I sure as heck wasn’t about to say a peep about it now. I’d ask Zhee later.
“Greetings,” Zhee returned, urging me forward. “Your package.”
I handed it over, wondering if I’d get to see how the thing opened. It was one of the plastic puzzle box dealies that had been a popular way to ship valuables lately. There was one button on top and no visible seams.
Even with that thought, I was surprised when she grabbed it with her pincher arms, kicked a side table into view with one leg, then set it down and tapped out a rhythm on the button. The box split open to dramatically reveal the custom stained-glass lamp that we’d delivered in perfect condition, thankyouverymuch.
“Exquisite,” she said, holding it up to let the light shine through all the aquas and teals. “Just what the blue room needs.” She looked at us. “I have one of each color, you know.”
Zhee nodded like that was normal and admirable. “Excellent.” He held out the electronic payment pad without being so gauche as to mention it out loud, and the customer chattered away about her house as she set down the lamp and paid.
“…The yellow room was the biggest hassle, of course, but I’m most pleased with the rainbow room. I have art, rare plants and a few select exotic animals in there. Those have been a different type of challenge, especially the new one.”
That caught my attention. As I was wondering how best to ask what kind of animals she kept, Zhee beat me to it.
“Animals, you say?” He gestured theatrically toward me. “Robin is an expert in animal care, if you need a consult.”
I turned my head to stare at him with my best what-did-you-just-volunteer-me-for expression, which he could certainly see, given those eyes’ range of vision. He didn’t react.
“I would appreciate a look, now that you mention it,” the large alien said. “My prize oil-slick tentacle has stopped eating, and has begun shaking in a strange way when I get near.”
Zhee immediately haggled for a consultation fee while I wracked my brain for any knowledge of this alien whatsit. I was going to have words with Zhee afterward.
But apparently I was going to look at this thing first. The customer agreed to the price, payable afterward, and led us both into the house. It was just as multicolored as expected. Like each room had been given to a different child to design, with the instructions to use as many expensive jewel tones as possible.
The rainbow room was actually a relief, surprisingly enough. There were darker accents to make the furniture and murals stand out. And the various terrariums were clear glass. I looked between feathers and shells and flowers for anything that could be described as a tentacle.
“It’s over here,” she said, leading me toward a glass case under a spotlight. “I haven’t had it very long, but it was eating before, and I just don’t know why. The medi-scanner says it’s not ill. Perhaps I need a new scanner. What do you think?”
Feeling like the spotlight was aimed directly at me, I stepped up for a look at the thing curled up in the corner. It was, as expected, iridescent like an oil slick. But those scales were familiar.
I moved around it to get a look at the head, then smiled and stood up straight. “That’s a sunbeam snake! My favorite kind!”
“Okay, but what’s wrong with it?” the alien woman asked. “When I give it food, it hisses at me and shudders!” She waggled a pincher arm in imitation.
“It’s trying to scare you away,” I said. “They shake their tails like rattlesnakes do, though they don’t have rattles or venom.”
“Well, I don’t know about all that,” she said with a huff. “Why is it doing that? I’ve been more than kind to it!”
“I’m afraid you’ve given it nowhere to hide,” I explained gently, spreading my hands at the tank with a black floor and only a small water dish in the center. Little blobs of meat littered the area. Images of plants had been painted into the corners, but that did less than nothing to help a burrowing animal. “This type of snake needs several inches of plant life or loose soil to dig into. For one this size, I’d say at least this deep.” I held my hands six inches apart.
“It digs?” the customer asked. “They didn’t tell me that!”
“It spends most of its time hidden,” I said. “Or at least, it’s meant to. This one is extremely stressed by being out in the open like this.”
I was a little worried how she’d take the news, given that this was her prize specimen with all the lights aimed to showcase its rainbow scales. But to her credit, she listened while I suggested framing a good photo of the snake outside the tank, then only watching it during mealtime. Any visiting friends could be told how exotic and special the animal was, and how lucky they would be to even catch a glimpse of it.
“Yes,” she said, clearly thinking. “Yes, I can work with that. I’ll arrange for the adjustments to the enclosure. You said this much ground cover?” She held her pincher arms apart.
“Right, at least that much,” I agreed. “Ideally you’ll also want to bury a few things for enrichment, like rocks and bark and sections of tubing, and have a couple of those on the surface for it to hide under when it comes up for food.”
