Cats and Dogs

[Admiral Mage]

((Joshua Lee - Sandbox Start))

Joshua walked through the rain, his umbrella out and opened. Walking to school in the rain was never really fun; it was a very dreary atmosphere to him, and if Joshua ever had to walk through a puddle, and he did have to majority of the time, his shoes and socks would be soaking wet for a good chunk of the morning, and that was always a pain. And look at that, there was a puddle on the sidewalk, right in his way. Joshua sighed, looking around for any way to get around it. No such luck, there was no other way besides turning back.

Joshua sighed, and walked through the puddle. Splish Splash, Splish Splash. Now his socks and shoes were soaked, and Joshua was uncomfortable now.

“How do kids find this fun?” Joshua muttered, as he started biting on his left thumbnail. It was times like this that Joshua considered getting a car, but he didn’t have any money to buy one, or a job to make money. Even if he did have all that, he still would need to get a license before he could drive on his own. And so, Joshua shoved the thought into the back of his head, like many other times he thought about this.

[MethodicalSlacker]

The rain was absolutely, one hundred percent not the reason why Jodi was feeling so aggravated this morning. She liked the rain. The soft hiss of rain droplets on the hood of her poncho made her feel comfortable. It reminded her of sitting in the back of her parent's car after getting picked up from school. Her feet were nice and dry inside her galoshes, and once she changed into her shoes and put her poncho into her locker¹⁸, she would barely know that it had been raining in the morning. Rainy weather was actually quite nice, all things considered. On weekends it gave her an excuse to stay inside, even.

Jodi's reason for being upset today was entirely separate from the weather. It had everything to do with her backpack. She'd made the mistake of putting on her poncho before putting on her backpack, and hadn't even noticed until she was halfway to school. Worse still was the fact that, when she looked over her shoulder,

[Jodi Hunter continued from have you ever thought about taping your big mouth shut?] ¹⁹

she saw that it was open, and all of her notebooks were soaked.

Her instinct was to hold this one against the weather, true. She muttered something approximating a curse-word under her breath and swung her backpack around to zip it up. She took the zipper in her fingers, pulled, and nothing happened. A slight tug, but the backpack did not close. Jodi pulled on it once more—again, it did not close. Still walking, Jodi pulled on her backpack zipper a third time. Still nothing. It was stuck, then. Seemingly for good.

Jodi reached in, took her math notebook, laid it over the others as a covering, and kept walking.

There were two things that she could do to potentially alleviate this problem somewhat. The first, she reasoned, was to find a bus shelter or somewhere she could hide to try and fix it. The plus side to this option was that she could take some shelter from her good ol' friend the rain that she was absolutely, positively not upset with, and take her own time to sort out her backpack problem. The downside was that she would have to stop walking, and she was already barely on pace to make it to school on time.

The second solution would be to just shove the backpack under her poncho. Sadly, her poncho was a pull-over²⁰, so although this would be a much better solution on the making-it-to-school front in that she wouldn't have to deviate from her path, she'd have to potentially open herself up to getting splashed by a passing car in order to put the soggy backpack under the parka, which would be all kinds of unpleasant on its own, and, and, and—

Jodi found herself walking in the direction of the school with her backpack put on backwards. Either of her two options seemed equally appealing, and equally unappealing. She could also try running to school, but running in galoshes was not something she wanted to do again²¹ anytime soon, and the hood of her poncho could flip open, or she could trip, and everything could be ruined, just like that, not just her math book.

She looked up from her backpack and saw a classmate of hers several paces away from her on the sidewalk. Jodi didn't really know him as anything other than the short guy with long hair and weird hats, but from what she could gather he was another loner type, which simultaneously meant that he was either incredibly weird in a way that wasn't like her, or incredibly weird in a way that was incredibly familiar and thus disorienting to be around. Jodi considered the possibility of approaching him and asking for his help. Maybe her speaking out in class was the first step towards coming out of her shell? Never-mind how terrible she felt about that in the moment—she had done that under duress, and this situation was a tad more dire, so maybe she could get away with just approaching him and rolling with what happened.

It was hard to take large steps forward in her galoshes, but Jodi did her best, closing the distance between herself and Joshua in just a few almost-jumps. She almost raised her hand to tap him on the shoulder, but stopped herself,

"Uh, Josh, right?" Jodi squeaked, "You, uh, from class, I mean, can you help with, uh, my bag won't close? Like, the zipper's stuck, and maybe, you could, uh. Help with. That."

---

[18] Almost exclusively used for the storage of her rain gear at this point, given that she generally preferred to carry all of her books in her backpack at all times.
[19] Several days prior.
[20] Even though Jodi was a staunch defender of the poncho as rain gear, she had to admit that maybe choosing a pull-over instead of a more modern zip-up poncho was a mistake, in this specific instance.
[21] Jodi figured she had to be the first person to miss daylight savings time since digitally calibrated internet time was invented.

