National Novel Writing Month official ended five days ago, but I’m just now uploading the content that I have written. The goal was a 50,000 word piece, and I knew I wouldn’t make it to that goal. I originally thought I could hit the 20,000 mark but I failed miserably in achieving that almost halfway goal. I wrote a little over 10% of the stated goal of 50K, ending with 5738 words.

In hindsight I should have set off an hour a day (or even 1/2 hour) just to sit down and write. The premise of NaNoWriMo is to just continue writing, to keep going at it without thinking about it too much. Sort of a stream of consciousness. I got lost in the trance of writing a couple of times and that was really fun but that didn’t happen too often and starting up the next time seemed a little daunting. And maybe I thought about it too much, where the characters were going and how they were interacting to get into the flow of it.

For example, I never really got to explore Mark’s numerology, the relationship between he and Aleah, Daniel’s larger part in Mark’s life and Mark never got another review with his boss, Helena, and I was really waiting for that. I wanted Georgie’s chapter(s) to be more in depth but had to squeeze in the first one in order to hit the writing deadline.

You can read my 5738 words below.

Chapter One: The Move

Mark was not a real estate novelist. In fact, he owned no real estate and even fewer novels. He did, however, have a penchant for formulating clever portmanteaus out numbers and punctuation symbols that only he and his parrot, Georgie, could understand and appreciate.

Georgie and Mark lived on the 7th floor of a 21-story building. As stated before, Mark did not own his apartment and rebently moved into it from the larger unit down the hall. He lugged all his stuff down the hallway on a sunny Saturday so he (and Georgie) could live in apartment 727 instead of 712. It seemed cleaner that way.

The first thing put in order in the new apartment was Georgie’s penthouse cage. Too large and heavy to be hung from a simple pole, instead it perched upon a custom-made hutch that housed the cage’s extensive cleaning supplies, food stores, bird magazines and treats & toys. Mark moved the hutch and cage around the new apartment until Georgie let him know where he enjoyed it best.

Mark pushed the cage near the largest interior wall.

Silence from Georgie.

Mark pushed the cage nearer to the kitchen, where he spent most of his time.

Silence from Georgie.

Mark pushed the cage near the floor-to-ceiling windows which occupied one wall of the apartment.

“Mister Mark! Mister Mark! Mister Mark!” squawked Georgie.

Mark left the cage by the windows.

Everything thing else would fall into place now that Georgie is settled, Mark thought. And it did, at least for a little while.

Chapter Two: Point A to Point B

“Goodbye Georgie, have a good day” Mark called out as he was heading to front door that morning.

“Mister Mark!”, Georgie replied.

Mark locked the door and walked down the hallway to the stairwell, which he always took downstairs. He counted the 126 steps along the way. He thought about purchasing a cup of coffee from the shop in the building’s first floor but opted against it. He hadn’t brought with him the exact change for the cost of the coffee and didn’t want to carry around the change from breaking a bill all day. But he did appreciate that the cost of the cup of coffee was $1.81, a prime number.

He walked around the block twice, as he always did, to make his six-block walk to the subway a total of an eight block walk, whose number could be divided by two, and two again, and then two again.

While walking, Mark took out his small notepad that he carried with him whenever he was in public, and wrote down numbers that he passed that might make bring some sense of calm to his day. At least he wasn’t mumbling the numbers out loud like he did when he was a kid. Dr. Polen said that writing them down would help with the mumbling. And it has.

Chapter Three: Friends of Mine

Mark didn’t start sweating until the elevator doors opened up into the reception area of the office that he’d worked at for the past 13 years. He already planned his attack: switch his shirt from the white-with-blue-stripes oxford to the medium gray polo he always kept in his bottom file drawer. Then get coffee with lots of ice. Then kick his shoes off under his desk and takes his socks off too. This was not an unfamiliar routine.

But before he got a chance to do any of these things, he was intercepted by Helena, his supervisor.

“Good morning Mark. Just a reminder, we have your quarterly productivity update meeting this morning at 10:30. I have a conference call at 10:00 and will buzz you when I’m ready.”

