Our trashcan sat directly beside the front door, but getting it through the throng of bodies was never an easy task despite the sidewalk being only four feet wide. It would have been nice if people stopped when they saw me struggling with the heavy thing, but instead they seemed to speed up, acting like if they didn’t pass me before I’d managed to get the can to the road they would lose some epic race against time.
Now was no exception. I wrestled the can forward, managing to get it a few inches from the wall, but was immediately met with resistance as the crowd seemed to form a barrier. I pulled and elbowed, I grunted and cursed, and I even excused myself, but it was all for nothing. The people on the street didn’t care.
It was time to get aggressive.
I didn’t look where I was going as I pulled harder, bumping into people who swore or scoffed, acting like I was the jackass. A few very colorful insults were thrown my way, but I didn’t stop. The trashcan thumped over a foot. I bumped into a person, nearly knocking them down and stumbling a little myself. People who weren’t paying attention collided with the plastic can. Still, I kept pulling, determined to get it to the street.
I’d just emerged on the other side of the crowd when one of the wheels got caught on some unseen debris or crack in the pavement, and I stumbled. The can teetered and started to go over, and with the mass of people surrounding me, I had no option but to throw myself on top to keep the receptacle from falling. Somehow, against all odds, I managed to stop it from toppling over, but to right the thing I had to put all my weight into it. The lid flopped off in the process, slamming me in the nose, and I let out a grunt of pain and frustration.
Someone chuckled, and I wanted to sucker punch whoever the asshole was. Luckily for them, I was too distracted by the contents of the trashcan. Sitting on top, not even in a bag, was Mom’s old e-reader.
She’d been bitching about the thing for months because half the time it wouldn’t hold a charge. Since we were dependent on government handouts—and she spent every extra cent we had on booze—it wasn’t exactly in the budget to buy a new one, meaning she’d been forced to suffer.
Her words, not mine.
It looked like she’d either scrounged up enough money to buy a new one—although I couldn’t imagine how—or the thing had finally died for good. Leave it to her to toss it in the garbage rather than donate it. Most people had two cans, one of which was provided by the Pro-Veilorian Rights party. Citizens were supposed to donate unwanted items to be distributed to the District, but Mom was so adamantly against giving the visitors handouts that she wouldn’t have even considered giving the e-reader to them.
Rye’s words from the day before rang in my ears as I scooped the e-reader up and slid it in my bag. Yes, it was broken, but everyone knew Veilorians could fix anything. It was why they welcomed our leftovers. An old viewing screen that no longer had sound was useless to a human, but if given to the District, some Veilorian would be able to get the thing up and running again. Their technology and understanding of our technology far surpassed ours, which was yet another reason humans should have been working with the visitors. In my humble—and useless—opinion, anyway.
I hadn’t been planning to visit Ione today—she and Rye were newlyweds, and I didn’t want to crowd them—but I also wasn’t in a hurry to get home, and finding the e-reader gave me a good reason to pop into the District tonight after work.
Something I was going to be late for if I didn’t get moving. One of us had to slave away if we wanted to keep our house, and Lord knew it wasn’t going to be Mom.
The oppressive heat beat down on me as I scrubbed. My shoulders were aching, and my body was slick with sweat inside my protective yellow suit, but that was nothing new. In fact, after ten years on the job, the feeling of my slick skin against the stiff material had gotten almost mundane. Almost.
The bright sun reflected off the mirror I’d been cleaning, making me squint as I took a step back. Thanks to my efforts, the surface was streaked but mostly free of sand. For now, anyway. Tomorrow, I’d be back out here to do it all over again. And the day after that. Keeping the mirrors clean was a never-ending job.
I dunked my squeegee into the bucket of water sitting at my feet and moved to the next mirror, which was just as dirty. Running my sponge over the smooth surface, I watched as brown water slid down the glass, dripping onto the hot, sandy ground. In seconds, it was gone, evaporated by the sun or soaked up by the greedy desert floor, and each drop that followed disappeared just as quickly.
I slid the sponge up and down, getting the surface nice and wet before flipping my squeegee over to wipe the water away. Then it was time to scrub. Into the bucket the squeegee went so I could pull out my rag, using it to wipe the mirror in large circles until, like the other one, the sun’s rays reflected off it, nearly blinding me and forcing me to take a step back.
I was panting by then, and a bead of sweat had begun a slow descent down the side of my face but wiping it away was impossible thanks to the hood. Not that it would have mattered. There was
