The bus ride was an average one. Well, as far as the looks of the bus, and that not much happened. Once again, there was no one else on the bus. It was a little more obvious why since we were leaving Ira-Invidia.
“Why were so many people giving us mean faces,” Bro asked distraughtly.
“I really don’t know, Peyti’s parents were ten times worse even,” I exclaimed.
“Well at least we are out of there. Hey, what is that?” Bro pointed. I looked out to see what looked like a mountain of trash. It was double the height of the city walls at least, which were only fifty yards from the trash pile.
“You know, I haven’t really thought about where the trash in all of these other cities has been going. Obviously, they must do something about it because there aren’t any trash mountains outside the other cities.”
“Yeah weird,” Bro said as we turned our eyes to look through the gate we were now pulling through. Getting off the bus we encountered the same name and job area that each city had. It was crazy how uniform the Island was. I mean each place I had been was different, but each place seemed to be unified in something. The lines for the town seemed to be quite a bit longer than the others, but I think the line was just moving slower instead of the demand to come into the city being larger.
“So, where to now?” Bro said. I was thinking the same thing. We were kind of still from shock from the unwelcoming side of Ira-Invidia. I reached into my pockets first out of contemplation, and then I realized that I only had five Coin left.
“Maybe we should work again,” I said to him as I pulled out the remainder of my money. “How much do you have?”
Bro looked into his bag and said, “I only have seven. I guess we better start looking for a job.” We went ahead and got in the fairly large line at that point.
“How long have you been here, sir?” I asked the man in front of us.
“Oh, I’d say for about an hour,” he said.
“How long was the line when you got here then?”
“Well I haven’t been counting but I’d double the amount of people who are here now.” He answered. I then looked at Bro to see if he was up for staying an hour or two, assuming that is how long we had to wait.
“Well what else do we have to lose?” Bro said. So we decided to wait in line. It was interesting how half of the people there were just now getting names. Of course, Bro and I hadn’t gotten names yet either, but we felt a little more unique than most. It kind of set us at ease that there still might be hope for us, and that there was more people who were like us throughout these cities. When it was a bout thirty minutes in, we were about half way through the line. We had some interesting conversations with some people around us. One guy was talking about how they were really lenient on the job quality. Another guy mentioned how the cost of living is really low here, so most people only work once or twice a week if they have to. That honestly sounded pretty nice to me. I would say I’m a hard worker, but when given the opportunity to relax over work, I’m almost always going to relax. I would unless I was going to lose my job of course.
An hour had passed, and we were finally at the front. We told the guy at the counter we were looking for any job that we could work together. He rolled his eyes as if it was going to be a difficult task.
“You know that is going to be hard to find job openings; especially if you want to work together.” He exclaimed just like a worker would say you have a ten minute wait at a fast food restaurant; they don’t want you to order that because it involves more work than usual, but they realize they have to do their job. Well that is exactly his reaction.
“We would definitely prefer to, sir,” Bro explained, “We are really hard workers and we would go wherever.”
“Let me see what I can find,” he said as I got up slowly and walked over to his supervisor. For a while I watched them discuss the situation, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught the bus come in from Ira-Invidia again. I had forgotten that they run every hour as long as they have a passenger. I looked at who was exiting and I realized it was Peyti. I was afraid at first because I wasn’t sure if two seconds later her parents were going to come out too. Surely enough they didn’t. Peyti was the only passenger. I saw her kind of looking around as I normally would when I entered a new city, and then I remembered that she had not been anywhere outside of her town. I quickly began to wave her over.
When she got over there, the worker had come back. “Oh, you have a third person now?” We could hear the people behind us yelling about her cutting. “If she is with you, you all have to go to the back of the line,” he said as he smirked. He knew that he wouldn’t have to figure out a place for us just yet if so. We didn’t argue with him as we left to go back to the line. Bro was a little upset at first, especially since he hadn’t met Peyti yet. I think that Bro kind of liked her upon meeting her though. It was probably because Peyti was a very beautiful girl. He quickly lost his frustration from losing place in line as we began to catch up and introduce Bro and Peyti officially.
“So how did you get here? And why?” I asked.
“I lied.” She said, “I told my parents that I felt like Ira-Invidia wasn’t where I belonged, and that I wanted to find out more about myself.”
“That doesn’t sound like a lie,” I said curiously.
“Yeah, that is because that isn’t all I said to them,” she exclaimed, “I told them I was going to Acedia in order to head to Luxuria-Fornicatio eventually. They seemed pretty excited about me showing excitement for learning about the cities, so I got away without many more questions. I knew that you would be heading this way so that is where I went.” I felt sad that she had to lie to her parents to leave, but I knew that I wanted her to join us more than her to go back to that family.
“Well I’m glad you joined us, Peyti!” I said. Shortly after we had gotten to the back of the line, an older man interrupted our conversation.
“I heard you all were looking for a job you can work together?” He asked as his thick mustache lifted with his smile. He seemed like a pleasant man, so I figured I’d respond.
“Yes sir, do you have work for us?”
“Well, I’m getting old, and I got me at the edge of town that hardly anyone wants to work at.”
“Why is that,” I asked.
“It is tough work, son. No one wants to work at a place like that if they get other job offers. Now I’ll pay each one of you five Coin an hour, but you’ll have to put in a hard day’s work. I’ll give you meals and a place to sleep as well.” All three of us knew that there weren’t going to be good chances of getting a job together, so we decided to take it.
