Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition IV

ZeroWineThirty Presents: Critter Corner

It's pouring down rain outside.

Pouring.

It hasn't rained here in a long time and the smell of it is almost foreign to me.

I love it, even with the alien feeling I get while watching it. I can't help but be grateful that we're finally getting something to settle the smog in this sleepy town.

There's a rattle on the front door. I set my glass down; whiskey on ice because it's the only thing that sounded good in this sticky humidity that makes my hair turn three sizes bigger than it should be.

When I get to the door I can't help but laugh and wonder what my neighbors must think with this strange gang of critters at my front door. There's Jiles who's trying to hold a yellow rain jacket over Moses and Diana. Diana shakes out her fur that's about as big as my hair in this wetness while Moses just blinks at me; I forget that he's a water snake and probably has no problem with a little water.

"Well, my God, let us in," he half hisses to me.

I roll my eyes and take the coat from Jiles who lands on my shoulder before shaking his feathers out, splattering water all over my cheek. "Seriously?"

He shrugs. "It's just a bit of water, and how are you?"

I am careful not to step on Diana as she scampers past me towards the fireplace that crackles a warm hello to everyone. "Oh honey, it's just dreadful out there!"

"It's much better than it has been," I answer while Moses coils up in the corner.

I don't care that's it's summer. We had a cold front roll through; which is all the reason I need to light up a fire. It has to be one of my favorite things about this place.

"Drinks? Snacks? I made cookies but we have any poison of your choice and then some more."

Jiles caws out and flys over to my wet bar. He eyes the contents then looks back at the slowly sweating glass resting on the end table; my whiskey is calling to me like a siren and I'm dying to get back to it.

"I'll take one of those, neat please," he says.

"I will to honey!"

"Well, I do say—I suppose I am in for one as well."

I roll my eyes and nudge my chin to Moses. "Be a champ and help me then?"

He hisses, cranky but a slight tease which I never thought would describe a snake, but here we are, in my kitchen where Moses has somehow slithered up the refrigerator and wrapped part of himself around the handle on the top half that is the freezer. He uses his lower half the push the door away before looking at me. "Did you make more ice in those little shapes?"

"You mean the cactuses?"

"Yes, they were quite lovely."

"Unfortunately," I say as I pull out a rubber mold with large square cubes in it. "You are stuck to the original square."