Residential garage door openers tampa fl

I just filed Chapter 7 in FL end of May, 341 is the end of June. I am married but am filing solo - all debts besides the residential lease are solely in my name. (We are current and are retaining the lease if it matters). The BK 7, includes turning in my car. To make the best financial decisions and set myself up for success, I simply can't afford to keep the car. So I am driving my husband's car. He purchased another car cash which is also solely in his name. I would like to drop the insurance coverage off the car I am turning it in because its so costly here to insure basically anything. We have completely stopped driving the car I am turning in - it is simply sitting in the driveway. Has anyone canceled the insurance before their vehicle was actually picked up? I am scared that if I cancel insurance, I could open myself up to other liabilities I am not thinking of which could defeat the purpose of the fresh start. But it would be so helpful money wise....
Thank you for sharing your experiences! I lurk here a lot and am grateful for this community!

When I was brand new to NovelAi I had no idea how 2048 tokens really looked as text. So for anyone looking at the tiers, trying to decide how many tokens they want for Clio with the new update, I've tokenized Part of The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald (public domain since 2021).
That way new users can more easily visualize what the AI's maximum context is for each tier. According to the UI Clio uses the NerdStash Tokenizer, as different tokenizers will convert text to tokens their own way.
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In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.
I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why—ye-es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog—at least I had him for a few days until he ran away—and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.
I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighbourhood.
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual wonder to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more interesting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.
I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.
Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.
Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.
Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.
He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.
His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.
“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.
Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motorboat that bumped the tide offshore.
“It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-coloured space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.
The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
“I’m p-paralysed with happiness.”
She
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laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)
At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.
I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.
I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.
“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”
“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. Tomorrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to see the baby.”
“I’d like to.”
“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”
“Never.”
“Well, you ought to see her. She’s—”
Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“What you doing, Nick?”
“I’m a bond man.”
“Who with?”
I told him.
“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.
This annoyed me.
“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”
“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.”
At this point Miss Baker said: “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she had uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.
“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”
“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.”
“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry. “I’m absolutely in training.”
Her host looked at her incredulously.
“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”
I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.
“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”
“I don’t know a single—”
“You must know Gatsby.”
“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”
Before I could reply that he was my neighbour dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out on to a rosy-coloured porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
“Why candles?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”
“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.
“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.”
We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.
“You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you did do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a—”
“I hate that word ‘hulking,’ ” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.”
“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”
I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard?”
“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—”
“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”
“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.
“You ought to live in California—” began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and—” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “—And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned towards me.
“I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically. “It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?”
“That’s why I came over tonight.”
“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—”
“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.
“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.”
For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.
“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.
Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.
“This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began.
“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”
“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.
“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”
“I don’t.”
“Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.
Miss Baker nodded.
“She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”
Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.
“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety.
She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.”
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.
The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.
Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.
“We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.”
“I wasn’t back from the war.”
“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”
Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she
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didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.
“I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.”
“Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?”
“Very much.”
“It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’
“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!”
The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the Saturday Evening Post—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamplight, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
“To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.”
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
“Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. “Time for this good girl to go to bed.”
“Jordan’s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,” explained Daisy, “over at Westchester.”
“Oh—you’re Jordan Baker.”
I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”
“If you’ll get up.”
“I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.”
“Of course you will,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’ll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—”
“Good night,” called Miss Baker from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”
“She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”
“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.
“Her family.”
“Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spend lots of weekends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”
Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.
“From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—”
“Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Tom suddenly.
“Did I?” She looked at me. “I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick,” he advised me.
I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called: “Wait!”
“I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”
“That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”
“It’s a libel. I’m too poor.”
“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”
Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumours, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumoured into marriage.
Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
II
About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to
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February 8, 2146, Project Chameleon HQ, Brussels, PRE
It has been a few weeks since Project Autumn has returned back to her normal life. Her days were pretty routine. She would wake up and eat breakfast. Then head to briefs and classes. Then, she would eat lunch before heading off to drills and training that left her sore and extremely fatigued. Autumn would eat dinner, shower, talk to Juliette for a few hours before falling asleep to do it all over again. The days soon became three weeks since she saw Juliette in person. Autumn’s next mission to Rio was quickly approaching. Autumn was excited about it, but what she really wanted to do was spend time with the girl that she really liked. Her training was done, and she was packing her bags for her mission. Autumn was told that she would be a part of the next gauntlet that would take place after she gets back from Rio. She was very excited about it and couldn’t wait to tell Juliette. Autumn looked at the time and saw that it was still five hours before she would normally call Juliette. She was bored, lonely, and really wanted to talk to her. Autumn wrestled with this as she packed her bags.
Agents of Chaos HQ, New York City Containment Zone, PRE
Icari raced through one of the remaining buildings of what was once an overpopulated city. Most of what was once known as New York City was destroyed during the Great War. The city was deserted and hardly anyone lived there. It became the perfect location for the headquarters for the Agents of Chaos. Icari found this out through hacking the government’s mainframe. She decided to put an end to them once and for all. Icari also wanted to know what their connection was to the Prospers. She raced floor to floor eliminating their commanders and whoever she came across. Soon, she found the last remaining members as she stalked
them in the lower parts of the building with her curved blades ready to strike. Icari cornered them ready to end the threat of the Agents of Chaos. They knew that they were out of bullets and out of time. They huddled in fear from what they perceived to be their inevitable demise.
“Wait! Please, don’t kill us.” Agent 1 said with fear in their voice.
Icari was shocked and amused as she stopped and said, “Wait…what? Why shouldn’t I?”
“Be…because we are extremely sorry for all of the stuff that we have done.” Agent 1 replied.
Icari scoffed and started to move closer to them. She suddenly froze when she received a notice of an incoming call. Icari smiled when she saw that it was from Project Autumn.
Icari looked at the Agents and said, “Hey, can you all give me some time. I really need to answer this call.” Icari answered the call with a French accent. “Hello, Mademoiselle Autumn. Is everything alright?”
“Did. Did she just put us on hold?” Agent 1 asked.
“I know right and what’s up with the French accent?” Agent 2 replied.
Icari glared at the agents and put a finger to her lips to silence them. They quickly covered their mouths with their hands with fear in their eyes.
Autumn replied, “Hi, Juliette. It is so good to hear your voice. Yes, everything is fine. I am packing for my mission to Rio. I was bored and lonely. I started to think about you and how much I really miss you.”
Icari smiled as she sat down on a desk facing the agents and said. “Aww. That is sweet of you to say. I have been thinking about you too.”
Autumn said, “I hope that I am not bothering you or anything. Are you busy right now?”
Icari replied, “No, not at all. I was taking care of something easy, but it can wait.”
Autumn quickly replied, “Are you sure? We can talk later if you want.”
Icari smiled and said, “No, it’s okay. I am sure that we can talk now.”
Meanwhile, the remaining Agents of Chaos began to argue with one another about what they
should do. Icari could hear their bickering and became extremely annoyed with everything that they were saying. She stood up and glared at them.
Icari counted the remaining agents, sighed, and said, “Autumn, give me a moment, please. It should take me… about thirty seconds to finish this simple task.”
Autumn replied, “Umm…sure. Take your time. I will be here when you are done. Please don’t take too long.”
Icari smiled and said, “Thank you, Mademoiselle. I promise not to keep you waiting long.”
Icari lunged at the remaining agents as they backed away in horror. Fifteen seconds later, Icari had taken care of the last remaining Agent of Chaos. She picked up a cloth and cleaned her daggers. Icari put them away before she pulled out a black disc out of her pocket. She headed towards their command center.
Icari asked, “Autumn, are you still with me?”
Autumn quickly replied, “Yes, yes. I am still here.”
Icari smiled as she put the disc on the main computer’s case and pushed a button as lights began to light up clockwise. She smiled and said, “Thank you for waiting.”
Autumn smiled and replied, “You’re welcome. I would have waited longer.” Autumn teased as she continued. “But… I guess the issue wasn’t as difficult as you thought.”
Icari laughed and said as she left the command center, “Sorry, I suppose I overestimated how difficult the issue would be.”
Autumn laughed and said, “I guess that I wouldn’t know, but the reason that I called you earlier than normal is I have news that I couldn’t wait to tell you at our normal time.”
Icari picked up a bag as she headed down the stairs to the basement where the building’s support beams were located. Icari said, “News? I appreciate you calling me to give us more time to talk, but what is the news?”
Autumn replied as Icari put small boxes with tubes filled with a green and yellow substance on the support beams and flipped a switch, “Yes, I was told earlier today, that after I get back from the mission to Rio, I will take part in the next gauntlet to decide who I may get paired with. What do you think?”
Icari was shocked and froze when she heard the news. She became scared that it would become a lot more difficult for her to see Autumn. Many feelings and thoughts ran through her head.
Autumn became concerned and asked, “Juliette, are you still there?”
Icari shook her head and replied, “Sorry, to make you concerned, and I am happy for you. Are you excited about your mission to Rio?”
Icari threw the empty bag aside after she placed the last box. She started to head back up the steps to the command center.
