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It's Sunday. We are working, all four of us. Cleaning the house. It's nice, how we all share our work and we all share our responsibility. I couldn't've asked for a better family if I tried. Though part of me still wants to try. I am dusting the many shelves and tables and cabinets that we have. It's really rather tedious work. But thankfully Annabella is helping me. We are working in tandem. It's nice, it really is.

But still I'm drowning. Still the poison is seeping through all parts of me.

But there is music playing in the background, from Annabella's phone which is on the ground. It is nice music. From her favourite playlist. It's nice music, but it is a bit too cheery for my taste. Too cheery, too smooth, too warm. I like music that is sad. I like music that is cold and rough and cut open jagged. Music that is desperate. Though truly no music can even come remotely close to brushing against the true depths of how I feel. All music pools on the very surface edges of me. So I don't really like music at all.

We carefully move all the decorations to one side of the carved wooden shelf that we are cleaning right now. This takes a bit of time, since there are so many decorations, both big an small. Colourful and flowing and made of so very many different types of material. It's beautiful, but I cannot take in the beauty of it. I cannot take in the beauty of any of it. I am too sad.

It's a pity really, my mother spent so much money on this house and I can't even appreciate most of it. She always spends so much on this family, she always gives so much to this family. But far too often I am far more ungrateful than I should be. I really am really rotten inside.

We work at an unhurried, almost leisurely pace, Annabella and I. Actually, all of us do. Because we're at home, we're not at work. No-one's forcing us to do this, no-one's paying us, we don't have to rush ourselves. And anyways, there are so very many delicate little pieces everywhere. It would be a bad idea to get careless. I mean, mother will probably understand if we break something, but still, I don't want to cause any problems for her.

We finish moving everything on this side of the shelf and we pass our dusters ove the surface. Now we just have to do the same thing for the other side of the shelf and then we have to rearrange all the decorations. We arrange all the decorations differently each time we put them back. That's a clever idea Riviera came up with, and it always changes up the way that the house looks, it always gives a new feeling to the house. Since each shelf is rearranged every once in a while, there is always something different to look at. If only I could appreciate it.

"You're doing a great job," Annabella tells me, cheeriness in her voice.

"Thanks, Annabella, you are too."

"It's nice, working together, isn't it?"

"It is," I say, and it both is and isn't a lie. I appreciate her company, her companionship, her help. But my life is not nice. I don't know why.

"These shelves were so dusty when we started out. They look so much better now."

"They do," I agree. "This house is so big, it's inevitable that things will get dusty."

"Yes it is inevitable." There is a hint of tiredness in her voice. "There's always more work to do."

"Yes."

"Should we move on to the next piece?" she asks. We are done with this intricate, multilayered shelf. But there is a lot more furniture to get to. Not that we have to finish everything today. It would be very difficult to finish everything in one day. I don't want to push Annabella too hard.

"Sure. Where to now?"

"Let's go to the television stand on this floor."

"Sounds good."

There are a bunch of televisions in our house. One in the basement. One in the sunroofed attic upstairs. My mother and my two sisters both have televisions in their rooms. And there is the main television, which is as wide as I am tall, on the first floor. It's for all of us. But my mother asked me if I wanted a television as well. I told her that I didn't want one, since I didn't want to use up any more of her money than I had to. I wonder if I would be happier with a television. I don't really need one, but still, I'm the only one that doesn't have one.

We move on to the large shelf of the television, which is raised eye level to the couches. There's a lot of stuff to move around here as well. Moving stuff around always takes the most time. My sisters say they like it though, because they can focus on all the very pretty things we have around. But I don't feel the same way. I can't focus on all this stuff, ever. Like I said before, there's something strange about me, something deeply wrong with me.

"How are you girls doing?" our mother asks us.

"Doing fine, how about you?" Annabella replies.

"I'm doing alright myself. You guys have gotten a lot done. Good job."

"Thank you, mother," I answer.

"So I'm thinking this is enough work for today," our mother begins, "what do you girls think? Do you want to keep working?"

"I think we've had enough for today," Annabella answers. "What do you think, Zia?"

"Yeah, if you guys are thinking of wrapping up then I'm fine with that." My voice is a lot smoother than I how feel.

"I think we should go and eat dinner," our mother suggests. "I can order food for us. What restaurant to you guys want to eat from?"