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[Cicada]

Mom, Angie, and Maya were inside the house and Dad was fixing a window from the outside. That left Ramsey up on the roof trying to scrub moss.

They'd armed him with some kind of acid-bleach mixture. Wasn't the accurate way to call it. It was just some mixed shit Mom called her secret weapon when it came to mold fighting. One of the ingredients was at least a cupful of value brand laundry detergent from the laundry room. Ramsey had seen Mom mixing that in once.

No music on him to listen to. Dad had borrowed his phone about an hour back to make a Viber call using the neighbor's wi-fi. They'd cracked that password a year ago. Aimee had done some kinda math-programming thing with a laptop she'd borrowed from a friend.

Ramsey had himself some badass sisters.

He was sure to keep good posture. Keep the back straight and bear load on the legs. That was the motto. Ramsey wiped a trickle of sweat off his forehead. Found that shit under his bangs about where his real hairline started. The sun was a bit toasty today for a winter's day. Ramsey had taken his shirt off some time ago and he was still feeling the heat.

He breathed in gently and watched the toned spot right under his ribs push up like a small percentage amount. He exhaled and got back to work. He was squatting a bit and he was pouring out a little of Mom's mix over the problem tiles. The patches of fuzzy green stayed stubborn.

He sighed and glanced up into the icy clear blue skies. Looked like a pretty fucking good day to him. Clean and pretty like a photograph with some Photoshop.

It was like God's day. He owned this sort of imagery and He alone could make this thing look the way it did. Make it look like it was done on purpose and like it was a look. It was like makeup or some shit. Enhanced above and beyond your ordinary day and the blues were bluer and shit like that.

Ramsey looked up at the sky and felt a brushing moment of love and belonging. This wasn't the sort of thing you asked about. It was the sort of thing that just was. This shit was his house. Was also God's Kingdom. He'd do 'em both proud.

Back to work. The moment passed kinda quickly anyways.

He'd make sure to go inside later and help Mom out with some shit. She liked to shoot the breeze over laundry and really get into the neighborhood gossip in distinctively broken Spanglish. Ramsey was pretty sure masculine and feminine articles didn't translate to English words but whatever. El affair it was.

He wondered what Angie was up to.

He wondered things sometimes. Things like where his sisters were and that sort of thing. But also other sorts of things that were heavier. Those sorts of things he didn't wonder about too long. Tried not to because there was never a point. Either that sort of thing worked itself out or it exploded and someone got hurt.

This wasn't the sort of thing you asked about. It was the sort of thing that just was.

... He'd see in time.