Autumn was excited as she replied, “I am super excited to be going for a couple weeks. They said that I deserve it from all of the stuff that I have dealt with lately. It will be two weeks of nothing but swimming and relaxing in the summer air.” Autumn became nervous as she continued. “B-but I- I w-wish that you could be there. It would be my first Valentine’s Day spending it with someone that I really like.”
Icari saw that all of the lights were lit green as she retrieved the black disc. She smiled and said, “Well. Mademoiselle, I may be able to make your wish come true.”
Autumn was shocked as she said, “Really? Tell me you aren’t joking or teasing me. Are you being serious?”
Icari had walked down the stairs to a door that led to an alley. She smiled and replied, “I would not joke or tease you to turn around and break your heart. I cannot make any promises, but I will make sure that I will do my best to help your wish come true.”
Icari walked out the door and pushed a button on her wrist. Suddenly, a black and red motorcycle appeared in the shadows with a black and red helmet with cat ears on it.
Autumn was sad as she said, “I understand. I thought that it would be a great time spending the two weeks with you instead of alone by myself.”
Icari sat on the motorcycle and put on the helmet. The sun started to peek in the east sky. She started
up the motorcycle as she replied, “Do not be sad, Autumn. I promise you that you will have my answer by the time that you land in Rio. You might be surprised by what I can do in such a short period of time.”
Icari pushed a button on her motorcycle as she drove off and disappeared from site. She pushed another button that caused an explosion behind her, and the building collapsed into dust.
Autumn blushed and said, “I believe you and look forward to your answer. Listen, I have to finish packing, eat dinner, and shower. Can I call you later?”
Icari smiled as she replied, “I understand, and you can call me whenever you like. I look forward to talking to you soon, Mademoiselle Autumn.”
Autumn said, “I look forward to talking to you soon too, Juliette. Bye for now.”
Icari said, “Bye for now.” There was a small click. Icari sighed before she continued. “Watcher, are you there?”
Watcher scoffed. “Yes, I am here. Are you done flirting with your girlfriend?” Watcher said annoyed.
Icari snapped back, “I wasn’t flirting with her, and she isn’t my girlfriend. Listen. When I get back to the safe house, I will be uploading the files that I uploaded from the Agents of Chaos mainframe. I need you to decipher the files to see if they were working for the Prospers and any other useful information.”
“Anything else?” Watcher asked.
Icari replied, “Yes, I need you to immediately hack into the system and book a flight for me from Harrisburg to Rio De Janeiro. I need a limousine to take myself and Autumn to the harbor, where a boat will ferry us to a beach home on Paqueta Island. We will be there for two weeks. Put everything under the name Juliette Trudeau.”
“Why should I?” Watcher asked abrasively.
Icari replied, “Well, you have two choices. Either I am out of your hair for two weeks, or I make your life a living hell for the next two weeks. Then, I still book it on my own. You choose.”
“Fine. Fine. It’s not like I care if you spend time with your girlfriend or not. Everything will be taken care of by the time you make it to the safe house and upload the files.” Watcher replied.
Icari snapped back, “For the last time, she is not my girlfriend! And thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t mention it. It is kind of nice to see you happy once more. Have fun and
remember that we have a war to win.” Watcher said kindly.
Icari smiled and said, “Yeah, I won’t forget.”
An hour and a half later, Icari pulled into the safe house in Harrisburg. She pushed a button on her motorcycle and the garage door opened. Icari pushed the button, and it closed. She pushed another button, and they became visible once more. Icari took off her helmet and placed it on her motorcycle. She walked to a wall in the garage and revealed a secret panel. Icari inputted the code, and a secret staircase was revealed. She walked down the stairs as the wall closed behind her. A room lit up as she opened the door. The computer turned on and system was running. Icari approached the computer as she took the black disc out of her pocket. She put the disc on a reader. The lights flashed on and worked in reverse. Icari received the itinerary, confirmation for the rentals, and digital tickets. As the disc was uploaded to their mainframe, Icari walks to a closet marked for Juliette. She opened up the closet and pulled out two bags already packed for her for two weeks in a summer environment. Icari closed the door. When she was done, she walked over to check the disc and saw that it was fully uploaded. Icari grabbed the bags and walked up the stairs. When she got near the top, the computer shut down, door sealed closed, and the secret door into the garage opened. After Icari had passed, the door closed and sealed shut. Icari walked into a normal home and left the bags near the front door. She cooked lunch at the same time Autumn would call her. They talked for a few hours before Autumn headed to bed. Soon, Autumn and Icari headed to their perspective airports to start their journey to Rio. Five hours and forty-five minutes later, Juliette’s plan landed at the International Airport in Rio
De Janeiro. She grabbed her carry-on bag and went to get her check in luggage. Juliette headed for the main doors and walked out into a sunny midmorning day. The air was refreshing, and it was already setting up to be a warm day. Juliette had made sure to change her appearance before she left for the airport. Juliette looked around and saw a limousine. The driver was standing outside it. He was holding a sign with Juliette Trudeau written on it in big letters. She smiled and walked over to him. The driver eyed her as she approached.
Juliette said,” Olá, eu sou Juliette Trudeau.”
The driver lowered the sign. “Olá, eu estive esperando por você, Sra. Trudeau.” The driver replied.
Juliette smiled and asked, “Can I see your sign while you put in my bags in the trunk, please?”
The driver bowed. “As you wish, Sra. Trudeau. Your guest should arrive soon from Brussels.” The driver replied as he handed over the sign and a marker.
Juliette smiled as she took the sign and marker from the driver while she said, “Obrigado.”
“De nada, Sra. Trudeau.” The driver said as he placed Juliette’s luggage in the back.
He walked to where Juliette was and took the sign and marker from her. The driver opened the door for Juliette to get in. When she was seated, he closed the door and stood outside of the limousine. Thirty minutes later, Juliette’s heart began to race as she saw Autumn walk out of the airport with her luggage in tow. Autumn had put on her glasses and looked around. She froze when she looked towards the limousine. Autumn slowly walked over to the driver.
Autumn cautiously said, “Hi, I am Project Autumn. Are you looking for me?”
The driver bowed. “Yes, I have been expecting you, Sra. Autumn. Let me put your luggage in the trunk.” The driver replied.
Autumn thought, “I never would think that Project Chameleon would have a limo waiting for me at the airport.”
Autumn replied, “Umm… sure. Thank you.”
The driver opened the door for Autumn to get in. He closed the door after she was comfortably seated in the back of the limousine. Autumn watched the driver take her stuff to the back. She was startled, and her heartbeat faster when she heard the sound of a familiar voice from inside the limousine.
Juliette smiled and said, “Hello, Mademoiselle, Autumn.”
Autumn instinctively lunged at Juliette as she turned to face her and kissed her lips. She immediately realized what she had done from the shocked look on Juliette’s face and blushed as she moved away. Juliette smiled and took Autumn’s hands into her own.
Autumn said, “Hi, and I’m sorry Juliette. I don’t know what came over me. I just got so excited that you were here.” Autumn took a deep breath before she continued. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
Juliette replied, “It’s okay. I am happy to see you too. I told you that you would have my answer by the time that you had landed here. I thought that the best way for me to give you my answer was to be here in person to give it to you.”
They heard the sound of the trunk closing and saw the driver walk down the side of the limousine to the driver’s door. He opened it, got in, closed the door, and started the engine. He pulled away from the cub and headed towards the pier.
Autumn said, “I am really glad that you brought your answer to me. When did you get here? How long will you be able to stay here?”
Juliette squeezed Autumn’s hands and smiled as she replied, “So am I. I got here around two hours before you did. If it is alright with you, I plan on being here the entire two weeks that you are.”
Autumn smiled as she said, “Yes, yes. That would be perfect for me. But…where are we headed?”
Juliette winked as she replied, “It is a secret, and you will have to find out when we get there.”
The driver drove them through town as they talked in the back of the limousine. When they arrived at the pier, The driver parked the limousine and got out. He went to the side and opened the
door. Autumn and Juliette got out and looked around. They spotted a yacht ready to go as the driver took their luggage out of the trunk. Some men came over and grabbed their luggage, and they followed them onto the yacht as the limousine pulled away. Thirty minutes later the yacht pulled away from the pier and headed towards a small island. Autumn looked around excitedly as Juliette smiled and watched her reactions. Soon, they had docked at the island. Another limousine was waiting at the pier as they got off the yacht. The same two men carried their luggage off of the yacht, and the driver put the luggage in the trunk of the limousine after Autumn and Juliette got in. They drove them a little ways until they reached an office building. Juliette got out and checked in. She came back out with their keys. The driver drove them to the beach front rental home. As Autumn got out, she was amazed. She turned to face Juliette as the driver took their luggage out of the trunk.
Juliette smiled brightly as she said, “Surprise.”
Autumn was still shocked as she asked, “Are we staying here the entire time?
Juliette nodded as she replied, “Oui, this is the rental home that I had reserved for us the two weeks. Are you surprised?”
Autumn looked at home and back at Juliette. She blushed as she replied, “Very much so. I can’t believe that you would go through all of this trouble just for me. Thank you.”
Juliette smiled and said, “It was no trouble at all to see you. You’re very welcome. Shall we go inside?”
Autumn blushed and replied, “Yes, I would like that.”
They grabbed their luggage and headed to the front door. Juliette pulled out the key cards and handed one to Autumn. She swiped the key card reader. It beeped, turned green, and an audible click could be heard signaling that it had been unlocked. They headed inside and were at awe from how beautiful everything looked. They looked around and saw two large rooms, a kitchen, patio, living room, both rooms had a bathroom, a breakfast nook, pool, jacuzzi, grill, study, and everything that someone would need. They walked back to the bedrooms.
Juliette asked, “Which room would you like to take?”
Autumn looked away and replied, “Well…I was…thinking that…that we could share…the same room, if…if you don’t mind.”
Juliette smiled and replied, “I don’t mind. I would enjoy that very much.”
Autumn smiled and said, “I would like that too.”
They picked the largest room and took their stuff in there. They put everything away and decided to change into their swimsuits. They headed to the beach and swam for a while. Autumn and Juliette grew closer through the days. They spent every day together. On Valentine’s Day, they went swimming when the sun rose. Autumn and Juliette came back and feed each other chocolates and ate chocolates. They laughed and were having fun until Juliette remembered that soon Autumn would leave for the labyrinth to run the gauntlet and became sad. Autumn noticed this and became concerned.
Autumn was concerned as she asked, “What is wrong, Juliette? Why are you so sad?”
Juliette frowned as she replied, “I just remembered that you will be going away soon for the gauntlet
where they will team you up with a new partner. Then, there will be no room for me in your…”
Juliette was shocked as she looked up at Autumn who had put her finger on her lips.
Autumn smiled warmly as she said, “No one will take your place in my heart, Juliette. I don’t care who they pair me with, but you will be the only one for me. So, do not worry about that. I will always be only yours.”
Juliette smiled and lunged forward knocking Autumn over and the chocolates onto the floor. She kissed Autumn deeply. The day past and was the best Valentine’s Day Autumn ever had. She woke up the next morning to realize that Juliette wasn’t in bed with her. Autumn could hear Juliette’s voice carrying in from the patio. She decided to see what is going on. She was sleepy as she got up, stretched and yawned as she put on a robe. She walked to the patio as she rubbed her eyes.
Juliette said, “.... Yes I... I promise that...See you...I.., you.”
Autumn smiled when she saw Juliette watching the sun rise. She was in a robe and held a cup of coffee. Autumn walked over to Juliette and hugged her from behind. She caught the smell of the coffee, the morning air, the beach, and Juliette’s hair. Juliette smiled and giggled from Autumn’s warm embrace. She leaned back into her. Then, Juliette turned around to face Autumn and handed her the mug that she was holding as she leaned against the railing. Autumn sipped coffee and smiled.
Juliette said, “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
Autumn smiled and nodded as she replied, “Good morning. I slept very well. I woke up, and you weren’t in bed. I heard you talking to someone. Is everything okay? Who were you talking to?”
Juliette took the mug from Autumn as she replied, “I am sorry to have worried you. I am usually back in bed before you wake up. Yes, everything is fine. I was talking to Dr. Hubert like I do every morning to make sure everything is okay back at home. You know that you could always just run away with me. I know a place where they will never find us. We could start a new life together.”
Autumn smiled warmly as she said, “I am glad everything is going well back home for you. I would like that, but you know that I can’t leave. We would have to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives on the run.”
Juliette frowned, looked at the mug, and replied, “I know, and I wouldn’t want to live on the run either.” Juliette paused before she continued. “I just have a bad feeling about this. Please, stay safe.”
Autumn put her hands on Juliette’s as she replied, “I will be safe. There is nothing to worry about. The gauntlet is completely safe, because only training rounds are allowed to tally up scores. I will call you immediately after it is over to prove that nothing happened to me.”
Juliette looked into Autumns eyes and said, “I hope that you are right.”
The rest of the time flew by and soon they headed back to the airport for their flights. Autumn left first, and Juliette left next. Juliette landed in Harrisburg International Airport. Autumn landed at Brussels. They had a quick conversation as Icari made it to the safe house. After they hung up, Icari got a phone call from Watcher.
“Hey, Icari. I hope that you had fun. I went over the files that you sent me, but I couldn’t decode them. So, I…” Watcher started to say.
There was a brief pause before a monotone girl’s voice spoke. “Hi, mommy. We need to talk.” The girl said.