[Admiral Mage]

Joshua stopped walking after hearing a voice saying his name, coming from behind him. Not exactly his name, a shortening of it, 'Josh.' Being called that rather than 'Joshua' was always weird to him, like it felt like people were talking to someone else; but they weren't. Regardless, the person was most likely talking to him, so Joshua took his thumb out of his mouth and turned around.

Joshua stared at the girl behind him, and noted she was a bit shorter than him, maybe by about 5 inches? Joshua knew her name from roll call, it was Jodi if he recalled correctly. She had said something about her backpack's zipper being stuck open, which Joshua knew had to suck. He didn't really have any reason to decline, so why not help her; It shouldn't be that hard, right?

"Yeah sure, it's no problem at all," Joshua replied, moving a stray strand of hair off his face, "Did you make sure that there isn't a piece of thread in the way of the zipper? That's usually the reason behind most jammed zippers I've come across."

[MethodicalSlacker]

Jodi didn't expect him to actually stop to talk to her. If she had any longer of a stride²², she might have barreled past him in embarrassment before he had a chance to turn towards her. Josh offered his help without hesitation and without paying any sort of mind to the weirdness of this special social circumstance. In short, both of her assumptions about the kind of person that Josh would be—about the kind of voice he would answer in, the potential for awkwardness, the potential for apathy or even hostility—turned out incorrect. He was just a normal²³ guy.

"Well, uh, I haven't looked at it yet, the threads I mean, but," Jodi said, as she glanced down at the zipper and squinted at it really, really hard. She couldn't really see any threads caught in the slider²⁴, but there was something off about it. The zipper still just wouldn't budge, no matter how hard she tugged—and she did some tugging, just to show Josh what was going on, to show him that she wasn't crazy or anything and just imagining everything about the thing²⁵ with the backpack.

"See what I mean? The thing just won't go."

---

[22] Or if she brought her center of gravity a little lower by hunching over and scuttled away really fast.
[23] Well, a normal guy who happened to appear incredibly strange and give off an incredibly strange visual impression. From a distance. People were not meant to be observed that way, Jodi knew, but that was how she found herself interacting with them most of the time.
[24] Also known as the 'slide' or 'car.'
[25] Things things things things things! What a word. It always snuck its way into anything (like there) she did, or said, or wrote. No matter what, if she got flustered, eventually the thesaurus in her brain would break down and return only Things. And now, it seemed, was one of those times.

[Admiral Mage]

Joshua watched as Jodi examined her backpack, demonstrating that it wasn't a problem with the zipper being jammed with a thread. Well, there goes one possibility. Joshua closed his eyes, thinking about what else the problem might be. Maybe the teeth were misaligned? That could be the issue. While he didn't encounter them as often as a thread jamming a zipper, he still had to deal with them a fair amount whenever he wore hoodies, as well as other clothes that used zippers.

"Well are the teeth aligned correctly?" Joshua asked, opening his eyes, "Because that could also be the issue, but if it isn't that then I dunno what to tell you." Joshua made a shrugging motion, but in the process of doing so, made the mistake of moving his umbrella in a way that wouldn't cover him any more. Joshua quickly realized his mistake, and moved his umbrella back above him. His hair was slightly damp now, but at least it wasn't soaked like his shoes and socks were. It was still annoying though, but at least it wouldn't take an hour or two to dry.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Teeth misalignment? Jodi wasn't entirely sure what she was even supposed to be looking for if that was the case. How exactly do zipper teeth get misaligned, anyways? Was that a factory defect sort of thing, a problem with the manufacturing of the zipper? If it was, why hadn't Jodi run into this problem before?

Jodi pulled her face in towards the zipper and stared really hard at it for a little while. All of the teeth on either side of the zipper appeared to be well aligned with one another, but there was still the spot that the zipper was stuck on. With her index finger and her thumb, Jodi grabbed the zipper and pulled it a few teeth back in the reverse direction, opening the bag further. Sure enough, there was a metal bit that looked more than a little jagged where the slider was just a moment ago.

"Like that, I guess?" Jodi asked, "Looks sorta mangled."

[Admiral Mage]

"Yeah, looks pretty busted to me," Joshua said, having leaned forward a bit to get a closer look, though not too close, "you might need to get a new backpack." However, that wouldn't solve the problem at that moment. It'd only solve the problem as soon as Jodi would be able to go to a store that sells one. Joshua thought it over for a few seconds, before coming up with a solution.

"In the meantime, however," Joshua said, standing in neutral posture again, as he rummaged through the pockets of his shorts, and took out a few spare hairpins he had, "you could use these to hold your bag shut, at least until you can get another backpack."

Joshua had considered lending Jodi his umbrella, but this would result in Joshua having no protection from the rain. Getting it back would probably be too much of a hassle too, and Joshua wasn't willing to go through with that. Joshua also had more hairpins back at home, so giving these up wouldn't be a big loss for him.

