Oooh, look. I live!

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Knives walked into the empty apartment and sighed. It seemed surreal, that the place was untouched. Was it even possible that not a day had passed since the current tragedy began? The darkness of the night outside gave him no hints, but the remains of his breakfast on the kitchen table were not congealed enough for any more time to have passed. Dispiritedly he picked up his bowl and rinsed it out. He had left it on the table to give Anne an excuse to yell at him, but now it seemed accusatory. She would walk in, see the dirty dishes, and then loudly start to wonder how he managed to live without a maid in all the years before she arrived. He would then act completely unconcerned, say something about how he couldn't be bothered to perform such a menial task. A fight would be certain to follow.

But making up was so much fun. Well worth staging a few arguments for the result. Save that there would be no argument tonight, and that Anne seemed to have given up on arguing with him ever again.

He set the bowl on the drying rack and sighed as he wiped his hands on a towel. No making up today. Plus, the milk had dried up and the cereal gunk had dried on the bowl, making it much harder to clean off than he would have liked.

The apartment seemed so very empty. When the six of them were present it seemed barely large enough to hold them all. Now the walls seemed to echo the emptiness back at him. Nothing tied him to the kitchen, so he wandered the apartment, picking up random objects and setting them down again. With nothing better to do, he flopped down on the bed. The slats creaked ominously and he rolled his eyes at the shoddy construction. He reached up and grabbed a pillow, then proceeded to try to pummel it into a form that would be comfortable.

After two minutes he gave up and buried his head in it instead.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but unconsciousness eluded him. After his long nap he was no longer tired. No, that was a lie. His mind was still tired; indeed, it was fatigued nearly to its limits. But his body was filled with a restless energy that kept him from staying in one spot long enough to fall asleep.

He wasted a half an hour before he conceded that the night was not yet over for him. But as he sat up he was faced with the dilemma that he had been unable to elude with slumber.

There was nothing for him to do.

The night was still and quiet, the early hours of the morning not yet arrived. Looking outside, not a single soul broke through the puddles of light cast by the streetlamps. No whisper of sound betrayed a foot on pavement. Even the birds slept, their chirps silenced by the blanket of night.

Knives broke off looking out the window and turned to peer at the apartment, hoping that some overlooked entertainment would show itself. Games eluded him, but chores danced before him. He couldn't help but see the small heaps of clothes that lay haphazardly near their bags. Some were dirty and a few were passing clean, but they could all use a wash. Knives rolled off the bed and scooped up armfuls of laundry, then took them out to the living room to sort.

He finished the piles, but decided to grab a glass of water before he headed to the basement to do the wash. The machines down there were rickety and old, and the dryers in particular could take up to two hours just to get the clothes a little less damp. But while he was in the kitchen he saw that the counters needed to be wiped down. And while he was wiping down the counters he thought to put away the toaster, but before he put it away he dumped the crumb trap all over his freshly cleaned counter and over half the floor.

So then he cleaned the counters again, and the floor, and then he decided that while he was at it he should probably wipe down the tabletop as well. But before he could finish cleaning the table he had to pick up the papers scattered all over. The recycling center was down in the basement, so he might as well take them with him when he went down there. A quick look about the kitchen later and he was picking up the papers that had congregated atop the refrigerator.

Or at least he was trying to.

As he reached for the last pile he accidentally knocked it back between the machine and the wall. With a string of hissed curses he tried to shove his hand back there, but the clearances were all wrong. He stepped back a pace to glare at the refrigerator, then shrugged. No one would know that there was anything back there but him, and it wasn't like he cared. He picked up the papers he had managed to collect and took them into the living room.

But after setting them atop the dark load he sighed and returned to the kitchen. No one else would know but him, but it would drive him crazy. He carefully dragged the refrigerator out and reached behind it, fingers questing near the ground for whatever papers he could find.

He wasn't expecting to find anything taped to the back of the refrigerator, but that was what greeted his fingers as he ran them over the obverse face of the machine. Tape, and something wrapped in a paper bag.

Intrigued, he pulled it off and set it on the counter. Absently, he pushed the refrigerator back in place, then pulled the wrapping off the object, placing the discarded brown paper in the pile to be recycled.

And what was left in his hands was a book.