I have a 3.5yo son. He’s high spirited, super fun and passionate, and such a loving kid. He’s also quite emotional and somewhat introverted as a Covid baby. He is slow to make a new friend but once he does it makes him so happy and he really clings to that person.
We just moved and several doors down there is a group of 7-8 year old girls that play almost every day. One of them is on the spectrum (per her relative she lives with) and has taken a liking to my son. He goes to daycare, but she comes over in the middle of the day to ask if he can play later and justify why he should. She follows our car into our driveway to stop him before he gets inside. She comes to our door at dinner right after we tell her we are eating to ask if he can play. She comes again a lot of evenings bedtime because it’s light and she gets to stay out because she’s older.
It’s wildly disruptive for my son and for our routine. Her parents are never outside and are not typically “neighborly”. She plays a lot on her own outside, riding her bike in the street, racing her Krazy kart into the street without care for cars, etc. I wouldn’t feel safe letting my son participate and I obviously would be out with him but don’t want to feel responsible for her too since her parents aren’t out. When I say no she is disrespectful, mocks me to her friends out loud so I can hear, and calls me sassy. I am not taking it personally because she’s 7 and also on the spectrum but it is not helping her case.
I’m not sure how to address this. Am I just being an inflexible neighbor? We have several other friends my sons age on the street that we have a mutual understanding of “garage open, come on up, garage down, no thank you” and we don’t knock on our doors unannounced.
I feel like I’m being negative and short to this little girl by constantly saying no he can’t play but I simply don’t think it’s appropriate given the safety concerns as well as the age gap and the fact my son can’t actually play with them.
I don’t want to feel like a prisoner in my own home but dealing with the near constant barrage of requests and upsetting her and my son by saying no multiple times a day makes it almost not worth going outside.
Am I stuck? Any suggestions on how to handle this?

