To: 'Sarah'
From: 'Rae'
Subject: Hi

Hey Sarah,

So I made it in one piece. Sorry it took me a while to get in touch, but the laptop did this thing and I had to find a place to live and, yeah, I'm lazy. Better late than never, right?

This place is a wreck. Seriously. I saw the pictures on the TV, but nothing can really prepare you for what it's like to see streets that are half-full of buildings that were either mostly demolished, or have been condemned to be knocked down. I dunno what it was like before, though. Some of the people here seem pretty rough. Maybe they shipped all the good ones out or something. It's like the people who are left hung on with their fingernails, or just flat-out fought the damn thing.

I haven't really made any friends, yet. Or spoken to anyone. I guess that's why I'm mailing you - if I had a life, I wouldn't have time to mail, right? I took a job in an arcade - I know what you're thinking, who the hell uses an arcade anymore, right? Well, it turns out the answer is 'no-one'. I ended up on the graveyard shift, but literally I spent the whole time sat by myself, flicking through magazines. I didn't even get to kick a machine or hand out some change to a spotty teenager desperate for his Pacman fix. I might see if I can get some bar work - I figure these people HAVE to drink. You couldn't live here, if you didn't.

I keep getting lost. On my second day at the arcade, I turned up an hour late for my shift because I couldn't find the damn place. The good news is that nobody noticed. Although I guess that's also the bad news - no-one even noticed it was wide-open and unmanned. I walked past a couple of girls who were punching the shit out of each other, and tried to talk to this guy who was just standing on a corner and was either deaf, or mute, or just ignoring me, I have no idea which.

I past a couple of bars with 'help wanted' signs, so maybe I'll give them a whirl. Not the strip club, though. I don't want to get into one of those hilarious sitcom misunderstandings where I think I'm a bartender and they think I'm a pole dancer.

Still, I guess that as places go to make a new start, I could do a little worse. At least so far no-one has followed me around asking if I want to see a photo of their penis. Yet.

Anyway. Write back or something. Say hi to El and Andi from me.

Rae
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