ArchivedLogs:Cleaning Day

Cleaning Day
Dramatis Personae B, Blink, Flicker, Heather, Horus, Natalie, Scramble, Shane, Spencer, Steve
In Absentia	2017-07-16 “Special dirt. For you.”
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Commonhaus - Lower East Side
Accessible to all residents of the Commons via electronic keycard, this three-story building holds a number of facilities freely available for the shared use of all Commons residents. The stone-floored foyer is high ceilinged -- balconies on the two upper floors look down into this entrance, leaving just the wide skylit ceiling three stories up to trickle light down through the whole of the house. Through wide wood-and-glass doors the spacious dining area is visible on the left; on the right, heavier doors beside the elevator lead to the similarly large kitchens. There are four single-user toilets on this floor, two apiece by the foyer and the dining room. Though a wide staircase runs all the way up, there is also an elevator tucked to one side. For the adventurous, though, there's another way up through the house -- through the center of the house where the balconies look down, an enormous climbing structure has been erected, solid wood platforms softened with carpeting, held together with strong spiderwebbed steel cables. Interlaced in an intricate maze that spirals up through the whole of the house and down to the basement, it provides a crazily winding path to duck and wriggle and worm through, with exits -- if you can /find/ them -- dispensed out onto each upper balcony and into the basement below. It's a bright and perfect summer day, and the Commonhaus's rooftop garden is thriving -- with plants both wanted and unwanted. The latter have just been decimated by one very focused smallboy wearing a royal blue t-shirt featuring Nemo, Dory, and Marlin threading their way through a colorful coral reef and light gray cargo shorts. Or, at least he /was/ very focused. Picking up the large and mostly empty black yard bag, Spencer glances around the rooftop. Then vanishes -- -- reappearing in the guest room just a few meters below, holding the bag open with eyebrows uplifted. Scramble is wiping down the desk, earbuds piping music into her head barely audible to most anyone else, though she's singing along plenty loud: "...Imma wade through the waters, til the tide don't move, Imma riot, Imma riot through your borders, call me bulletproof..." She spins around and whips her cleaning rag in a circle over her head like a lasso. Sweeps across the room to pick up a small bag of trash she had left beside the door. Takes aim at Spence's trash bag -- she shoots, she scores! Spencer bops his head to the rhythm, grins brightly and is gone -- -- to the media room, bouncing up onto his toes in time to music that he can no longer hear. There's new music here, though. The F8 of the Furious soundtrack blaring through the speakers while Natalie sings along, semi-drowned out by the handheld vacuum she is wielding, "Todo mundo fumando puro y tomando tragos -- yo." A small lift of chin as she looks up from vacuuming down the couch cushions. She vaults lightly over the back of a couch, snagging a bag from behind it as she traipses over to Spence to drop it in. Then crack open the mini-vac and empty its canister into his bag, too. "I'm digging this level of service," she adds cheerfully as she snaps the vacuum back together, hopping back over to start cleaning down the beanbag covers too. "Would totally only be better if it came with delivery drinks, too." Space gasps. “That’s /such/ a good idea, I’ll grab some lemonade from the kitchen when I get there. Maybe some snacks, too.” He closes the trash bag and slings it over his shoulder. “/After/ this run.” And with that he’s off -- -- to the middle reaches of the climbing structure, seated on one of the platforms with his sneakered feet dangling. There's a quiet swishing-whisking down below Spencer's feet. It ends in a clatter, one small handheld -- or in this case, beak-held -- broom falling from Horus' grip to topple down one ledge and then another. A stream of quiet warbling follows, soft and concerned. A moment later, one large orange-ringed eye peers up between two of the platforms to stare Spence down. The voice that follows probably would be very stern if it were not delivered in synthesized monotone: "Woah woah woah specter specter Spencer too soon too fast go go go I am still a very sweepy bird go away but then come back I have many dust for you later later dust okay bye" “Oh! Lo siento, I didn't mean to interrupt,” Spence calls down and, gathering his bag makes ready to go. The eye disappears. Not /quite/ in a huff. But a moment later Horus’ head reappears, beak poking out toward Spencer to drop a large marble into the boy’s lap, dark purple and blue and swirled through with glittering silver motes like stars. “Special dirt. For you,” comes the explanation, just before Horus disappears to his sweeping again. Spencer’s eyes go wide-wide as he scoops up the marble and cups it in the palm of one hand. “Oh wow this is the /best/ dirt it's like a whole tiny /cosmos/ gracias!” He pushes himself off the edge of the platform, but before he reaches on the one below it he disappears -- -- and slides down the railing in the stairwell, a precarious proposition with a bulging trash back in tow, touching down a bit shakily on the landing. Blink steps out of Spencer's way as he comes sliding down the rail, but neatly finishes sweeping the last step above the landing as she does so. "The trash bag is coming to /me/ this time!" she says, lifting up her dustpan. "What