Am I being mentally abused or am I the problem??
Im asking this question because I don’t know what to believe anymore.
My older sister seems to always want to pick a fight with me.
For example, I’m watching TV and I have my laptop while eating breakfast by myself. She comes home with hot food and doesn’t ever ask me if I’m hungry. I always ask her if she wants anything when I’m out and most of the time she says yes.
Anyway, she comes in and says “Do you know I pay for the electricity”
and I said, “What’s the problem?” My laptop is running on battery so the only thing on is the tv. Then she says, “Well pick one unless you want to pay for electricity.”
I pay for the internet which is three times more than electricity. But I don’t bring it up or cap her data usage. I learned from the past that it’s better to just stay quiet because it’s not worth fighting. So I turned off the TV.
She goes to the kitchen took look for anything she can blame me for. She opens the microwave, and asks, “Have you seen the microwave?” I said, “What’s wrong with it?” She said, “It's dirty ass hell.” I replied, “Well if I saw it was dirty I woulda cleaned it.”
Then she replies, “No you wouldn’t you don’t do shit. You wait for me to do everything. When do you mop the floor?” What she doesn’t know is I do all of these things but I just don’t report it or tell anyone because I’m an adult. I’m 31 years old. It’s’ probably 11 AM I don’t want to start my day like this.
She never has anything nice to say. Yesterday, she got mad that I parked my car in the garage. She said, “Why did you park in the garage?” I usually park on the street but I just got back from the doctor and I could barely walk. My foot was swollen doctor said to lie down as soon as I get home and keep my feet elevated.
So she comes downstairs (knowing I just got back from the doctor, I asked her if she can take me and she said I can't take care of you. All I wanted was a ride. had it been the other way around I wouldn't let her drive herself to the hospital, I would take her and stay with her.
So she tells me, ugh you're useless I always have to do everything!
Which is not true.. she actually has beef with my cousin right now because my cousin told her the same thing. She said.. “we moved grandpa here to my house because you guys don't do anything to help him. Only we do when we visit”
So she and my cousin are not speaking because of the same reason that she’s mad at me. Supposably, I don't do anything. I do so much for her especially before I was diagnosed with a disability. It was only when I stopped working she started being more violent toward me.
We use to have a joke in the family that we were born in the wrong order because I use to pay for all her cell phones, cell phone bills, and food, and when she was on the run cause my mom kicked her out when we were teenagers I was the one helping her survive by giving her and her bf money which I know they used for drugs maybe. She's not an addict but her ex-bf is an addict.
So I’m at the dinner table and I decide I don't want to have this conversation because it's not worth the fight. My home is a lot better when we are getting along. Then she chases me and tells me to put my food away and I said I will but I don't want to be near you right now. You’re being violent.
Then she follows me up the stairs and tells me that I’m going to end up a lonely man and no girl is ever going to want to be with me because I'm such a pig. Her boyfriend comes in the house and tells me to just go in my room then she proceeds to take the dishes that I left on the table and placed them in front of my door.
I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm asking for evidence or some kind of idea about what I’m doing. Am I really the problem? Why does she hate me so much? I told her once that I loved her and whatever it is that changed the way she looked at me, I told her I apologize. I said Im sorry I wasn't a better brother.
I’m not asking for who is right or wrong. I don’t think that matters. But I feel like I’m being mentally abused, gaslighted, or maybe Im being too sensitive. She literally will find anything she can around the house just to bitch as me about. I think she gets happy when she finds out I fucked up somewhere in the house and she just loves to point it out.
I remember when I bought her an iPhone X when it first came out and she destroyed the phone within hours of having it because we unfortunately had to change her number. She said its all my fault and she threw the iPhone to the wall and shattered it. I felt bad because I didn't know we were getting new numbers. I apologized.
I called Sprint and figured out a way to get her old number back. It took a few days but I was able to. and I had to buy a new iPhone X because she destroyed the first one. When I told her her phone came in the mail and her number was restored. She pulls out an iPhone X and says she got her own now. I was furious but I just said whatever as long as we’re getting along that's what my mom would want. mom passed away years ago.. she never apologized. She didn't even give me her new number for maybe two years.
I guess what am i asking is…
what can I do to be a better brother?