We ended up going into a different room where she could take notes, which did more to put me at ease about the snake’s future care. I waved at it as I left, wishing it well. I’d always liked sunbeams. Good thing I remembered the specifics of their care needs.
“You’ll also want a bigger water dish, so it can slither through it,” I said. “And the tank should be both warm and very humid…”
The customer took lots of notes while Zhee alternated between standing there looking smug and casting an appraising eye at the room’s gaudy features. This was the purple room, and he blended right in.
Finally we’d covered all the important points. Zhee tactfully brought out the payment pad again, then we strolled back to the front door.
“I will recommend your service to all of my friends,” the customer said as she closed up the lamp case. “Quality parcel delivery, with bonus animal care! That is hard to beat.”
“My pleasure,” I said honestly.
Zhee thanked her as well, and we exited into the garden. Zhee was still looking smug as the door closed behind us. “I am very glad I spoke up.”
I shook my head with a rueful smile. “I’m glad it was an animal I’m actually familiar with, not some independently crawling tentacle.”
“Those do exist, you know.”
I let out a deep sigh. “Of course they do. Guess I’d better do some research in case she does tell all her friends.”
Zhee strode forward with pride. “It will be good business! Captain Sunlight will be pleased.”
“It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure.” I thought of the crewmates who had tentacles of their own. “Mur will probably think it’s funny.”
“Oh, he’ll think it’s terrifying. The mobile tentacles are from his planet; they’re a venomous parasite.”
“Of course they are. Remind me to bring gloves on our next delivery, just in case.”
~~~
The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come!
Cross-posted to Tumblr and HFY.

Guys, how do I get houses in the showcase?? I want to see other houses and buy furniture :/

I have a six year old spayed female tortoiseshell cat that has severe hip dysplasia in both legs. She is about nine pounds and we are located in Tennessee. For background, I adopted her when she was a very young kitten. I was working as a vet tech when she was dropped off and she was unable to use both hind legs and would drag them around. She was otherwise completely fine and over a few weeks actually regained use of the legs and began to walk. I ended up keeping her and her first year she could walk/run (a little goofy looking but still) and use the litter box fine with a little accident here and there.
Eventually one of her hips kept popping out of place and that’s when I was told she had severe hip dysplasia on both legs. She had an FHO on the worst one and was told she’d likely need the other one as well. She has only had the one FHO, the other leg didn’t have issues staying in place.
My issue comes in with her incontinence. She is fully capable of using the litter box to pee but when she is asleep she has these seizure like episodes where her back legs kick like crazy and pee will no joke shoot out of her. It is not incontinence in the sense that it just dribbles out. This only happens when she is asleep. If I catch her kicking i can shake her awake to stop it. I have been a vet tech for 6 years and no vet has given me a clear understanding of why this happens to her. Our home is covered in blankets and waterproof covers because she constantly has these accidents whenever she’s sleeping. She is also unable to poop in the litter box, she walks around with a horrible posture and poops as she walks. We’ve had to replace numerous pieces of furniture because of this and cannot have rugs in the house at all.
Her hip dysplasia makes any diaper I try on her absolutely impossible to keep on. She either manages to get it off or it will fit her in a way where it cuts across her hips and would force her to scoot around. I don’t want her being forced to scoot around if she is capable of walking.
She takes pain medication (gabapentin) twice daily but it doesn’t do anything for the accidents. To top it off she is prone to UTIs/idiopathic cystitis and is on Royal Canin urinary SO food. We cannot have nice things (furniture, rugs, blankets, etc) unless we keep her in her own enclosure which I feel is unfair to her. We also have a baby who is learning to walk soon and the house NEVER feels clean enough for him to be roaming around on things because of her constant accidents.
I just no longer know what to do to help her and give us a sense of normalcy in our home. Any advice would be appreciated, I just feel like I’ve tried absolutely everything and don’t know what to do.

