The ground quakes again, rattling the house of the Jeralds. Only a shake though, nothing serious like five years ago. People scrapped what was left of their lives and placed it in the hands of their crappy government again, to be let down, again, and move on like nothing happened, again.

Carlton Jerald takes another sip of his coffee. Martha scrubs the dishes. She scrubs the dishes with vigor, a little too much. Her manicured nails rip into her hands. She continues scrubbing. The dish water blushes scarlet. She continues scrubbing. Carlton thinks he did something wrong and takes another sip.

Need some sugar, he thought. It’s too black, too dark, like the house. Needs some sugar to lighten everything. Lighten the mood. Lighten the taste, so he can drink it better.

He stands up, bending his face down to kiss his wife. Martha turns her head away. Carlton takes the sugar from the cabinet. He pours too much in his coffee. It’s too cold to melt the sugar. Damn. He drinks it anyways.

A lady trots downstairs. Her heels stir a lot of noise, and the baby upstairs cries in protest. The fragile thing. Martha walks out the kitchen, and goes upstairs, passing the lady with a crop-top, half of her skin exposed. The lady comes in the kitchen, going in Carlton’s coat pockets, and withdraws a fifty. Her and her heels clack out the house. Carlton takes another sip.

The crying continues, just like some people on the streets. Some cry tears, some cry with their hands, and some cry when they go tell the damn government how they should run things. But sometimes they don’t cry. They go to their God, Savior, or mothers in the sky, or to their ancestors in the ground. Someone will do the crying for them. The crying upstairs stops, and the house will remain quiet.

Martha comes back in the kitchen and goes back to scrubbing the dirty dishes. Carlton tells her “That’s pointless,” and Martha says “So what?” She continues scrubbing. Carlton takes another sip. He’s out of coffee. He goes to the cabinet and takes a box of rat poison. He offers it to Martha whose face blooms with a smile. “You first,” she chimes.

Carlton brew another batch of coffee, this one blacker than the last. He pours a teaspoon of rat poison in his coffee, stirring it carefully. Martha puts up the bloody dishes. Carlton sits down, reading the rest of the paper. The headline reads: “ANARCHISTS OVERTHROWS GOV’T.” Subheadline: “MAYOR EXECUTED: THE END OF YORK TOWN?” The Jeralds keep the TV off to keep out bad omens. TV loves spreading bad omens.

Carlton takes a sip of his coffee. It tastes bitter. He takes another sip. Still better. He’ll deal with it. Like he always has. Like they always have.

Martha says, “I’m going for a walk,” and walks through the living room. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Martha walks past the omen-bearer, and walks out the door. A loud pick-up truck, painted with rust and the phrase “LIFE IS DEAD,” pops out a spiky-haired man who sweeps up Martha and drives away. Carlton would go after them, but he didn’t finish his coffee.