[Scene: Saturday Morning – Back Lot Behind the Apartment]
It was, by Florida standards, a good Saturday.
The sun was up early, casting soft light through the thin stratus clouds, and the humidity hadn't yet hit full force. Birds chattered in nearby trees, and a neighbor's radio played faint salsa music from a cracked window across the lot.
Oliver stepped outside, wearing his usual worn shorts and a stretched T-shirt, lugging a beige plastic clothing bin with small cracks and holes near the sides. Inside, a jumbled mess of socks, shirts, and his only pair of decent jeans sloshed slightly—already pre-soaked in a mixture of old detergent and rainwater.
His sandals squished slightly against the damp grass and packed dirt behind the building. No one else was around. Just an abandoned lawn chair, some cigarette butts, and a dented trash can with no lid.
He set the box down and grabbed the green garden hose, coiled loosely near a faucet on the wall. With a hard twist of the knob, water burst out in a strong, jittery stream, splashing cold onto his hands.
He took a breath, then aimed the hose straight into the box.
The clothes danced and tangled in the sudden water pressure, some bubbles rising as the detergent activated. Soapy runoff spilled from the holes in the bin, trailing into the dirt like thin gray veins. Oliver dipped his hands in, stirring the clothes around like soup, pressing and squeezing each piece with slow, methodical movements.
The sun rose a little higher. A light breeze swept by, carrying the scent of wet grass and far-off car exhaust.
His knees ached from crouching. His back pulled a little.
But he kept going—quietly rinsing, squeezing, and laying the damp clothes out one by one over the chain-link fence, where they sagged under their own weight.
A few shirts. A towel. The green jacket, now with a light sweat ring around the collar.
It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't much.
But it was Saturday.
The sun was warm.
And at least, for today, he got something done.
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As Oliver wrung out the last shirt—an old graphic tee from high school, the design nearly faded to nothing—the light shifted.
He paused.
The sunlight dimmed, not all at once, but in a slow fade, like someone was slowly turning the world's brightness down. He looked up from the fence where his wet clothes were dripping steadily, and saw that the clouds had thickened. The once-thin stratus layers were now bulking together, darkening, overlapping like a slow, heavy blanket being pulled across the sky.
The breeze that had felt gentle minutes ago now carried a colder bite, laced with moisture. It swept through the lot, rustling the shirts on the fence, making them sway slightly, like damp flags in slow motion.
Oliver stood there, hose still in hand, droplets from the rinsing water trailing down his arm, mixing with the sweat on his skin.
A deep rumble echoed faintly in the distance—distant thunder or maybe a plane, hard to tell. But the message was clear.
Rain was coming.
He cursed softly under his breath, not angry, just weary. He began pulling the clothes off the fence, one by one, folding them as quickly as wet fabric allowed. The jeans were still soaked. The green jacket had barely dried at all. He stuffed them back into the beige bin, water now sloshing again at the bottom.
The wind picked up slightly, leaves rustling, and somewhere in the distance a door slammed.
Oliver looked up once more at the heavy gray sky, sighed through his nose, and muttered:
> "Figures."
Then he turned and trudged back toward the apartment—barefoot, box in arms, a quiet shuffle against the earth as the first cold drops began to fall.
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