[MethodicalSlacker]

A new backpack? Jodi's face dropped. The last thing she wanted to do right now was ask her parents to spend money on another new backpack,²⁶ even if she really did need one. A zipper malfunction wasn't as bad as the last couple things, and it most certainly absolutely was not her fault, but it still made her feel guilty. Just a tinge. Her parents weren't hurting for the extra money at all, but still, backpacks were more expensive than she expected them to be.²⁷

Jodi's spirits could not help but lift, however, when Josh held out the hairpins. Of course, hairpins! If she got enough of them, or even just spaced them well enough, she could use them to keep her bag closed for a bit. Maybe she'd have to keep the backpack on her front, but at least then she'd have an excuse—watching the hairpins on the zipper line to make sure they didn't jump off into the rainy grayness like frogs from a hastily heated pot. They felt flimsy as she took them in her palm, like the only thing keeping the thin metal from breaking on its own was managerial oversight on the part of Physics.

She sure as hell wasn't complaining²⁸. This was exactly what she needed. All there was to do now was show her gratitude.

"Are you sure?" Jodi said, "like, thank you so much, but, like, if you want I can get these back to you when I'm done with them..."

---

[26] She'd gone through one per year so far. In her time as a freshman, she managed to overstuff it {a} with books and the bottom fell out. Last year she decided to take lunch to school one day and her thermos somehow exploded in her bag, coating everything in soup, which didn't make the bag unusable period but the soup smell wasn't coming out and she wasn't going to let herself become "the soup girl" so of course she petitioned {b} for a new one, you would too. {c}
{a} A Fjall-Raven piece of overpriced garbage.
{b} Begged.
{c} Right?

[27] Well, they were priced higher than she expected them to be. The actual worth of the backpack was pretty low, the cost of its materials decent but not close to its final price tag, bloated by profit margin as a body is by an untreated cyst. {a}
{a} Perhaps she did not need Das Kapital after all.

[28] As a matter of fact, the hairpins were such an ingenious solution that Jodi couldn't help but let her face curl a little. {a}
{a} Just a bit. (1)
(1) Just wide enough so that her smile wasn't invisible.

[Admiral Mage]

"Nah, they're hairpins," Joshua said, putting his hand not holding his umbrella in his pocket, "giving up a few isn't the end of the world. The worst that could happen is I run out and end up having to deal with my hair getting in my face for a bit."

Of course, he had been talking to Jodi for about a few minutes at this point, it'd probably be best to continue walking to school. Things seemed to have been resolved at this point, so Joshua didn't have any reason to stay here and risk being late. Joshua couldn't find anything else to talk about with Jodi, but it was still worth seeing if Jodi needed anything else from him.

"Well, if there's nothing else you need, then I'll just be on my way," Joshua said, gesturing with his thumb towards the route he usually walked, "not sure about you but I don't want to be late."

[MethodicalSlacker]

An agreeable sentiment. Tardiness was at the bottom of Jodi's to-do list for the day, and even though she'd managed to swing a much better solution to her backpack problem than she anticipated was possible, she'd still lost a good deal of time on this hairpin scheme. Josh was seemingly on the same page²⁹ so Jodi didn't feel too bad about making an abrupt exit³⁰.

"Me neither," Jodi said with a short nod, "I'll see you, uh, later! In class!"

Jodi spins on her heel away from Joshua and starts her hobbling half-run down the sidewalk, holding her backpack tightly to her chest³¹. She beats him to the corner where she usually makes her turn, and with a look back over her shoulder Jodi waves in Joshua's direction before she disappears behind the corner of the block.

Halfway down this street, waiting for the crossing light, Jodi will fiddle with the hairpins and shift one of them just so that it explodes into two short metal rods and blows her whole backpack right open. The others will follow as the line of tension is broken, and Jodi, flabbergasted, will step out into the empty street before it's her turn to.

[Jodi will run the rest of the way to school and continue herself elsewhere.]³²

But now, there is this moment; the rain, Jodi waving, and Joshua, hopefully, in the right place to receive that wave, before she disappears from his sight and, for a spell, ours.

---

[29] Jodi's shoulders shiver in the hot rain. The clementine glow of a nearby traffic light cuts across her eye like a sunbeam passing through a dusty glass jar {a} on a cobweb'd windowsill.
{a} That is, with great difficulty and inevitable success.

[30] Briefly, a flash in the think-pan—would it be weird if I ran?

[31] Mother holding child, warrior with explosive payload, running-back with football, student with malfunctioning backpack, someone who usually tries above all to not be seen doing a very visibly odd thing. Associations hiss in her skull, the grinding cog-work of the collective unconscious leaking oil as dried spittle clinging to the top of her throat.

[32] Pondering the literary significance of water as an image, as a form, as a metaphor, as a signifier of death. And all that jazz.