“Oh, yeah, sure thing. I’ll tabulate my numbers and put them into a spreadsheet like you prefer. And hopefully I’ll have time to update the overseas shipping orchestrations and save them in a pdf like you prefer. And then I’ll throw the trash can through my hermetically sealed office window and jump out. I’ll meet you on the ground floor just in time for my review.”

“Perfect”, Helena responded.

Mark farted as she walked away, knowing that Helena couldn’t smell anymore after that fourth (but probably not final) rhinoplasty. Stories of Helena and Stevie Nicks’ cocaine habits were rampant among the junior staffers.

Mark sauntered to his cubicle  even more determination to not be at his desk any time after 10:15. He changed his shirt, made a couple of crank phone calls, got his iced coffee and removed his shirt and socks.

He then connected his computer to the company server and randomly deleted some files. He then overrode other files, using the same name, with non-related files. He let out a heavy sigh.

He then called home to check his voicemail (none) but left a message for Georgie. And also a message for himself to check the contents of his three safe deposit boxes.

At 9:45 he downloaded white papers from four companies he had recently applied to, as well as their latest annual reports. He printed the white papers and the financials of the annuals and put them into two separate manila folders. He labeled one of them “Mark Lewis Mathison 2008–2009” and the other “Cunt”.

When he heard his extension ring at 10:38 he grabbed his folders, left his cubicle and walked straight to the printer where Suzanne was printing out flyers for her daugher’s bake sale. He stuck fifteen blank sheets into the manual feeder, effectively jamming the machine. Suzanne quickly came running to see what the error message was all about, lest she be fired for using company materials for personal use.

Mark picked up Suzanne’s printouts and quickly handed them to her, winking as he did.

Blushing, she said “Thanks. You’re always so helpful.”

“Here’s your problem right here” Mark replied as he opened the printer door and pointed at nothing in particular. “Looks like a jam.”

“Oh…”

“These Konica printers are just not as refined as the old Canon ones we used to have. You have to be careful with what you send to this new printer” he said, winking again.

Suzanne blushed and rotated from side to side, like a shy 10-year old.

“Mark! There you are! We were supposed to meet at 10:30!” Helena shrieked, her spiked heels clicking three seconds ahead of her.

“Oh, yeah, I was just helping Suzanne here with this printer jam. The IT guys were nowhere to be found.”

Oh, that’s true, I looked for them everywhere!” Suzanne chimed in. After her last performance review Suzanne didn’t care much for Helena. Or her shoes. Or her hair. She awkwardly winked back to Mark because Helena had not even acknowledged Suzanne’s presence.

“Follow me,” Helena barked.

Mark casually got up, winked once more at Suzanne and walked the long hallway down to Helena’s corner office.

He stood by her desk and she sat and crossed her hands.

“Sit down,” she, again, barked.

Mark sat down, after farting again, and handed her the folder not marked “Cunt”. That he kept for himself and opened in his lap as he crossed his legs, shielding the folder from Helena’s view.

As Helena proceeded to scan the outstanding financials he had printed out earlier, he started reading from the white paper documents, knowing that Helena would never look him in the eye during the review process, changing nomenclature and pronouns on the fly.

“By misleading shareholders during our last three quarters the  department under my leadership has quadrupled its nominal output while also maintaining tomato sauce levels of integration of output sources.

“Furthermore, the technological manifestation of cross-platform integration into our culture’s optimus prime adjudication has brought 86% more mastication in the meatball-to-onion ration of the aforementioned tomato sauce.

“In closing, productivity and morale have not reached these levels since 1985 and therefore I will work offsite for the remainder of the day and you can download any of this acumens by clicking here.”

“Well I see everything is in order here,” Helena blurted.

“Great. Same time next quarter?”

“Confirm with Dan and he can schedule our next meeting three months from now.”

“Yes, absolutely.”

Mark walked, barefoot, out of Helena’s office and passed by Dan’s desk.

“Hi Dan, how’s it going?” Mark asked, plopping down the folder labeled “Cunt” on his desk.

