Page 8

The birds, however, were the equivalent of children from a previous marriage.

“Creeker! Tweeter, creeker!” the cockatiel shrieked upon seeing her.
“Yes, cracker for Tweeter.” She set about dumping food in their dishes.
“Hello! Herro! Hello!” the cockatoo joined in with rusty agreement.

Once they’d shut up, she returned to the dim bedroom, flopping on the bed and groaning with relief.
Then the kittens came pattering in, leaping on her back and commencing a wrestling match.
She realized there was never rest for the weary.

Page 9

Chapter 2

It’s done, alright? You can stop now- just stop it… I have to find- 
“Shit, it’s bleeding!”
She jolted upright, yelping slightly as a knee came up and crashed into her keyboard tray.  She felt the ghostly rasp left from sleep-breathing in her throat- a cold dryness. She’d dosed off again in her office chair, soft music she usually had playing behind one audio book or another lulling in comforting ambient harmony into one ear. She removed the bulky headphones, rubbing the cheek where the folds of one pleather earpiece had left red wrinkles. She hoped she had not talked in her sleep again- lest someone hear it across the hall. She looked around cautiously and realized the door was closed. A big taboo set by her boss. She didn’t remember closing it.
Nevertheless, she got up hastily to open it again, cursing in her mind. The sweltering heat from the computers had caused dark circles to appear under her armpits in the stuffy closed room. She plopped back into her chair and sighed, blinking away the blurriness left over from her deep catnap.

She had left Photoshop open (as usual) and her Wacom stylus- oddly enough- was still in the grasp of her right hand. She set it into its little plastic “ink well” and wondered absently why.

“Shit! It’s bleeding!” 
That was the surprised and angry voice of her step-father, echoing around her mind. It had been his toe. She had foreseen it, then had seen it, and had seen it again a few moments ago. That and a motorcycle. Something about a motorcycle.

I have to find-

She stretched her left arm and both legs, feeling her knees jerk and the fingers of her right hand she’d had enclosed around her mouse click the button involuntarily.