Here is how our day yesterday went with my friends: We started our day by getting some coffee, then we went yard selling. While doing this we picked up a hitch-hiker. Then another friend said his dad was arrested, and his dads cat was trapped inside his house. So we broke into his dads house (with his dads permission) and got the cat somewhere safe. Then we gave another hitch-hiker a ride. Then we saw a lady broken down on the side of the road, and we changed her tire for her. Then we saw a friend we know trying to start his truck by popping the clutch, so we all got out and helped him push. Then while yard selling, we bought a bunch of furniture for a friend that is moving out of his parents place. Then another friend had a screaming match with his dad so he joined us for the day. Then their was this lady with a baby at the gas station crying, we asked if she was Ok, and she said she was below E and didn't have any money to fill up, so we gave her $100. She hugged us :). Then we went to the movies and their was a dad with his three kids getting tickets/snacks and they could only afford the tickets so kids were sad, so when the movie started we gave them all the candy we smuggled in.
That day was a pretty extreme example, its rare that so many opportunities to help people happen in only 12 hours, but I think it illustrates how i feel. So yeah, I'm just laying here thinking about our day, and not understanding why our parents don't trust us. Its like pulling teeth to convince them we aren't doing drugs or having an orgy or vandalizing property. My dad basically wants be to do a write up detailing where and when ill be anywhere other than school, and of course he reserves the right to strike it down at any moment because "he said so". Its always infuriating when i make a plan and he "considers it" for days, just to say "No" the morning I want to go out. One of our friend happens to be of the female sex, and her parent's unironically call her a whore for hanging out with guys.
I could go on and on about this crap, like how one of my friends [arrents track her position all day, and if she is ever not *exactly* where she said shed be, they call her and threaten to ground her, or about the time one of our dads just fallowed us around town all day to "make sure we were safe", well we definitely didn't feel safe with him around. But yeah, I just don't know what else i can dol.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-28-2023
Tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day Americans have honored since 1868, when we mourn those military personnel who have died in the service of the country—that is, for the rest of us.
For me, one of those people is Beau Bryant.
When we were growing up, we hung out at one particular house where a friend’s mom provided unlimited peanut butter and fluff sandwiches, Uno games, iced tea and lemonade, sympathetic ears, and stories. She talked about Beau, her older brother, in the same way we talked about all our people, and her stories made him part of our world even though he had been killed in World War II 19 years before we were born.
Beau’s real name was Floyston, and he had always stepped in as a father to his three younger sisters when their own father fell short.
When World War II came, Beau was working as a plumber and was helping his mother make ends meet, but in September 1942 he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He became a staff sergeant in the 322nd Bomber Squadron, 91st Bomb Group, nicknamed "Wray's Ragged Irregulars" after their commander Col. Stanley T. Wray. By the time Beau joined, the squadron was training with new B-17s at Dow Army Airfield near Bangor, Maine, and before deploying to England he hitchhiked three hours home so he could see his family once more.
It would be the last time. The 91st Bomb Group was a pioneer bomb group, figuring out tactics for air cover. By May 1943 it was experienced enough to lead the Eighth Air Force as it sought to establish air superiority over Europe. But the 91st did not have adequate fighter support until 1944. It had the greatest casualty rate of any of the heavy bomb squadrons.
Beau was one of the casualties. On August 12, 1943, just a week before his sister turned 18, while he was on a mission, enemy flak cut his oxygen line and he died before the plane could make it back to base. He was buried in Cambridge, England, at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, the military cemetery for Americans killed in action during WWII. He was twenty years old.
I grew up with Beau’s nephews and nieces, and we made decades of havoc and memories. But Beau's children weren't there, and neither he nor they are part of the memories.
Thinking about our untimely dead is hard enough, but I am haunted by the holes those deaths rip forever in the social fabric: the discoveries not made, the problems not solved, the marriages not celebrated, the babies not born.
I know of this man only what his sister told me: that he was a decent fellow who did what he could to support his mother and his sisters. Before he entered the service, he once spent a week’s paycheck on a dress for my friend’s mother so she could go to a dance.
And he gave up not only his life but also his future to protect American democracy against the spread of fascism.
I first wrote about Beau when his sister passed, for it felt to me like another kind of death that, with his sisters now all gone, along with almost all of their friends, soon there would be no one left who even remembered his name.
But something amazing happened after I wrote about him. People started visiting Beau’s grave in England, leaving flowers, and sending me pictures of the cross that bears his name.
So he, and perhaps all he stood for, will not be forgotten after all.
May you have a meaningful Memorial Day.
[Photo by Carole Green.]