“Same time, February 3rd?”, Daniel asked dreamily. Dan had a not-so-secret crush on Mark and just about every other male in the office that was older than him.

“Sure, please send me a confirmation. Helena is sending me offsite to work on a new initiative. She asked if you could process the paperwork to HR. Can I get a confirmation on that, too?”

Daniel nodded.

“That tie really brings out the pink in your cheeks and the blue in your eyes,” Mark said, cementing that Daniel would do whatever Mark asked, post haste. Mark didn’t mention anything about the eyeliner Daniel was wearing.

Chapter Four: Home

“Mister Mark!”

“Hello Georgie. I know I’m home early.”

“Mister Mark!”

Mark placed his keys on the bureau and kicked the door closed with his foot. “Who knew the mail came this early?” he thought as he plopped it down by the keys.

“How was your day, Georgie boy? Did you nap?” Mark sincerely asked as he walked over to the cage and opened its door. Georgie side-stepped his way across a dowel rod and then flew out into the living room, taking a couple of laps before landing on Mark’s shoulder. Mark offered up his forefinger knuckle and Georgie started lovingly nibbling on it.

“Mister Mark!”

“Yes, yes, Georgie.”

Mark walked over to the kitchen and starred at an empty bag of microwave popcorn that he did not remember eating last night.

“I guess the sleepwalking’s starting up again,” he mumbled to no one in particular.

This reminded him to take his medication so he walked into the bathroom, still with Georgie on his shoulder, and took his colorful little pills. Two purple, one triangle and one with a hole in it, like a Life Saver. “Ah, the indoctrination during childhood” he thought to himself.

Mark went to his laptop and accessed his work email and sure enough, there were two confirmations from Daniel. Both had smiley emoticons in them.

“I guess I’m off the hook for another three months.”

“Mister Mark!”

Mark hadn’t done any real work at his office in the last two and a half years. Almost on a whim, he decided to see if Helena was paying attention to work or whether she was too involved in her own to even notice. He thought of her as either an utter idiot or a complete genius. He still wasn’t sure which she was. But, just like three months ago, he secured that he didn’t even have to go into the office for the next ten weeks. The plan was to started going two weeks before the next quarterly update, show your face around and brag about all the work you haven’t really completed. It had worked so far.

Mark now wondered what he would do with is two-month vacation. He thought about going and sitting in the park across the street and counting the glass panels in his building once more (there were 984) but he didn’t feel like doing much of that. Another fun thing he liked to do, but also shot down, was counting the number of Campbell’s soup cans on display at each of the suburban supermarkets and document them on a map that he would later discreetly hide in a library book. Or get The New York Times and count how many capital T’s were used on the front page. He always joined that activity but didn’t feel like doing it because when he did that he liked to have coffee and he had already had his cup for the day.

Chapter Five: Moving Day

“I’ll take it,” Aleah said confidently.

“Fabulous! I think you’re really going to like it here. Great building, good location and how can you not love these tall ceilings?” said the realtor. “I’ll draw up the papers tonight and fax them over for you to review in the morning.”

Aleah knew she was making the right decision. This place was gorgeous: 12” ceilings, two bedrooms, huge kitchen and floor-to-ceiling glass on two sides. It would house her furnishings nicely.

Over the course of the next two weeks she moved her things in: big moving days on the weekends and smaller trips during the evenings to bring items she didn’t trust with the college-kid moving company she had hired. They did look good in their tight tanktop shirts though, so she figured it was money well spent. And something to do to keep those hunky athletes in shape during the off season.

But before she moved she wanted to paint first. Since this apartment-in-the-sky was a far cry from the never-to-get-sun rowhouse she and Todd had been living in for the last ten years, she had decided she wanted color, lots of color. Everywhere. She painted the master bathroom a warm ecru with orange accents; the master bedroom became eggplant. The hallways were a light, dusty lime green. The other bath was a deep rose and the other bedroom was a forest green, to contrast. Her kitchen she naturally felt need to be painted bright yellow and that is what it became. The open area that grew out of the kitchen and would become her living and dining area she painted various shades of blue.

