Over the years, they had developed something very close to a personal language. No amount of encryption could make their frequent electronic correspondence more impenetrable. Every conceivable (and some inconceivable) situation had its own richly elaborated metaphorical vocabulary to describe it, and any new development could immediately be conveyed by featuring one set of connotations over another. It had gotten to the point where outright saying things would be a flagrantly redundant act; merely gesturing towards the overall genre sufficed, message received

Thus this very gentle morning turned very hectic indeed when the message arrived, consisting solely in the words of ultimate and abject urgency:

Send dudes

They had moved boxes. They had moved furniture. They had moved paintings. They had moved more boxes. Everything that goes into a living space, they had moved. For a while, the sheer amount of things to be moved seemed endless. And then, suddenly, it ended. The last box, treated as if it were just another box in a long series of boxes, was loaded unto the truck, and then suddenly somehow there were no boxes. In surprised relief, they dared to breathe and sit down for a spell

And then it hit them

The basement, with its wide variety of unique and at times antique chairs. It, too, had to go