I would go into that storage locker tingling with expectation, dangling my misery like a bass fisherman trying to seduce a lunker out from under a sunken log. I tried my best to wallow in my gloom, I really did. But not a sprig of root ever came to visit, no matter how much I begged and prayed. It knew I wanted it and my desires were toxic. The faintest spark of hope was enough to keep it away. I didn’t even care about the damned Reapers. They never entered the equation. The way Karla had gone about her business like they were raccoons knocking over her garbage cans—maybe that emboldened me. The project insisted I skip work all that week. They paid me leave even though, as a part-timer, I didn’t qualify. I should have been grateful, but having nothing to do only aggravated my restlessness. In the daytime, I basically wandered, catching cat naps on the patio furniture of abandoned houses I knew, showering under lawn sprinklers, raiding gardens for cukes and zukes between my twice daily runs to the Burger King.
