Note: Hiatus is over.

"Ever notice how everyone who goes here is really miserable?" George said, propping her chin up on her hand, looking bored as usual. "It's like all the depressed people in Seattle flock here. I mean, look, that guy's eating a blueberry muffin again."

"Since when did depression become synonymous with blueberries?" Rube asked.

"Since that sad guy keeps eating them." George said, gesturing to the diner from the previous day, "He's the sad man, the sad man eats blueberries."

"Therefore blueberries are sad." Daisy said crisply.

"Yeah, thank you, Daisy." George said, "A equals B equals C equals A."

A perpetuating cycle. Around and around. Again and again, the carousel, and the fucking clowns.

Rube subconsciously made the connection that his life could be summarized in a single, convoluted math equation.

"Blueberries are sad." Rube repeated, rubbing briefly at an eyebrow, "What fruit do you consider to be happy, then?"

"I don't know; strawberries. Strawberries are happy. Or bananas, those things are fucking hilarious. Raspberries, or pineapples – blueberries are just so blah. You can't do anything cool with blueberries, because no matter what you do, they always look and taste like blueberries. They're boring, and kind of sour."

This opinion, however, may have been biased due to the fact that George remembered when she was alive that her mother would make blueberry pancakes every time she felt guilty about something. After many years of blueberry pancakes as a precursor to bad news, one comes to connect the two events, and eventually, expect the worst from it. But that was just another George-quirk, and there was no shortage of those.

Normally Rube would have a witty response. Today, he was fresh out.

Wordlessly, he handed out post-its, and as was the norm, George peered curiously at everyone else's post-it, pretending not to. She always did that, and Rube had hazarded a guess that it may have been because she was checking that none of them were someone she knew – in that respect, Rube felt the sharp stab in the heart for George, because the first couple of decades as a Reaper were the worst. A Reaper got to watch everyone they ever loved, cherished, and cared for drop off like flies, and all they could do was stand idly by and watch it happen – because there was just no way of stopping it.

So, George peered over at Mason's, and tried not to make a face when she was sure she smelled booze.

T. Hatchman

62 Benedict Pl. Unit 7

12:10 p.m.

And then Daisy's,

J. Calworth

Corner of Orchard Boulevard

1:18 p.m

And then Rube's,

D. Reid

62 Benedict Pl. Unit 7

12:11 p.m.

"Hey, you two are reaping in the same spot." She said, grabbing Rube's post-it for a closer look, as though she thought maybe she hadn't seen it right the first time around, "A minute apart, too. What are you betting on? Freak accident?"

"I know that place." Roxie said, also eyeing the post-it, "We send DUI cases there so they can get their licenses back. It's a –"

"- fucking rehabilitation centre, Rube! Why did you give me a post-it to a fucking rehabilitation centre?" Mason asked, waving the post-it in Rube's face as viciously as a yellow scrap of paper can be waved. Rube just frowned.

"I think you're over-reacting, Mason. It's a reap, just like any other reap."

"Well, it just so happens that this particular normal, average, every day reap coincides with our current issue of –"

And then Mason fell silent, and Rube looked grimly satisfied.

"Issue of what, Mason?"

"Issue – I – there – you –" Mason stuttered, and then let his arms drop to his sides, "No issue. There isn't an issue. Really. Actually."

"Of course. Now if you're finished yelling at me about the issue that doesn't really actually exist, can we go inside?"

As it turned out, the rehabilitation centre was a bit like a makeshift detoxification facility – it wasn't government funded, but more like one of those locally supported community things, where people would gather in rooms and reassure one another that they deserved to live normal, healthy lives. This was a place where people gathered with others who were exactly like them, and talked about what their problem was.

Unit one was for men and women with sexuality problems. Men who couldn't get aroused by their wives anymore, women who were getting a funny feeling in the pit of their stomach whenever they were around their female colleague, people who just didn't feel right in their bodies.

Unit two was for Cancer survivors, people undergoing chemotherapy, losing their hair, finding someone to tell that the tumor had finally lessened, or that they could move without pain – or that they only had a month left to live, but didn't want to tell their families.

Unit three was for people with personality and social disorders – those that were able to get up the self-confidence to go there. These were the misfits and the outcasts, the people who sometimes didn't see the point, or saw too many points, or they just weren't understood, or they saw things differently or didn't see things properly at all. The antisocial-misanthropic, obsessive-compulsive, borderline depressed, schizophrenic, manic-depressive, and Prozac children of the world; all gathering in one room for an hour out of their week to feel like they weren't being stared at. Or try to feel that way, anyways.

Each unit had its own label, its own reason for being there, its own group of people to welcome with open arms - and there was no security, because walk-ins were allowed. This was one of those 'discreet' things.

So Rube and Mason sat in on the circle of chairs in unit seven, one of the few heavily populated groups, and most of the people there were wearing nametags – some of them had even laminated them. When it started, a thin, shaky-looking man with a tag that declared his name was Drew, stood up,

"My name is Drew Reid," he said.

Rube looked at his post-it. There he was.

Mason wasn't looking at his post-it. He was just quietly pleading that the man was not about to say what he thought he was going to say,

"And I'm an alcoholic."

Mason groaned.