Her window treatments were simple paper shades that would find little use in the future. Most of the time she just left them all the way up to view her world outside and let the outside view her if they so wished. Todd would have never lived this way, she thought, but that’s why I left too.

Chapter Six

Aleah would normally wake up around noon. She enjoyed the fact that she was still in bed while everybody was working halfway through their day. After closing down the restaurant’s kitchen around 1:00 each morning she would normally have a cocktail or three while running her numbers and placing orders to be filled for the next day’s afternoon shift to fill. She was so glad she wasn’t on the day shift anymore. Those day shifts always reminded her of her first days of being in love with Todd. All those years ago, and she had flourished professionally with her culinary skills while Todd languished with his art, never getting the recognition she (once) thought he deserved. His never finding success, his small inherited fortune eaten away by drugs will really throw someone to the curb. She had to get out, she sometimes had to convince herself, but those times of self-reassurance were becoming fewer and fewer as she learned to stand on her own.

Chapter Seven

Todd awoke to the one of his worst hangovers ever. He wasn’t quite sure whose living room floor he was on, or even where his left shoe was. He sat up a bit too quickly and then had to collapse back down on the floor as his brain moved inside his skull three seconds behind him.

When he finally was able to sit up and survey the damage some details of the previous evening re-triggered in his head: the art show blowjobs, intercontinental phone calls, hypodermic needles. He didn’t remember the Chinese food containers or still whose living room he was in. As usual, it probably didn’t matter anyway.

Groaning, he shuffled to the kitchen and looked around for any leftover beverage that didn’t have cigarette butts in it. There weren’t many to be found so he opened the  fridge and peered inside. There wasn’t much to choose from. Some flat tonic water, something in aluminum foil, lots of 35mm film and oddly, about six thousand dollars in cash. Ge grabbed a handful of fifties off the top of the cash mound and quickly exited the apartment.

Chapter Eight

Mark awoke to the sound of Georgie flapping and rustling in his cage. He rolled over and looked at the alarm clock: 8:16. It was raining and he had an erection.

He pulled on some pajamas bottoms and, erection leading him, shuffled out of the bedroom and went straight to the coffee maker. An empty bag of microwave popcorn lay on the counter, ripped apart in some forgotten late-night feeding frenzy.

He surveyed the remaining amount of vodka and figured he had had a good night. He remembered pretty much all of it: reciting prime numbers under 1,000, recounting his CD collection (584) and cleaning Georgie’s cage while Georgie sat on his shoulder.

“Good morning Georgie.”

“Mister Mark!” Georgie faithfully responded.

“I hope you can keep that cage clean for a little while now,” Mark chided, knowing full well his Saturday night ritual.

Georgie was busy admiring himself in his mirror and couldn’t be bothered for a response.

Mark started to clear away the countertop cocktail remnants and wondered what to do with his day. To the rest of the city it was their Sunday. A day for lounging over coffee and crossword puzzles, brunching and shopping, and for some, more cocktailing. For Mark however, today would be like any other day he’d had in the past five week since he stopped going into work. Although today he would not monitor his company email.

He decided it was a day for walking the city even if it was raining. This would mean fewer people on the sidewalk to get in his way. And while he was out he could pick up his film he shot the other day.

But first before anything there had to be some strong coffee made. Priorities first, right? He went through his normal routine of rinsing out yesterday’s pot and refilling all the necessary parts. Then a shower while it brewed and when the first cup was poured then the really big decision: what to wear?

Deciding what to wear in public had become a major decison-making process to Mark lately, since it was so rare that he went out. Now that he had all this time to himself he usually spent it with himself. Well, with Georgie too if that counts.

“Since it’s raining…” Marked mumbled to himseld, “what about… definitely boots… ok… these jeans… white oxford… where is my gray argyle vest?” Mark assembled his outfit and surveyed himself in the mirror. “Dapper,” he thought. “A black English cap will finish this nicely.”

He grabbed his large black umbrella and was out the door. “G’bye Georgie!”

“Mister Mark!”

