The raspberries were down on Level Five, trained up the south side of the chain link fence that enclosed the hens, offering them a bit of shade and wind shelter. The flock was pecking away at some imagined treat in the sawdust when I stopped at the first set of canes. A motley crew, rescued from flooded rear courtyards and terrace hen houses. Occasionally, Jake would bring a new bird home from the Souk. As I tossed my baskets down, the rooster came racing over to scream at me. A nasty piece of work, he was the target of constant assassination plots intended to make the chicken run safe for human presence. But we needed to keep the flock growing and roosters were hard to come by. This one seemed to know his own worth. He flung up his crest and flashed his spurs at me.

“Get a life, bird brain!” I snapped.

I started picking hard and fast, until my hands were wet and sticky with crushed fruit. I licked at them, shocking my mouth with the sweet/tart juice and then my conscience, when I glanced into my basket at the damage I’d done, at the waste.

Really, Glim?

It was like Lizzy scolding me from inside. I clamped my eyes shut. Wrong side of the bunk this morning. The dream put me all off-kilter. What about the Macys, wounded and traumatized down below, or the Smiths with no den to go home to? Shame on me for sniveling about being denied a boat ride!

I made myself pick more carefully. We needed every single berry.

With my nose out of my navel, I finally noticed the day—what denfolk call a Before day: mild, sunny, with scudding clouds, and the usual suffocating humidity thinned by a salt-tinged ocean breeze. Good day for a sail, if only I had a boat. No, not going there again. Up here on the roof, even the stink of the Lagoon was faint. The solars would be soaking up the rays. Full batteries for a change. Maybe even hot water. So rare. You had to live the good stuff while you had it. I breathed in the hopeful scents of soil and living vegetation and my grouch finally drained away.

About time, nudged Lizzy.