I currently live in Fort Collins, Colorado. I've never had a significant (or even mild) issue with a landlord before, but my current living situation has me on edge. The most severe problem I've had with my current property is that my car was stolen directly out of my leased parking spot in a garage under the apartment building during a period where one of two garage doors was left open in disrepair. It's been perpetually open since at least September of last year. The police found my car, and I have gotten it fixed, and since the theft in January I've been repeatedly bugging management to repair the door to no avail.
The other thing that bothers me about this door is that there is no lock on the door into the building from the garage. Access to the garage allows unrestricted access to the rest of the building. Is it reasonable to consider theft of tenant property, a lack of security measures, and explicit refusal to remedy the issue (They have emailed my verbatim "Your lease does not promise a secured parking space," ignoring my concerns about security to the rest of the building) a breach of the Colorado Warranty of Habitability?
Is it worth contacting an attorney? Thanks in advance for any insight.

Can’t get the Homelink programmed for the life of me. We have a Sommer garage door opener, and I’ve tried the instructions in the manual, YouTube videos from Hyundai and instructions from Sommer. No luck. Anyone have tips?

I’m actually sick to death hearing about motorbikes being stolen and people saying: “I put the steering lock on” “It was kept in a garage” “I only popped in for a minute” “I didn’t hear anything”
My Nan could pop a steering lock, it’s not difficult or loud. Please buy a disc lock and a budget alarm at best. That will deter some thieves. Even the cheap alarm will have back up batteries and cause a problem. You can link them to your batter if you don’t want to spend money or a garage can wire it to the ignition. It’s hard to stop the white van pulling up and throwing your pride and joy in the van if you don’t have a chain and padlock attached to an anchor or lamp post, but it will at least stop the petty moped gangs. I have abus disc lock front that spins when you try to grind it, a cheap oxford rear disc lock, abus heavy duty padlock with 18mm thick chain with chain cover (want 22mm ideally does cost a lot more) around the rear wheel to a lamp post and another chain through the swing arm, plus a cover and cheap alarm plus Honda HISS immobiliser. If they are honestly going through that then I’m going to hear it. If you have a garage like I did and they got in for my dirt bikes I had 6 chains and padlocks which they couldn’t get through. Happened to be the one night I was drunk and left the alarm off but took them two hours to get no where caught on cctv. That’s another thing cctv just records it happening are you going to get a notification to wake you when the motion goes off on your ring camera… probably not. Alarm your sheds, garages and bikes!! Lock your shit up and don’t think out of site out of mind!!! People get followed and drummed at a later date. If it’s in site lock that shit up!!! To something that can’t be moved. 5 bikes in one week have gone in my area to stupid moped thieves. I don’t care if you have ridden for years or just started out head the word always lock your motorbikes up!!!! Doesn’t matter if you in the village, town or city same rules apply.
I do love my bikes but it’s disheartening seeing all these bikes being stolen when they shouldn’t be. Yes I would love to live in a country where I can leave my bike out side with no security, but unfortunately we don’t. If anyone even attempts to say their quaint little village has zero crime don’t bother reply you will get followed on a ride and your bike will get stolen from your garage door picked with a spam tin opener key, with your no chain anchored bike, with zero alarm.

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The Flash

• Rotten Tomatoes 72% (71 Reviews)

While it plays too much like a sizzle reel of DC's greatest hits to fully stand on its own two feet, The Flash has enough heart and zip to maintain a confident stride.

• Metacritic: 60 (28 Reviews)

Reviews
The Hollywood Reporter:

If The Flash ultimately proves uneven, its wobbly climactic showdown far less interesting than the more character-driven buildup, the story’s core of a young man struggling to reconcile with the loss of his mother carries it through.

Variety:

In The Flash, the multiverse of possibilities that opens up by toying with the past becomes an excuse to throw everything but the Batcave sink at the audience.

Deadline:

Easily the best in the genre since Spiderman: No Way Home, this fresh, invigorating, and hugely entertaining summer treat is as good as it gets when it comes to cinematic takes on superheroes.

IndieWire (B-):

Taken on its own merits, Andy Muschietti’s film has lots to offer, and frequently shows flashes (apologies) of brilliance that set it a cut above most of its existing DC Universe brethren.

The Wrap:

A movie that spends all its time racing from one poorly-thought out story element to another, from one only modestly satisfying nostalgia shout-out to another, and with only questionable results. How fitting, yet how disappointing: The Flash has the runs.

USA Today (3/4):

Worth the hype, though trying to do so much also leads to a head-scratching kitchen-sink climax.

TotalFilm (3/5):

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Barry Allen’s fitfully fun, fan-service-freighted headline act sometimes looks like an expanded universe imploding to ambitious but often messy effect.