Chapter 9: A Random Encounter

After descending down the stairs, Mark exited his building and, after propping open his umbrella, headed in the direction the rain was falling. This way, he could hold the umbrella slightly against his collarbone and shoulder, which he always thought looked a little jaunty. It added a spring to his step.

But this walking direction was not the direction Mark was needing to be going if he was going to pick up his film. In order to pick up his film he would now have to walk two blocks forward, cross over two blocks, back eight and then over four blocks all in order to make his walk there in even blocked numbers.

So instead he just kept walking forward.

He did, however, let the direction of the wind and rain change the direction of his walking and therefore his destination.

He happened to pass his hardware store but didn’t need anything from there. He passed his pet store but Georgie was already stocked up on food for a while and he had all the toys he could ever need.

So he kept walking.

After about an hour of zig-zagging with the elements, Mark found himself in an unfamiliar neighborhood and got a little turned around as to which direction he should actually travel to get home. A coffee shop was on the corner so he decided to duck in there, dry off his shoes and lower jeans a bit, maybe grab paper and read a while, and use his phone’s GPS to figure out exactly where he was in this big city.

The coffee shop felt immediately cozy when Mark walked in. It wasn’t one of the chain coffee shops, but one that’s run by a couple of soon-to-be Mom & Pop hipsters and their friends. It even had a little brass bell that rang when the front door hit it, letting the proprietors (and all their patrons) know a new face had just entered.

Mark turned while in the door and shook his umbrella under the outside overhang and then placed it in the full umbrella holder that was actually a bust of Marge Simpson: her blue hair held the umbrellas. “Cute,” he thought.

Without surveying the café he walked up to the counter and ordered a large regular coffee and a newspaper.

He perused the sections of newspaper while he waited for the hipster barrista to pour his simple coffee. He would only read a few of these sections and wondered if one could only pay for the sections of the newspaper they actually read. Would that be a good business model? Maybe something to bring up with Helena in his next quarterly meeting. “Wonder if she would buy that shit?” he wondered.

Then, reminiscent of coming out of Helena’s office, he heard a familiar voice call out, knocking him out of his frozen state as he also noticed his coffee was there on the counter and the barrista had moved onto other customers and tasks.

“Mark!”

Mark spun around, grabbing his coffee at the same time and almost spilling most of it on the counter.

Daniel, Helena’s assistant from work, was there smiling and waving from a cozy table near the windows. Daniel was waving him over.

Befuddled, Mark stood there for a second, then pointing to his coffee and the sugar & cream service counter and then nodded and pointed to the table.

“Oh God, what are the chances of this?” Mark wondered. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to sit down with Daniel, someone he barely knew, during a rainy Sunday. Maybe he would read even few sections of his newspaper now, in case he needed to make a bolt for it and get out of it.

Mark added a couple of sugars and some half-and-half to his coffee, stirred it and tasted. He added more sugar, capped it and with his newspaper tucked under his arm, headed to Daniel’s table where he was furiously clearing it from his own newspaper remnants, his half-consumed muffin with its splay of napkins. Daniel snapped his Macbook shut as Mark sat down.

“Hi Mark, it’s kinda nasty out today, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

Mark sat down and looked outside from where he had just come and realized how nice it was to be out of the wet weather. Normally the rain didn’t bother Mark that much, but suddenly he was glad to be out of it.

“What are you doing today?” Daniel inquired.

“Oh, just walking around. I was going to pick up some film but…” Mark replied as his voice trailed off.

“Film? Like, for a camera?”

“Yeah, a camera.” What other film would I be processing, Mark oddly wondered.

“Why didn’t you pick it up? Get lost in the storm?” Daniel laughed.

“Something like that I guess.”

“How’s your coffee?”

Mark hadn’t tasted it yet other than the tasting sip so he replied “Nice and hot.”

“That’s good. I haven’t seen you much in the office lately.”

“I’m working on a special project for this quarter. I’m offsite and remote a lot of the times. I’m in there every once in a while, usually odd hours.” Mark made a mental note to drop into the office one day next week and make sure some point people noticed his appearance.

“What are you working on?” Mark asked, swallowing a sip of coffee and pointing at the laptop.

