Muse

Chapter 10

Well someone clearly just discovered how to online shop lately, was my first thought when I saw the huge stack of packages in the vestibule when I walked into work this morning. Package delivery was just one of my many added duties when working in the activities department in an under-staffed facility, something the job application had left all mentions of out of the job description when I had first applied. I had taken the added duties with as much dignity and grace as I could muster in an effort to take it in stride, managing only to acclimate to tasks I had accomplished with constant repetition.

Once I had clocked in and dropped off my purse, stuffing it with my Assassin's Creed hoodie in the cabinet with the choir books, I quickly scooped Mirin out of her cage and set her in her playpen to roam. I was about to move back towards the vestibule when the Netherland dwarf caught my attention by sprinting right where I had been standing outside of her pen.

"What? What you want? Did you miss me?" I cooed. Originally, I wasn't supposed to come in today, having asked off to escort my mother to her oncology appointment with the specialist since it was my turn to do it, but my mother's oncologist got called away for some last minute emergency and had to push her appointment to next week. Maybe Mirin knew that, somewhere in her golf-tee sized brain. All the articles I had researched for how to care for rabbits had stated that they were smarter than people thought. Her front paws pressed up against the wires of the pen and stood up on her hind-legs expectantly, staring at me with pleading soft brown eyes that seemed reminiscent of a puppy begging for food. Clever girl.

"Okay, but only a few treats." Giving her head a good scratch between the ears, I smiled, savoring the unbelievable softness of her fur, and dumped out her litter box before stuffing it with shredded paper and fresh hay. Rather than do my usual round of teaching her tricks, I gave her a pinch of dried cranberries for her for good measure and hid them in the straw for her to find. I didn't have time to play with her and needed to leave for the vestibule before I became too distracted. Picking off a few stray clumps of rabbit fur, I began my meticulous schedule and checked each package for names before artfully stacking them from top to bottom on the three tiered cart in accordance to room number. It was method I had devised so I wouldn't accidentally miss somebody and have to double-back. Some layers were more cluttered than others, but it saved me the aggravation of having to remember and check what packages I had left. Once I was sure everything was in order, I shoved the cart through the double doors with as much careful force as I could muster. It was stuffed to the gills, the larger boxes and a bouquet of flowers unable fit on the narrower shelves with the other four hundred and three hundred apartments, but I had it safely tetris-ed together in a way so I wouldn't have to make a second trip.

Reaching for a cardboard box with the Mii Channel theme inexplicably stuck in my head, I knocked a similar rhythm of three eighth notes on the wooden door before entering, calling out "package delivery for a..." I frowned at the words for a moment, switching some of the similar looking characters in my head before recognizing the symbol for 'sea.' "Nanami Sato." The woman smiled in acknowledgement, filling me with strong sense of relief that pushed back the oncoming waves of anxious uncertainty. Nanami, the triplet name of the seven seas, for you and me. She was one of the newer residents which meant I was still struggling to remember her name, only understanding it once I added her to the attendance sheet. Thank goodness numbers were universally understood. Despite having studied Japanese off and on as a hobby for years, I still struggled reading the characters, as my kanji was weaker than my hirogana or katagana, but it helped that the addresses listed apartment numbers. It had certainly made memorizing the list of residents in alphabetical order an interesting challenge.

"Thank you, my dear. You've been a big help." She smiled, her wizened eyes crinkling around the edges.

"You're welcome. Have a good one," I replied automatically before closing the door behind me. Noticing my next target was sitting in the lounge reading the paper, I grabbed the sack of groceries and sat them on her walker. Her name was... I thought for a moment then the light bulb went off. Kaede Yamada, like the elderly priestess from Inuyasha, only nicer and not missing an eye.