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And like all the good things in the world, it eventually ceases.

Lily and her man break their hot kiss as a small sound exclaims, thrusting the lovers from their own reality into the reality of the world.

“Ew.” A kid in a striped polo standing nearby scrunches his nose.

“Don’t look,” his mother warns from nearby, then shrugs helplessly, “but I guess it’s too late.”

Behind them, metal clicks.

Lily turns, still in her man’s warm embrace.

The silver glint of a butcher’s knife shines from the noodle shop uncle’s raised hand. A tiny mouse in a bowtie squeaks from his shoulder. The little bow is quite colorful, Lily notes in hindsight, green with brown polka dots like a fucking circus clown.

But the whole mood changes, from the blooming passion of young love, morphing into the ugly face of cold-blooded murder.

“Motherfucker,” Every exclaims, grabbing her delicate wrist.

They haul ass away.



Then Every brings her for her next non-broke-person experience, to the museum.

Their small town’s one and only, located in an old townhouse overlooking the main road.

“Have you ever been to a museum?” he asks matter-of-factly. They are now quite calm and relaxed, the noodle shop knife incident from earlier in the morning long forgotten, stored at the back of their little minds. Now, Lily’s brain is filled with nothing but glittery rainbows, sparkly vampires, cherry red kisses, and pastel pink sakuras.

“Nah, my man. I fainted right before entering it during the first grade school trip,” she answers quite sarcastically, obviously, then, “of course I have been to one of these boring-ass buildings. Why, you think I’m a piss-poor person who’s never experienced any good thing in life?”

“Exactly.” Every smiles at her understanding.

“Bastard.”

Very emotional. Very chic.

They enter the museum and pay the hefty maintenance fee that doesn’t actually go into maintaining anything, then tour around without even a single issue from Lily causing Every and the others around them embarrassment.

A Tesla coil zaps, sounding not unlike the old television in Lily’s home during a rough monsoon storm.

Lily stares at it, confused.

Because what in the dumbfuckery is that?

Who knows?

Next, it is the petting zoo. A whole colony of mice runs wild in their cage and hiss as Lily and her man turn their attention to their ugly faces. Looking closely, she finds that they are all wearing the mice army’s signature weird-ass bow ties, some plain white, others with the cartoon faces of famous scientists plastered about.

A certain gentleman with pretty brown curls and holding an apple smiles brightly from the printed fabric.

“Nah, Every, ain’t these them bitches that we’re running from?”

“Huh,” Every mutters, turning his beautiful face from a colorful animation explaining rabbit digestive systems. “We’re strong, baby. We ain’t don’t run from nothin’.”

And here we are, back to the pseudo-biker dialect for Every-boy.

And in this same moment, as Lily quietly contemplates her no-longer-so-new boyfriend’s character quirk, all hell breaks loose. A fat common mouse in a red duck-patterned bow tie reaches for the lock of the cage and punches with its puny little arm.

The shitty lock cracks.