“Oh, nuthin’, just surfing and emailing and stuff like that. Chatting with friends.”

“Gotcha. Anything worth reading in this paper here? I see you’ve already gone through pretty much of it.

“Meh, typical weekend stuff. Some gallery openings, some book releases, some climate initiatives being discussed in Europe.”

“Mmmm,” Mark mumbled, taking in another sip of coffee.

After a long silence Daniel asked, “Do you live around here?”

“I’m not sure—“

“You’re not sure where you live?”

“No, not that, but I started walking an d I guess got a little entranced by the rain and just kept going, like a zombie.”

“A zombie?”

“Well, I just snapped out of it outside and decided to come in for something warm.”

“I think you’ve found it,” Daniel responded.

“Huh?”

“The coffee,” he said, pointing.

“Oh right,” Mark guffawed, “the coffee.” Now Mark was a little embarrassed, both at his seemingly aimless wondering being shared in public and also at the vibe that he was feeling from Daniel.

“Where do you live, Daniel, is this your normal  routine for a Sunday afternoon?” Mark retorted, feeling a little bit of confidence.

Daniel sat up straight and replied “I’ll usually come here during the weekend or sometimes hangout with friends here, we’ll have coffee and maybe a bit to eat before we’re starting the rest of our day.”

“I see. And where are your friends now?”

“Oh, they’re out and about, out of town, here and there.”

It was hard for Mark to not feel intrigued about continuing this conversation with a co-worker that he’d barely ever paid attention to in the past, but it was hard once Daniel’s foot started pressing up against Mark’s. This was something he was not familiar with and gave him the same feeling in his stomach as he felt when he was forced to climb the rope in gym class 25 years ago. He felt he needed to dismiss himself from this situation but thought it was still a good idea to stay and see what work information he could divulge from Daniel.

“So—“

“I know what you’re doing,” Daniel said, cutting him off. “I know you’re playing this game with Helena and telling her all this bullshit and that you’re basically a fucking freeloader.”

Was Daniel doing this to blackmail Mark?

“I’m not stupid, I see everything that comes across her desk. Do you think I’m stupid? I worked hard to get where I am and many people have put their trust in me. Many people who have much, much more power than you will ever have. And you think you’re flying under the radar? Well I tell you what, Mr. Marcus, you think I’m just a lowly personal assistant but I know more about this company than you will ever know, and it’s there’s one person in that office you need to befriend and pretend to show up and see every three weeks it’s ME!

Mark sat there speechless. He looked down at the table, at his unscattered newspaper and Daniel’s closed laptop. He took off his hat and ruffled his hair, thinking this would entice Daniel a little bit.

“Wow Daniel, you seem to have it all figured out,” Mark said calmly. “There’s no need for anger or excitement. Everyone in the office knows your position and the power you hold.”

This seemed to calm Daniel a bit and so, feeling the feed, Mark continued.

“You’re definitely the snappiest dresser there, and according to this last quarter of the last year’s GQ that I happened to be carrying around here under my chapeau it’s obvious that you’ve been way ahead of the trend before you even started here. As a sidenote I am going to put out that your sideburns are exactly the approximate length, girth, width, dimension and direction as pointed out in the September issue of Italian Vogue. Furthermore I should also state that your taste in a casual, coffee shop attire of tweed, wool, leather and four woven patterns is clearly an apogee of your culture’s history as it progressed through the ages killing all those that were punished by lack of textile access for the past 200 years. Brava!”

“You know what, Mark, we should really get together for another time out of the office. I have such enjoyed your presence here today, thank you for sharing my coffee afternoon with me, and I will deliver my best to Helena for you. There’s no need to send an update email this week, I’ll write it up and forward it to her. I love your boots and your hair looks really fabulous. Let’s have cocktails.”

And that was that.

After finishing his coffee, Mark donned his chapeau, grabbed his umbrella out of the stand, and wandered back into the still-raining landscape that was his city, unaware of how many even-numbered circling blocks it would be taking him to get home.