IGN (7/10):

The superhero fan service is strong with this one – perhaps too strong at times – but it never fully overshadows Barry Allen’s genuinely tragic and heartfelt story of grief.

AV Club (B-):

It’s sometimes buried under layers and layers of storytelling knots that the film never fully untangles, but the fun is there, and when the film is really working, that turns out to be enough.

Rolling Stone:

The Flash is, by far, the best movie to come out of this modern, post-Nolan Warners/DC collaboration...

Guardian (2/5):

Despite some diverting touches, Miller’s smirking, gurning, mugging doppelganger performance is a trial and in any case gets lost in the inevitable third-act CGI battle apocalypse.

Screen Rant (2/5):

The Flash is a passable multiverse superhero movie, but no amount of DC cameos can make audiences forget the awful off-screen actions of Ezra Miller.

Independent:

The Flash, much like Barry himself, has been stranded with no real sense of history, and no real sense of the future, either. It does the best it can.

ScreenCrush (6/10):

Michael Keaton’s Batman return saves this movie.

Entertainment Weekly (C+):

It's well-trod territory at this point, even for a speedster.

Uproxx:

What makes Andy Muschietti’s The Flash a great movie is it’s not about saving the universe.

London Evening Standard (4/5):

This is one of the best superhero movies of the 21st century so far. Just sit back and enjoy the flashes of greatness.

Slash Film (7.5/10):

The Flash is a funny, emotional, action-heavy crowd-pleaser.

Slant Magazine (2.5/4):

Nothing Batman or Supergirl do in 'The Flash' to save the world is more effective than what Barry Allen does to save it with a hug and a can of tomatoes.

Austin Chronicle (2/5):

It’s a pitiful disservice to itself, turning a relatively fun, if rocky, movie into nothing but another product designed as a carousel where you can point at things and people you recognize.

The Times (2/5):

A morally specious movie that’s mostly about reflogging the cultural canon of an entertainment conglomerate.

Forbes:

The Flash is one of its strongest entries and should, even with some flaws, be considered a jewel in the DCU crown.

People's Magazine:

This is [Ezra Miller's] first time shouldering the weight of an entire D.C. Justice League vehicle. They carry the whole thing easily, practically in the palm of their hand, as if it were the remote control to the Batcave's garage door.

Collider:

Cameos and fan service are fine to have, but the story has to be there to back them up, and it’s not quite there with The Flash.

Polygon:

The Flash is a bright, colorful, imaginative film with enough verve to pop off the screen, even though it’s often nonsensical in its wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.

Paste Magazine:

While director Andy Muschietti lets bad FX, in-joke cameos and muddled time-travel mechanics sprawl out on the couch and stay awhile longer, within its template the movie does have a peculiar, likable energy.

NME (4/5):

A funny, action-packed and, of course, fast-paced adventure follows – with a surprisingly moving emotional centre.

MovieWeb (4/5):

Ezra Miller saves the Snyderverse in a stunning superhero adaptation that gloriously lives up to the hype. The Flash is the DC film that fans have been aching to see.

ThePlaylist (C):

Considering how “The Flash” makes many of its characters face death and inevitability throughout, “The Flash” should not feel as hollow as it does.

Synopsis:

Worlds collide in “The Flash” when Barry uses his superpowers to travel back in time in order to change the events of the past. But when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation, and there are no Super Heroes to turn to. That is, unless Barry can coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian… albeit not the one he’s looking for. Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry’s only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?

Cast:

• Ezra Miller as Barry Allen / The Flash
  
• Sasha Calle as Kara Zor-El / Supergirl
  
• Michael Shannon as General Zod
  
• Ron Livingston as Henry Allen
  
• Maribel Verdú as Nora Allen
  
• Kiersey Clemons as Iris West
  
• Antje Traue as Faora-Ul
  
• Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne / Batman:
  
• Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman
  
• Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth
  

Directed by: Andy Muschietti
Screenplay by: Christina Hodson
Story by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, and Joby Harold
Produced by: Barbara Muschietti, Michael Disco
Cinematography: Henry Braham
Edited by: Jason Ballantine and Paul Machliss
Music by: Benjamin Wallfisch
Running time: 144 minutes
Release date: June 16, 2023

Just out of curiosity. I’ve always wondered what these racers on tv did for a living considering the astronomical cost of racing NPK. I’ve seen some of the racer’s YouTube channels where they stated or showed what they do but not all of them are wide open about it. Of course some of the racers have transitioned to full time racing.
My buddy always says “oh, they’re selling meth!!!” Lol
I know of a few racers, feel free to add below if you know of the other racer’s daily grind. ✌️
Chief- HVAC biz, Midwest streetcars shop Ryan M.- co owner of fireball shop Chuck- Race shop owner Dominator- auto shop owner Monza- garage door repair biz Reaper- commercial construction biz Jim Howe- race shop owner? John Odom- commercial construction biz Kye Kelley- worked in the oil fields Kahlee Mills- family construction biz Lizzy- pretty obvious Mike Bowman- construction/ earth moving-heavy machinery Justin Swanstrom- sewedrain system maintenance contractor biz
I might have gotten some of this wrong so don’t hesitate to correct me.

