It was a new day. And a bit of an odd. She could have sworn that she was going to go on some grand adventure but as usually she got stuck with something she really didn’t want to do. That was nothing surprising really, as not every day could be packed full of adventure. Like right now she was going to go meet up with someone about some dirty laundry. It was almost too good to be true. She just had to show up, maybe wash some clothes, and she would get paid a pretty penny for it. She knew in her heart of hearts that there must have been some reason why they were offering to pay her so much to do such a simple task, but that wasn’t really in the forefront of her mind right now. Right now, she just wanted to go head on over there and get some money. The trip over there wasn’t really that big of a deal. She just took a wagon that allowed her to sleep, in between the bumps in the road that woke her up nearly every time. Not ten minutes into the trip and she already regretted her mode of transportation and her choice of activity.
She eventually arrived in the right town where she'd once spoken to someone about renting a place. She hadn't ended up biting the bullet and settling down over here, instead choosing the outskirts of her hometown instead. She'd been told about a little house for rent but she didn’t have much of an interest anymore. As much as she desired a base of operations in various locations, something about spreading herself too thin was asking for a little too much. These were the thoughts she had as she walked through the town, looking for the reason she had come here. The reason was quite simple actually. She could smell it. It smelled like a big dirty diaper that emanated from the entire town. At first she thought it was a distinct smell, but then she quickly realized that it was coming from a very specific part of town. She headed over to the center and saw it. It was a mound of filth that towered over even the small shops that surrounded the market district. “Oh my god, what is that smell!?” she asked almost angrily as she approached it with fingers clamped over her nose. This was not what she expected.
She grumpily looked around for something that could explain this tragedy of a mess. She could see that many people around her simply were not affected by the smell at all. They just walked around like it was nothing. She could understand how people could get accustomed to this kind of environment, but it didn’t mean that she liked it in the slightest. She almost had a distaste for the inhabitants themselves for letting the problem get this bad. She couldn’t do much but shake her head in shame and wait for someone to notice that she was even there.
“Hey, are you here to take care of the laundry?” someone asked her. It was a lady. Middle aged, wearing an apron. She had brunette hair and looked very nice. She might have been a friend, if she hadn’t just dumped a pile of laundry onto the mountain of dirty clothes. “If you are, there’s a couple large baskets over there. You just have to take the clothes to the nearby river. Just rinse and repeat and you can collect your pay. I’d hurry up if I were you though. Once it gets too hot… well you might not be able to keep your eyes open with that rancid filth.”
Great. This was just great. It was really what she wanted to do with her day. She didn’t see anyone around her that could be considered a teammate, even though she had expected someone to come here and help her out. She didn’t know if she was early, or if they were late, or if maybe they were already here waiting for her. In any case, she thanked the lady for telling her what to do and then got to work. The first manner of business was to fix her appearance. She was wearing yoga pants and a white tshirt. Nothing was wrong with these articles of clothing, but she didn’t think she wanted her hair to be flowing around her. She took a hair band and tied her hair up nicely, tucking it into the back of her shirt. She offered a silent apology to her hair that was no doubt going to be ruined with today’s work. She grimaced just thinking about all the work she was going to have to do cleaning her own clothes after all this was over. But alas, she couldn’t fret about that yet. She had to tackle her problems one at a time instead of getting overwhelmed all at once.
Right, so first order of business. She walked over to the large basket that she was supposed to use to transport clothes. It was large alright. It was larger than a car in volume and it had wheels on it. It might as well have been a wagon in its own right but the people had taken the time to make it out of a woven material so that it would at least be a little lightweight. She sighed and started piling clothes into the basket. Before long she had a decent pile of clothes loaded into her basket-wagon hybrid. She would be ready to set off at any time now to the nearby river and start washing all this filth away. But she would wait in case anyone else was going to show up. She knew that there must be some kind of catch or else she wouldn’t have been hired here in the first place. She didn’t want to go it alone unless she really had to. And to that extent, she would sit atop the giant pile of laundry in her wagon and wait, pensively, until she saw someone that didn’t look like they fit in with the smell.
1030 words
