Suburban Island IV

Running Battle (Mickey)

Running Battle (Mickey)

-Mickey-

Time to help open the salon. It's a two-person job. We have to clean up the living room. Vacuuming, putting down the plastic, cleaning the supplies, and turning on the lights. I can't complain. What else can we do? This is all mom has left. She walked around the living room, checking everything. I stood, holding my breath. Please don't make me do this again. Please don't make me do this again. Mom looked up at her.

"Very good," she said. I could breathe out.

"Can I go now?" I asked.

"Yes," Mom said. I turned and went back up the stairs.

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I made it back to my room. What am I doing today? Playing video games? No. I did that yesterday. Sleep? I'm not tired. Netflix? I don't want to watch anything.

I laid back onto the bed. Things are boring here. Suddenly, being in Canada doesn't appear so bad. I'm not sure if I want to go yet. Mom hasn't said anything about it either. I don't know what we are doing.

I heard the doorbell ring. Another client is here. I should try and see who it is. I looked over at my bedroom door. It seems like that would be too much effort. I just want to cut my brain off right now. What else can I do? I drew my eyes closed and just dozed off.

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I woke up to the doorbell again. Oh, that's another customer. Maybe Mom wants something. I should go down and look. I sat up on my bed. When did my door look so far away? I shook my head. Right...

I forced myself to get up off my bed. Hey look, I can stand. I snapped myself out of my surreal shock. I walked over to my door. Wow, that didn't take me long. I shook my head again. Come on, man. Get it together. I need to get out of this country. I think I'm going to crazy. I shook my head and took a breath.

Right.

I opened my door and walked out of my room.

I could hear the news from the top of the stairs. I could already predict what they were saying. Trees. More people dead or leaving. Trees. Trees. More trees. Oh and look, more trees. I'm sick of seeing trees. It would be nice to go out for a change.

I crept down the stairs. Sure enough, Mom was with another client. I think that's Mrs. Williams. I crept down the stairs for a better look.

"What do you want, Mickey?" Mom asked. I froze on the stairs.

"Did you want anything?" I asked.

"Not really," she said.

"Oh," I said. "Okay." I turned and went back upstairs. Okay then. I guess that's it then.

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I made it back to my room. What was all of that for? Maybe I just wanted to get out of my room. Now what?

I walked over to my laptop. Well, I could just check my email. What else am I going to do? I booted it up and logged in. Sixty-four new messages. I have three guesses to what they all are. Most of it is spam anyway. I deleted all of that. What do I have left now? Classwork. Not surprising. Emails from the crew. Mike, Tommy, Chester, Dylan, Robert, and Marty. This is what you have to do when you can't text anymore. I already knew what they were going to say. There's going to be another job coming up, isn't there?

I clicked on Mike's email first.

Sure enough, it was just as I thought. It's going to be another job soon. I think it's about three days from now. Naturally, I am in. So are the other guys. I clicked reply and typed up my message.

"I'm in," I wrote. I hit send without a thought. Let's see what's next. A puzzled look came across my face. Hm? What's Annie doing sending me an email? It doesn't look like she's part of the chain. I narrowed my eyes as I read the subject line.

"Important! Please Read!"

Looks like she sent it to everyone else. Curious, I clicked on the message. I skimmed through the message at first. That one word caught my attention.

Trees.

Huh? What about the trees this time? Usually, I would just tune them out and move on. But I just had to go back and read it all again. Each word made my stomach drop.

"No..." I said. I clicked reply as fast as I could.

"You can't be serious," I wrote back. I hesitated before I hit send. I read over the email again. It didn't take long for Annie to reply back. I about jumped with the chat box popped up. She only left me one sentence that convinced me to go to Canada.

"I wish I was."

I couldn't think of a response to type back.