I'd like to give context on my mental state at the time that was a major influence on my decision making. I have BPD like symptoms. Most being abandonment paranoia and co dependancy.
I had this online friend, let's call him John, for this post. We were friends for a while, and for a bit he seemed pretty cool. There were some red flags to start off with, he had a lot of conflicts with people, and his friend group would always fluctuate because people would be booted away and he'd just be angry.
He eventually became my " best friend", which I don't know why I ever called him that, because he wasn't always my closest nicest friend. For a few months. He definitely was, but I guess I just held on to that term of endearment because I had co dependancy problems.
He had started dating someone from my hometown. Let's call him. Aaron. Things went good for a while and I became really close with Aaron. Because Aaron needed help on how to talk to John. Later on that year, John came down to visit both of us. We had a wonderful time and things went pretty great.
My grandmother had a spare rental house, and she had cleaned it up so me and John could live in there because he would need a place to stay after he graduated from Job corps. After that was all arranged. He came down sometime last summer.
Issues arose when it came to light that Aaron had some lewd messages between a friend. They had made up after, but John continued to get more and more angry at him over small stuff. He would send a very long multi-paragraph, abusive and cruel messages over the smallest of issues, even before this he would do the same and to others.
After a dispute about something small, he got a basically an essay telling him he's garbage from John. Aaron decided to cut things off, and showed his friends the type of garbage he was receiving. John showed great anger, and I felt like I had to take a side on this especially since he was the person I was living with. It came to late later , and John told me he had had intercourse with someone at Job corps. He claimed he had already told me this, which I know for a fact he didn't.
Anytime drama would happen between the groups, of friends. I would try to stay uninvolved because I had enough responsibilities to take care of. He basically forced me away, he used anger and manipulation to make me say what he wanted because if I didn't defend him enough I would see hell and rage from him.
Even more important context, John came here with zero job experience , no car, and no driver's license. Do all the driving. Which after a while it came that we'd have to work the same job. Things still went fine though, I got laid off eventually. And John walked off the job right after.
The conflicts became very consistent. They would start with me making a mistake, like a clumsy ADHD mistake because they do have pretty bad ADHD. He would harshly raise his voice and grill me on why I would do something. When I would defend myself, he'd say my excuses are really stupid and get even more upset. This continue to worsen and worsen.
The conflicts got to a point where, there would be a small start, and if I don't make sense to him, it would rise to attend immediately. He would start screaming at me, telling me I'm stupid, telling me to shut up, all sorts of very very mean and cruel things. I've had trauma with my dad being a narcissist, but I've never faced such evil words towards me before.
To top this off he would never do anything. He couldn't cook, he wouldn't clean up after himself, he wouldn't keep up after the place even when I was working and he was not. When questioned about it. He would just claim that I never asked for help, and I would mess something up, you would say that I shouldn't take the liberty of doing stuff if I'm too stupid to do it.
Things continue to get worse, and so this was a weekly to bi-weekly thing. Were something small or a small annoyance would occur, and it would unfold into this argument where he's the one screaming the entire time and ranting on and on, saying how stressful I am, and that I'm lazy, and then I'm stupid and cruel, all sorts of degrading and disheartening things. While on my end, at most I would scoff at him when he was absurd. I've never yelled, I've never resorted to personal attacks.
Looking back, I was gasoline into thinking that I was the problem with everything. Whenever he said something very abusive and cruel, and would scream at me. He would say he knows it was wrong that he did that, but that I'm the only one who drove him to that.
Things escalated, one example being I got him some bananas that he asked for at the store, most of them were green in the store and I got the only yellow batch available. He said they were shit bananas in that he was wondering if I even tried. I defended myself and told him what happened, but he didn't really take it in, and he was still upset. I kept telling him what happened because he wasn't really grasping it. Eventually he's screamed and threw the banana at the chair and exploded all over the place.
I would have to cover a lot of his shifts at work, at least once a week. And during the time I was quitting weed, I couldn't sleep. So I was working back to back shifts without sleep at all. One day I left the house so tired, that I accidentally locked the deadbolt before closing the door without realizing it. The cat got out and he calls me while I'm on lunch telling me to get home cuz the cat got out. I get home and we find him safe in the garage. But he proceeds to yell at me that I'm the stupidest person he's ever met, and that he couldn't imagine meeting as someone as dumb as me and he's dumbfounded at my idiocy. Literally screaming this at me. He says he can't take me, and I'm a burden to him.
2 days later, I have to do an opening shift, and he closes. I inform him I only have 30 minutes to pick him up, on my lunch break. I get home and he's fast asleep still. And I get him up, and he's upset at me for not telling him what time it was. Even though he knew the context of the situation. He argues with me and gets more and more upset, and tell him annoyed that this wouldn't have happened. If he got up on time. He proceeds to blow up on me, saying I don't have the right to make a comment about that towards him when I'm the one who " makes unfathomably stupid mistakes all the time", and while at work he sends me about 20 paragraphs about how much I piss him off and hinder him and whatever.
The next conflict we had, led him punching out a window and bleeding all over the floor telling me that I should be ashamed for pushing him to do that.
He would constantly gaslight me, that my ADHD and communications issues we're a big burden on him. And that I should be ashamed of myself for not trying hard enough.
Eventually, a combination of my meds finally working and no longer feeling codependent, and missing my friends that he made me cut off. Off. Because the friends I had to cut off because of him, especially Aaron, were exponentially more understanding and caring friends who would never treat me like this. I've never had someone in my life treat me like a piece of garbage like he had. It's unreal. I can't show a lot of it here, cuz this would go on for hours.
I eventually told him that he should probably go, which of course led to even more extreme rage from him calling me a soulless piece of garbage for making him go back to his parents.
After the plan of him moving and his mom picking up was set, I contacted the old friend group again. They inform me that John had in fact treated six times on Aaron, and they showed me countless abusive texts that John had sent throughout that period of time that John never showed me.
He will be gone on Saturday, I have a lot to reflect on, on how to notice red flags earlier, and how to not get some of the point where they're taking advantage of me comeconstantlynstantly, and how to set boundaries. I explained the situation to the friends and talked to in months, and they woke me back with open arms. I'm getting my freedom back, I'm getting my friends back, and I have no longer have someone who have to tend for constantly. Like I said I had to feed him, drive him and pick up after him. I couldn't live a life of my own, I felt like a parent. But I'm finally free come Saturday

My garage is my workshop and it gets insanely hot in summer, so I like to keep the doors open, but I work at night and bugs pour in towards my lights. Is there any decent, cost-effective way to keep all the bugs out but let eve air in?

