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Jim stepped around the moving boxes scattered about his bedroom. He stubbed his toe against an unsuspecting storage box and lunged forward, bracing himself on the edge of his dresser. The lid of the box tipped off in a grand scene and Jim kicked it in response. He was sick of his jumbled mess of clutter taking up his entire living space. Especially when said jumbled mess of clutter thought that it was the victim.

It was amazing how much one could accumulate over a two year period, but Jim had set new records and wasn’t sure exactly when he had the opportunity to reach such a feat. Between the embarrassing care packages from his mother, the inane giveaways his office chose to partake in, and a certain woman who liked to drag things in with her and leave them for eternity. His belongings had nearly doubled since the initial move in.

He had packed away all of his clothing without thinking of a post shower pair, and only now as he tripped across the dark room festooned only in his boxer shorts and a damp towel over his shoulder, he realized his mistake. He reached across his nightstand blindly for the lamp that he had packed earlier that afternoon when it was daytime hours and it seemed useless to have.

Grimacing at his negligence, Jim hoisted the smaller of his two suitcases off the bed and stumbled back towards his living room. The light in the kitchen was still humming its florescent tune by the doorway, its glow illuminating the rather large living space. Jim breathed a sigh of relief, dropping his bag in the middle of the empty room before riffling through it for a tee shirt.

His laptop was sitting on the countertop and with his TV packed away safely, presented as only choice of entertainment for the evening. He was already half way through a movie he couldn’t remember the title to, but knew it was culturally important for him to view. For this reason he had concluded that watching a movie should never be a chore. He much preferred the bellowing of Will Ferrell or Harrison Ford to Clark Gable any day, despite the rash criticisms of his more elite and rather pretentious film enthusiast friends. Seeing that there were still 34 grueling minutes of the movie left, Jim quickly opted to waste his night away with pinball and spider solitaire.

He checked the time on the toolbar. Only thirty six hours to go. The past week he had been in between jobs, and it had proven to be terribly boring. There were reruns of Saved by the Bell to fill his morning hours, a couple hours of trashy daytime to fill his afternoon, and a mixture of past their time reality shows and guilty pleasure teen dramas to fill his evening. He was living the high live for sure.

There was one last draw in his moving ritual, which was to clean out the last bit of scraps from the fridge. On the kitchen table beside a half eaten cake his neighbors had rewarded him with, sat a forgotten package that he had picked up earlier that week from the post office. He hadn’t recognized the return address, and in the rush of packing he had neglected to open it.

It wasn’t particularly big or exciting for it to be interesting, and Jim wasn’t big enough or exciting enough for it be dangerous either. Using his keys, he broke open the tape, immediately accosted with those pesky packing beans. He sifted through the package allowing the foam puffs to spill over the edges before he uncovered the prize, a small smile spreading across his lips as he lifted a small green tea kettle from the box. It was heavier than he remembered, and as he peeked beneath the lid, he couldn’t help but remember…

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