Nutshell

Rain When I Die

Lily drew a heavy breath as she pulled a large circular table from the dolly it sat in. She brought it to the floor and held it steady with her arms, keeping it on its side so she could roll it into the next room. Across from her, a girl with green hair and an orange outfit lifted a long rectangular table from a stack on a different dolly. She actually looked a lot like Gumi.

"Alrighty then, Lily," Sonika said between a few breaths. "Let's figure out where these here tables go."

Together, the muscle-bound ladies maneuvered their personal weights over to an open doorway. In the next room, several other tables were set up all across the floor. A map for where each of them needed to go rested on top of the one closest to the door. Sonika hurried inside with her rectangular burden, then Lily followed after by rolling the circular one.

Working with the round equipment was a dangerous line of work. There were many sharp edges on the underside of every table, each of them made with metal that could have been a lot cleaner than it was. Some of it looked a little rusty. Lily had to learn just where to hold onto in order to make for the safest experience when rolling the items across the floor. The tables were heavy for the average person, but after working with them for so long, lifting them felt like second nature to Lily.

Lily and Sonika were part-time workers in a local community center. They were in charge of setting up for events and maintaining the entire building. They had some physically demanding duties, but they were able to handle them. The job did not pay very much, but it provided just enough income for Lily to contribute to her household. Sonika often worked more than she did.

The party room was rather large when the partitions that divided it were down. At its full length, it was about as long as an average high school gymnasium. The partitions were often drawn when two or three events were going on at the same time. For the one Lily and Sonika were setting up for, all three sections would be used. Days like that made them glad they did not work alone.

The two workers set their tables down once they came to a feasible spot to do so. They pulled out the metal legs in order to keep them upright on the floor. Lily nonchalantly set the legs on the ground without fully extending them, figuring she would need to lift the table again within less than a minute. Once relieved of their loads, the girls moved over to the map to double-check where the new items needed to go.

"You sure ya don't wanna put that all the way down and just drag it the rest of the way?" Sonika asked after a quick glance at the diagram.

"Nah, it's fine. I don't mind carrying it. It's good exercise."

"Whatever you say, but I wouldn't wanna fiddle with all that sharp stuff any more than necessary. One little cut's all it would take to get a nasty infection."

Lily took a look back at the table she had carelessly set down. It might have been an exaggeration, but Sonika's observation held some truth to it. The bottoms of the legs were slightly splintered and several other spots were rusted. Handling them required a great deal of caution.

"Yeah, you may be right. Do you think a cut from there would be enough to give me tetanus?"

"Doubt it, but it doesn't hurt to be careful. This kinda work has a lot more risks than most people might think it does," Sonika took another look at the diagram. "But that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm gonna keep workin' here til I die."

"Hey, that's a pretty grim thing to say, isn't it?" Lily dropped the subject of the table entirely as soon as the mention of death came up. Sonika merely laughed in reply.

"I wouldn't say so. Whenever it happens, it happens. Could be next week, could be next month. I ain't sure yet. I just love this place and what I can do for it, so I'm gonna keep myself happy in the meantime."