Verruca and The Wildlings — Ep13: Comfort Zone Pops

When life shifts and realities are shaken, who’s up for the challenge?

Empty streets. Grey buildings. Eerie silence. A town that was not long ago a colourful matrix of holidayers and drifters, weirdos and wizards, hustlers and pushers, musicians and mountaineers, cows and children, was now lifeless and doom-laden.

“Where am I,” Pix whispered to herself during her walkabout. The SHOE (Stay Home Or Else) was lifted to resume Life As They Knew It. Everyone was again free to roam. But Rembibi was changed.

There was nostalgia.

Discomfort.

Nervous tension in the air.

And now what?

The foreign visitors that once brought income to the townspeople were no more. Tourist Housing businesses went bust.

Pix and Cora met up with Nico and they all went to visit their friend Kief, a Rembibi local who owned and ran a guesthouse. Kief didn’t have guests for months. With nothing to do and no money coming in, he ploughed his front yard and got to growing corn and rice and potatoes and green things to eat. He bought chickens and started a mini poultry business.

“And how about you,” Kief asked as he fed his chicken. “How you guys survive after this…?”

“I’m now selling drunken ice cream,” Cora pitched. “I have a friend who lent me a freezer for storage, so now I have batches of homemade alcoholic ice cream. People can bring their own container, I charge per weight. Yesterday I had ten orders! I finally have money after months of this bullshit.”

“I got a job as a chat moderator,” Nico shared, hoping not to elaborate.

“What is that?” Kief asked. Nico grinned.

“So…Do you know those barely-dressed, good-looking women who in real life would never go out with you? Those women who pop up on your phone inviting you for a freaky chat in the middle of the night? … I am those women, Kief Chief. Just don’t tell anyone, ok, this information isn’t for public snacking. As long as the clients don’t find out they’re being seduced by a big sweaty hairy male hobo, there’s no harm done….right?”

“When life becomes increasingly uncomfortable, sometimes it’s better to step out into new possibilities,” Pix pondered. “The occasional shattering of our realities is an invitation to reinvent ourselves.”

“And why not, aye?”

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