Chapter Ten

Aleah woke to the sound of rain in her bedroom and smiled. She checked the clocked, looked around for the cat who was at the foot of the bed and dozed back to sleep. An hour or two later, the same events happened but this time she called out “Sebastiannnnnnn….” And Sebastian left his perch at the end of the bed and moved to where his food-giver lay, knowing that he would be given the morning scratchies.

Scratchies were well received.

Aleah finally roused out of bed around 11 or so, she wasn’t really sure as she appreciated Sebastian’s loving purrs and that she had decided today was to be her day off from painting, dealing with lawyers and not returning calls from you-know-who. She stretched immediately after standing from bed, Sebastian still in her arms, and shuffled to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.

“Sure is dreary out”, she remarked as Sebastian gave out a mellow “meooow” meaning he, instead of morning coffee, wanted to be fed.

Scratching at her pajama bottoms, Aleah said “I know, I know.” And opened up a can of fresh food for her newly adopted baby and then started going through the process of putting the beans into the grinder. The noise didn’t started Sebastian; she was glad he was warming up to her and her activities even in the new place. Creatures of habit we all are, she thought.

As she stood there waiting for the coffee to brew, comforted by the sound of Sebastian quietly mewing away at his food bowl, she looked out onto her new view of her old familiar city and felt oddly comforted. Sebastian had better hurry up and eat that food, she thought, because he was about to be picked up and snuggled in about a minute or two.

But instead Aleah went to the bathroom, did her business, checked her face for any new wrinkles and took a long hot shower. The steam, at least her mind, seemed, in opposite to the cold water falling outside, to wash away any sinister history she had ever had in this city that her parents and their parents and their parents had owned. Fresh and virgin is how she felt.

Sebastian, faithfully, was waiting on the toilet seat when she was finished showering. He wasn’t paying her any mind, he was cleaning himself after his morning feast, but still he was there knowing she was behind the plastic curtain and would arrive soon and fresh, ready to be cuddled.

Aleah was not surprised to see Sebastian there and exited a familiar “Hello sweetie!” as she grabbed a tower and wrapped it around her body. She grabbed another for her hair, checked her complexion in the mirror and snatched up Sebastian into her bosom and headed into the living room. She was thankful she hadn’t put up any window coverings and plopped down on her plentiful sofa and watched the rain fall on the 12’ windows.

Next to her was her phone and while stroking an already purring Sebastian she called her father.

Ring ring ring.

“Hi Daddy!”

“Pumpkin! How are you? Where are you?”

“I’m at home Daddy, at my new home. I have a new home now.”

“You couldn’t work it out with Toddy?”

“Daddy, it wasn’t for me to work out. It was him, remember?”

Silence on the other end of thephone.

“Daddy are you coming in for the holidays? I need to know if I should reservations for you because I’m not sure if Mum is coming in either and I really should plan this in my calendar.”

Muffled silence.

“Daddy do you want to call me back? Is this not a good time?” Flashbacks of boarding school run through Aleah’s mind.

More silence.

Aleah hangs up the phone with a  disgusted “Ugh”.

Chapter Eleven

Georgie squaked a final “Mister Mark!” as his owner walked out the door.

“Now I can get out of this cage for a bit,” Georgie thought.

He easily went to the cages lock, lifted the latch with a toothpick he kept hidden under the filler in the bottom of his cage, hopped up on the door propping and flew out into the living room.

He flew a couple of laps around the room and then landed on the back of the couch to get a closer view out of the opposite window.

On this dreary day Georgie considered himself fortunate to be a kept bird. And then he wondered where his brothers and sisters were living and if his parents were still alive.

After taking in more of the view (he could get a closer, more direct view outside his cage) he decided it was time to make some popcorn. He surely hoped Mister Mark had purchased more.

He was in luck; there was an open box so he didn’t have to rip apart the container like he did last time.

He pulled a microwaveable bag out of the box and, this time, remembered to close the cabinet door. He carefully peeled away the plastic and deposited it in the trash can. He stood in front of the microwave, but not facing it and after a few swift back-kicks he succeeded in opening its door. He set the timer and flew a couple of laps around the living room while the popcorn popped.