The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Skeletons in the Closet

portfolio if she showed up like this.
    Her gaze wandered to the view outside her sliding screen door. Ever since climbing temperatures raised the levels of oceans worldwide in 2023, real estate overlooking the sea had turned into veritable ghost towns. Some things had changed since her grandmother’s time, but the first law of the housing market remained, location, location, location . Ellie didn’t care that her trailer on the South Carolina shore was worth less today than it had been when she purchased it a year ago. She owned it and though it might be dangerous, the view of the crashing waves and the sun coming up over the horizon stole her breath every morning. What was the point of life without a little spice?
    I should log onto the net, check the news and clean my skanky bod of yesterday’s filth. She didn’t move however, bone weary from the events of the previous day. Who would have thought a yappy little terrier could cause so many problems? The client, Mrs. Regina Emily Robinson had hired her to capture the essence of her precious Snookums. Disaster didn’t begin to describe the experience. The fluffy little white beast had a mean streak the size of Mars and his shrill bark resounded in the halls of the great mountaintop mansion. While Mrs. Robinson had cooed at her lovey, Ellie struggled to free her pant leg from his jaws. Sick of her desperate situation, she’d ripped the fabric free and tumbled into the pool, camera and all. She had been darn lucky the items she’d brought were mostly waterproof. Worse yet she had to go back for another session with demon mutt.
    Ellie loved most animals but spoiled canine portraits were a necessary evil, if she wanted to survive. Unfortunately her truck—an actual gas powered behemoth, needed a sizable cash infusion. Without the picture of Snookums trapped on her camera and blown up to ten times the size of life, she couldn’t afford private transportation anymore.
    Maybe she’d add demon horns to the final hologram to really capture the beast’s essence.
    Enough coffee had dripped into the pot so she poured herself a large mug full. While old timers, like her grandmother, claimed the coffee sold now was swill compared to the late 20 th to early 21 st century standards—what with no caffeine and the beans grown in hydroponics’ factories—Ellie had never known anything different.
    Two seconds of chewing and she gulped down her breakfast pill. She swallowed all the nutrients and protein her body needed for the day with a grimace as she imagined the alternative. Some people still ate real food—their breakfasts consisted of eggs, bacon and toast. Ellie found the whole concept icky. Popping a food capsule was so much more efficient. Not to mention cheaper and less of a hassle. Body supplements could be bought at every store, but one needed a physician’s prescription to even enter a market. The standard physical one needed to pass consisted of body mass check, cholesterol and blood pressure screening, credit scoring and stamina testing. The jury still debated about whether food damaged a human body, but it wasn’t illegal yet. Even if it is repulsive .
    The aromatic coffee though was a different story. She liked her galley kitchen to smell of the divine witch’s brew and the liquid heat helped her start the day.
    She took her mug over to the reinforced glass doors and stared not at the ocean or the sunrise, but at her own battered reflection. Unlike so many of her contemporaries, Ellie didn’t have the cash on hand to invest in a rejuvenation tube so she looked every day of her thirty-two years. Tiny wrinkles crested around her mouth and eyes, and gray had threaded through her dirty blond hair since she’d turned seventeen. Her body could only be described as…meh. Not a head turner or worthy of catcalls. No, Ellie wasn’t a beauty by anyone’s standards, not even her own. She looked old and she felt old. What’s the point?
    “Meow.”
    Ellie glanced down. On the other side of the screen door, a small tiger-striped cat had appeared. She unlocked the door, and slid it open. Salty sea air immediately dispelled the coffee’s aroma. She crouched down, placed her mug on the deck and reached out to pet the cat.
    “Hey there, where did you come from?”
    “Trust me,” the cat answered. “You don’t wanna know.”
    Ellie blinked and drew her hand back. The cat didn’t say anything else and she wondered if her mind was going. “Did…did you just say