#🍏 wd sally

[waterdamage-omoriau]

HENRY: Morning, Sally.

Sally is lying in bed with the blankets up to her eyes, covered in stuffed animals and completely still. Henry raises an eyebrow at her.

HENRY: Good morning. ...Are you just pretending to be asleep?

A little snicker comes from under the covers. She finds it a lot less funny when Henry picks her out of bed by her sides and dangles her in the air.

SALLY: Hey! Lemme go!

He laughs as she tries to bite him, but puts her down and picks out her clothes for the day.

[SALLY has joined the party. SALLY is now open for questions.]

[waterdamage-omoriau]

(part 1)

Henry sets his newly-acquired box, the bottom already stained with grease, onto the kitchen counter. SALLY: …Pizza?

She sounds skeptical, and not nearly as happy as Henry had hoped about what he thought was her favorite food. She’s peeking her head over the counter, her pigtails sprouting up like little saplings.

HENRY: Pizza. You like pizza, don’t you?

He carefully transfers a thin slice from the box to a plate and gives it to her.

Sally stares at it, takes a single, half-hearted bite, and puts the pizza back down.

SALLY: …Yeah.

She scowls and swallows.

Henry picks a piece for himself, foregoing a plate and letting it droop in his hand. 

HENRY: Sally, I won’t know what’s wrong unless you tell me.

She picks back the edge of the cheese.

HENRY: Is it the wrong flavor? I’m sorry if there’s something you’d like more…

Sally shakes her head. The piece of cheese stretches and tears.

Henry kneels to her eye level.

HENRY: Are you worried about moving?

Her orange-stained hands curl into little fists.

SALLY: NO!

Her plate crashes on the floor, startling Henry back.

SALLY: We had pizza yesterday AND double-yesterday! I don’t WANT it!

HENRY: Why didn’t you TELL me!?

He realizes he’s been getting angry and pushes the feeling down, but too late. Sally’s eyes brim with tears as her little face scrunches up and she flees to the living room.

He sighs deeply, a little ball of guilt lodged in his chest. She’s only four. He can’t expect her to communicate perfectly. He hoped that she would be a little bit more mature than she is right now, though.

HENRY: I… I should clean up a little.

The kitchen is a mess; pizza box still open, surfaces cluttered with fruits and papers and moldy breads still in their packaging, even without mentioning the fresh disaster in the middle of the floor. There’s a stain in the ceiling, creeping out from its cave above a cabinet, bloating the stucco like a king-dead fish.

A pipe must have internally burst there at some point, or something similar. It’s water damage either way.

Henry gets to work. He throws out most of the bread and lines up the fruits in a neat row. All the pizza, including the slice that he didn’t eat, gets packaged into plastic bags and put in the fridge next to some old, gross-looking soda. Finally, after tossing the solid pieces of what was left on the floor, he soaks a rag under the faucet and gets to scrubbing away the sauce-cheese mixture.

His eyes meet his own wet reflection and he shivers. He doesn’t like the feeling of water on his hands. It’s slimy and stifling, so as soon as he’s done he quickly dries it off.

It’s been long enough, he decides. He grabs a banana off of the counter and heads to go calm down Sally.

She’s not crying anymore, but she’s sitting by the far side of the sofa looking moody, which isn’t good either.

HENRY: You haven’t eaten, so I got you this.

She takes the banana and eats it, still silent and sullen.

HENRY: I’m sorry about what I said. It won’t happen again.

SALLY: …

He takes back the banana peel and throws it out in the nearest trash can.

He should be happy, right? Sally is okay, so he should be is happy.

As he thinks, he hears a knock at the door.

He doesn’t answer to solicitors and salesmen. But Sally is closer than he is and already going to open it. And the person talking, muffled on the other side… doesn’t he know that voice?

[waterdamage-omoriau]

where is hector

HENRY: Hector is just outside. He’s… part of the reason this move won’t be easy. He’s not a good city dog, and he doesn’t stay calm in the car either.

He checks his watch, looks at the door, and sighs.

HENRY: Since we’re waiting anyway…

HENRY: Hey Sally, do you want to play with Hector?

She’s outside before he even finishes his sentence.

(After several minutes of supervised playtime, Hector gets tired out and Sally is shepherded back inside.)

[waterdamage-omoriau]

11:43 AM.

Sally and Henry are downstairs now. She's driving a toy car around the living room rug, gazing longingly at the couch when Henry isn't looking. She loves jumping on it, but he'll yell at her about the danger if she does.

He checks his watch: 11:43. It's too late for breakfast. Through the doorway he can see into the kitchen, where the empty countertop and stove are calling him are gathering dust. There's a few bananas in there somewhere, but he's been trying not to buy too much food since he won't have a good way to transport it later.

...Pizza is Sally's favorite food. He gets the landline phone off the table and calls Gino's for delivery.

[waterdamage-omoriau]

Sally what’s your favorite animal??

SALLY: Tasmaya debil!

She probably means ‘Tasmanian devil.’ How did she even learn what those are?