-One Of Us- Mari's head pulsed with pain as he awoke in an unfamiliar bedroom, his memory shrouded in a thick fog. He quickly surveyed his surroundings, spotting his scattered belongings and the glimmer of his sword hanging on the wall. Perplexed, his gaze shifted to the door, where the number 25 caught his attention. As Mari ventured out of the room, he discovered Kael seated in a nearby chair, lazily smoking a cigarette. Relief washed over him at the sight of a familiar face, but the disorientation remained. Tentatively, he approached Kael, his voice betraying his uncertainty. "Did I just crash in someone else's room?" Mari questioned, hoping for some clarity. Kael's lips curled into a mischievous grin, leaving Mari on edge. "No, my friend," Kael replied, a hint of amusement in his voice. "That's actually your room. You've made quite the impression last night." Confusion mingled with a tinge of embarrassment as Mari struggled to recall the events leading up to this peculiar situation. How had he ended up here? And what had he done to leave such an impression? The answers seemed just out of reach, teasing him from the recesses of his memory. "Lets get some coffee in you," said Kael, offering a gesture of comfort amidst the confusion. Mari nodded in agreement, grateful for the prospect of some much-needed clarity. They made their way to the kitchen, where the aroma of freshly brewed coffee permeated the air. To Mari's surprise, a hot pot of coffee sat waiting on the counter, as if anticipating his arrival. Kael deftly poured a steaming cup and turned to Mari, a question on his lips. "How do you want it?" Kael asked, his voice filled with genuine concern. Mari's hand instinctively reached for his throbbing head as he pondered the question. "Black," Mari replied, his voice tinged with a hint of fatigue. He needed the bitterness of the dark brew to jolt his senses back to reality, hoping it would alleviate the remnants of his hangover. As Mari accepted the cup, the warmth radiating from it provided a soothing contrast to the fog in his mind. Sipping the coffee, he hoped that the bitter liquid would not only invigorate his senses but also help unravel the enigmatic haze that surrounded him. Mari took a grateful sip of the black coffee, feeling its warmth spread through his body. The bitter taste began to awaken his senses, gradually easing the lingering effects of the night before. As he leaned against the kitchen counter, Mari turned his attention back to Kael. Mari nodded appreciatively, taking in Kael's words. The sip of coffee bolstered his resolve, infusing him with a newfound sense of determination. "Thanks for the coffee and the room," Mari acknowledged, his voice filled with gratitude. "Even if the memories elude me, it seems that fate has guided me to this place. Perhaps it's time for me to embrace this new chapter, to discover the possibilities that await." Kael's eyes sparkled with understanding as he nodded in agreement. "Indeed, my friend. Sometimes, life has a way of leading us to where we need to be, even if we can't comprehend the journey. Embrace the uncertainty and let the adventures unfold." With a renewed sense of purpose, Mari finished his coffee, feeling the lingering effects of the hangover dissipate. He was ready to face whatever lay ahead, to unravel the mysteries of his new surroundings, and to forge his path within this enigmatic refuge. Armed with gratitude, resilience, and a touch of curiosity, he ventured forth into the unknown, eager to discover the wonders that awaited him.
-Journey to BoreStone City- Mari and Kael walked outside, the cool breeze refreshing against their faces. Kael's eyes sparkled mischievously as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small remote. With a sly grin, he pressed a button, and to Mari's astonishment, a sleek, blue car emerged from the nearby garage, hovering effortlessly above the ground. Mari's jaw dropped in awe as he watched the futuristic vehicle glide towards them. Its streamlined design and captivating blue hue evoked a sense of adventure and excitement. He couldn't help but be intrigued by what lay ahead. With a playful gesture, Kael ushered Mari towards the open doors of the car. Mari eagerly stepped inside, feeling a surge of anticipation coursing through his veins. The car's interior exuded comfort and sophistication, making him feel both exhilarated and at ease. As Mari settled into his seat, he couldn't help but express his amazement. "This is incredible, Kael! Where did you get this?" Kael chuckled, his eyes twinkling with delight. "Let's just say we have our connections," he replied, tapping his nose playfully. "Now, buckle up. We're about to take this baby for a spin." With a press of a button, the doors closed smoothly, enclosing Mari and Kael in the vehicle. The car hummed to life, its propulsion system activating, and then lifted off the ground, hovering effortlessly. Mari's heart raced with a mix of excitement and wonder as the vehicle soared speedily into the sky. As they ascended higher, Mari couldn't help but ask, "Where are we headed, Kael?" A mischievous smile spread across Kael's face as he replied, "BoreStone City, my friend. We've got official business to attend to." Mari's eyes widened with curiosity, his mind buzzing with anticipation. BoreStone City held a reputation as a hub of intrigue and opportunities. He eagerly leaned back in his seat, ready to embrace the unknown and embark on this exhilarating journey alongside Kael. "This feels like I'm back in my spaceship," Mari exclaimed, a flicker of nostalgia crossing his features. Kael chuckled, nodding in agreement. "It's almost exactly like a spaceship, isn't it? The sleek design, the advanced technology. But the only difference is, it's not built for space travel. This beauty is made for soaring through the skies, exploring the wonders of the atmosphere." Mari's eyes gleamed with excitement as he took in the realization. While the car may not traverse the vastness of space, it offered an opportunity to experience the thrill of flight within Silaritta's boundaries. The thought of navigating through the air, witnessing landscapes from above, and embracing the freedom of movement filled him with a renewed sense of adventure. As the car continued to glide effortlessly, Mari couldn't help but feel a surge of gratitude towards Kael for this unexpected journey. It was a reminder that the refuge they found themselves in was brimming with surprises and possibilities, each moment offering a chance to step outside the realm of the ordinary. He leaned back, allowing the sensation of flight to wash over him, as the car propelled them closer to BoreStone City. Mari's mind raced with anticipation, wondering what adventures awaited them in this bustling metropolis. He was ready to embrace the exhilaration of the present moment and immerse himself in the official business that awaited them, eager to see what this new chapter would bring.
-City of Stone- As Mari and Kael approached the magnificent BoreStone City, the fading sun cast a radiant display of colors across the horizon. The sky was adorned with a tapestry of pink, orange, and purple hues, creating a breathtaking backdrop for their arrival. The city's lights flickered to life, illuminating the streets below as day transitioned into the enchanting realm of night. The distant roar of the bustling city reached their ears, a symphony of urban life that seemed to crescendo in their anticipation. The rhythmic hum of countless cars merged with the city's vibrant energy, creating a symphony of sound that resonated through their beings. Kael skillfully guided the car towards a quieter district, allowing Mari a gentle introduction to the cacophony that awaited them. As the vehicle settled on the ground, Mari stepped out, his senses immediately enveloped by the sights and sounds of BoreStone City. He took a moment to light his pipe, the fragrant smoke curling around him like wisps of contemplation. He inhaled deeply, grounding himself in the present moment and appreciating the magnificence before him. The towering buildings, crafted from polished stone, reached towards the heavens, creating a striking contrast against the dusky sky. Their presence exuded a sense of power and ambition, as if the city itself possessed a personality that beckoned Mari to explore its depths. Turning towards Mari, Kael's voice held a hint of determination. "If there's anyone who can provide information about your brother, Mari, they're likely here in BoreStone City," he asserted, his eyes meeting Mari's with unwavering resolve. Mari took a moment to gather his thoughts, suppressing the remnants of his earlier coughing fit. He stared at Kael, a mixture of hope and uncertainty flickering in his eyes. "Is that so?" he questioned, his voice tinged with a renewed determination. Kael nodded, his conviction unwavering. "This city is a melting pot of knowledge, secrets, and connections. We'll navigate its labyrinthine streets, immerse ourselves in its vibrant tapestry, and uncover the truth that eludes us." With each exhale of smoke from his pipe, Mari felt a surge of determination coursing through his veins. BoreStone City held the answers he sought, and he was ready to plunge into its depths, guided by the unwavering support of Kael. As they embarked on their quest, Mari and Kael strode forward, their steps echoing against the polished streets. The city's heartbeat pulsed with life, and within its embrace, they would unearth the mysteries that held Mari's brother captive. With the vibrant aura of BoreStone City fueling their spirits, they ventured forth, ready to unravel the enigma that awaited them on their path.