Present Moment

Michael sat at his workbench in the basement. His newly acquired Makarov lay field stripped as he scrubbed away at the slide grooves. The barrel was submerged in a small tupperware bowl of solvent.

Lani sat on her computer, giggling at cat videos and scrolling through news feeds, while browsing for replacing running shoes. Occasionally, Lani would send Michael a cat picture here and there that he would receive on his tablet that he had so he didn’t have to take his phone all the way into his basement. Seeing cat memes brought michael some sense of positive feeling. He wasn’t sure what those feelings were, but he knew it was a good feeling and didn’t want to waste energy overthinking it.

The cat video was interrupted by a message from Lani. “Food?” Michael glared at his phone for a moment, thinking that she had already devoured the candy he had previously brought home and that she was expecting him to get up to go get more. She followed up her unanswered message with “thinking of pasta.”

Michael smirked. He hit the keyboard button and tossed a reply, “yes.” About twenty minutes later, another message notification buzzed. The food was done. Michael knew that aside from housekeeping, grounds work and tending to animals, Lani had a lot of kitchen talent. She also spoke much better german than he could.

Before going upstairs, Michael had to wash the CLP and solvent off his hands. Once done, he made his way upstairs and washed his hands in the kitchen sink. He sat down to a full bowl of properly made raviolis with scratch made cheese sauce. He ate, occasionally glancing up to Lani to see how she was doing. “You know you did a good job, right?” he asked in his warmer voice.

Lani perked up, her face brightened slightly with a more natural smile. “Thank you” she said softly as she finished her food. She sat and enjoyed how far Michael had come, being able to sit at a table for entire meals. Her only worry lately was that she couldn’t tell Michael as much about herself as she had read of him. This was a recurring theme in her thoughts.

“How were things these last couple weeks?” Michael asked after swallowing the last of his food.

Lani shrugged. “Aside from cleaning a house that never gets dirty, and feeding the doggos, not much goes on around here.”

Meanwhile, as Michael and Lani would go on to laugh about random anime and shows, a van full of bodies lay crushed at the bottom of a cliff, undiscovered.