luxury! Gracias, Spencer." "De nada!" Spencer grins brightly as he holds the bag open to catch the contents of the dust pan. "I know you can do your own shortcuts, but it's fun to mix things up a bit. See ya!" He hefts the bag and leaps from the top of the landing -- -- and lands in the game room. Does a double take. Blips across the room. Heather is sitting down on the freshly cleaned floor, sorting through a deck of standard playing cards. Spence's sudden arrival has her up on her feet and waving in an instant. She zips up to deposit some refuse, while her recorder plays: "Gracias Spencer. Have you seen my story journal? You can read the new one if you come across it." “De nada!” Spence bites his lower lip, considering. “No, I haven't seen it. You can check the lost and found, and maybe ask Horus? He picks up a lot of things. You'll want to have a gift for him though, here.” He fishes a rainbow metallic fidget spinner out of one bulging cargo pocket and hands it to Heather. “Or you can keep it, it spins real smooth. I got so many spinners, people keep giving them to me /for some reason./” He flashes a slightly manic grin, shakes the half-full bag to settle its contents and, waving, vanishes -- -- from the building altogether, arriving in the nearby workshop. More or less neatly tidied tables, small piles of detritus gathered up in the corners of workspaces: someone has definitely /started/ cleaning in here. Off at one side of the room, though, Flicker and B are crouched down, holding animated conversation around what looks like an ornate wheeled throne sculpted out of bones. "-- Have to reinforce it here and here if you're really planning to have this fly," Flicker is in the middle of saying, "but I think it'll -- Oh!" Eyes wider. Cheeks reddening abruptly. Flicker looks suddenly sheepish when Spence arrives. Hopping quickly to his feet, taking off in a flurry of motion to grab a half-empty plastic bag from where it's been abandoned. B squeaks, throws her brother a crooked smile. She takes off with a light hop-skip-jump from one table to the next to the next, scooping up the seemingly erratic piles of Stuff, actually tossing several of the unhomed tools over in Flicker's direction despite heavy weights and sharp pointy bits that suggest these tools were never intended to be /thrown/. Flicker seems undaunted by dangerous implements flying towards him. Yoink! Almost a juggling act as he underhands the small trash bag over to B, tools disappearing from midair and hung on their places on the wall in a whirlwind of motion. B sweeps one final pile into this bag. Hops down off the end of a table to present it with a flourish to Spencer. Spence watches his sibling and Flicker’s rapid tidying act, mouth dropping open in sheer glee. He's /applauding/ by the time B delivers the trash to him, having dropped the yard bag that had been the purpose for his visit. “You should let me test fly that,” he says with a nod at the bone wheelchair, picking the bag back up and adding the workshop trash to it, “before you put Matt in it. For /safety/, you know?” This added with a lopsided grin. Giving his sibling a one-armed hug, he's gone again -- -- back to the Commonhaus's arts and crafts room. Tag is not actually cleaning anything at the moment, sitting in the middle of the room and staring at the ceiling, transforming it into an abstract painting in which sweeps of bright color frolic and mingle and intertwine. The two smallish trash bags on the floor beside him attest to the fact that some cleaning, at least, has happened. "Oh! Spence!" He looks at the trash bag in the boys hands and flushes just a touch. "I'm not done yet, but you can take this." So saying, he deposits the heavier looking bags into Spence's much larger one. "Other one's recycling. Duo xie!" He bows deeply. Spencer also bows low and -- -- straightens up in the sunroom. Steve is cleaning the glass -- of which the room has plenty -- a spray bottle in one hand and a squeegee in the other. He glances over his shoulder when the boy appears. "Oh! Salut, Spence..." "Salut Steve and désolé I'll be /right back!/" Spence leaves his bag behind -- -- to wash his hands at the sink behind Evolve's counter before snagging a pair of cupcakes from the case by the register. "Oy!" The cry coming from behind the kitchen door doesn't really sound all that miffed at this theft. One spiky blue head pokes out of the swinging door, huge black eyes narrowing on Spence. "Honestly how's shit going to get done over there on only two cupcakes? Heather could eat like five on her own." Drying his hands on a paper towel, Shane slips out to grab a box, loading it up with an assortment of baked goods before tucking the top closed and turning it over to Spencer. "Tell Steve those apple tarts are payment cuz he's totally going to do my guest room for me.” Spencer’s grin is only a /touch/ sheepish, soon eclipsed by the lemon blueberry cupcake he is stuffing into his mouth even while he hovers behind his brother, peering over his shoulder. Accepts the box with both hands and, planting a kiss (along with some lemon icing) on Shane’s cheek, departs -- -- and is back in the sunroom. He flips open the box and pulls out a handful of mini apple tarts. “Shane’s bribing you to do his guest room,” he explains cheerfully, then pulls out a rootbeer float cupcake,. “Oh and this one’s just to keep you from passing out from hunger.” Closes the box again and picks up the yard bag. “I’ll be back through for more of these,” hefting the trash bag, “after I’ve delivered these. And some lemonade” Lifting the pastry box. “A bientôt!” And he’s off again.