The nook boom started on the other side of the city on a dew-heavy Thursday where, in the front yard of the Rooks' main house, three seekers with wet feet shouted higher and higher bids for (at the time) a gem of a nook (two windows!). The previous tenant, the nanny, Deb-something, had paid a monthly three-hundred-plus—about a fifth of the mortgage—and accepting the final bid of eighteen-eighty (not including utilities) the Rooks trip-lined into some new weak-kneed sufficiency. A consolidating nine-eighty was suggested—and hungrily accepted—to each remaining seeker for limited access to the storm cellar (has an entrance!) and tool shed (gas fumes! also has an entrance!). Neighbors caught on that marginal effort was the answer to their own crises, and loans were taken out to divide walls, remove siding and install doors. Innovation reigned as toilets and tubs and beds became one (patent pending) entity, making room for cabinet space (24' x 24'!), counter space (top of the cabinet!), and garden space (ceiling hooks! string!). And by golly goddamn, feigned humanity—that beautiful, lucrative pandering—worked. A record number of seekers signed leases so high homeowner's expansion loans were paid off well before interest rates could mature into what they were designed to be. Soon after, mortgages were paid in full as the air became a putrid smog of that-is-mine smugness. Homeowners bought more houses, and whispered rumors of changing legislation become reality as the required thirty-five percent minimum down payment became sixty-five. But this slowed nothing, and lawmakers (all homeowners, too) seized opportunity as they ignored obvious caveats and publicly accepted a variety of kickbacks to pass bill after bill in quick, uncontested succession as apartment buildings ("those bulky and seed-scattered eyesores that cheapen and demoralize the beauty of OUR 'quaint, little city.'") were demolished. Land rezoning celebrations highlighted the people reclaiming their land from evil, invisible strings.There was brief resistance—more arrests than deaths—but no revolution materialized. Life went on as reluctantly as life could, and seekers were nothing more than a homeowner's accepted infliction, akin to infection or infestation. But aside from residual glances of freebased schadenfreude, neighbors in passing did not judge each other, for in the rear of all of their homes, one degree out of sight, was a cash spigot, seeping, sieving, flooding.

*

Deceased well before the boom, Mr. Henry was unintentionally Patient Zero of Evolution Housing. Conceived from necessity, his offer was the desperation of a nonagenarian stretched well beyond his financial means. His asking price was dwindled down to the remaining mortgage and an underlying condition he was able to live out his remaining years (months, by the look of him) squirreled away behind the walls. He'd even pay a little toward something like rent, to cover his electricity usage. It made sense, yeah? Die in what you built rather than one of those state-funded death homes? And how could the buyer resist? Where, exactly, would he be living, though? Mr. Henry walked the soon-to-be new owner to an unused corner of the house, furnished with a kitchenette, a closet bathroom, a door to the outside, and a slab of concrete with a folding chair. The view faced the wind and the sand pit of an abandoned condo development. "This should be enough." Which it was, until the owner found a loophole—something about a stolen broom—and committed Mr. Henry to one of those state-funded death homes. He died en-route, just before the gates. The next tenant, somebody's cousin or something, paid much, much more than a portion of the electricity. Quiet. Reliable. He kept purchase receipts in a locked, hidden-away firebox.          

*

Resentment cannot be apparent—the demand is too high and the leases are too easily voidable, and trespassing laws open to interpretation—but regularly, the Goers' seeker and the Leavers' seeker—whose similarities start and end with roaming-fate fears and chess—leave their nooks to join a permissible table (a maple stump, sanded flat) at the property line, where both have home-field advantage. Unquestionably in view of both main houses, these wry two transcend regular expectations. No longer playing to mate, they pride in the robust, theatrical moving of the pieces, saying to those Leavers and to those Goers, who watch in a-and-bemusement, Look at your cats and canaries, you pricks.

*

The Plumb seeker reminds them of the asphalt lumps at railroad crossings (there for some reason, probably). Before sleep, they discuss how she pays on time without complaint, but they wonder how long they can hold off raising the rent; they're way below the block average and tired of the decline of social invites. "Is more even realistic?" she says, "from a history teacher?" He offers a sleepy nod, a bewildered sigh. "And not even a good one—kids coming home, speaking that assemblage nonsense." "Right?" she says. "And those doodles? I mean, fuck's sake, you're a grownup."

*

The [redacted] seeker opted out of water privileges months ago, not that the nook was much more than a pantry and basin. Daily, he leaves early and returns at nightfall, presumably to sleep a few hours before leaving again. They figure he must bathe down at the public lakefront, for the smell of sand and rust lingers in his absence. They see his face printed on Dept. of Nomad Prevention & Sympathizer Seizures postings, and are so close to calling, and would have already if they had a tighter grasp on tax and immunity laws. He pays extra cash when he can and promises—if and when the time comes—he'll vouch for them at the vetting camp. Least he could do, he says, for their latest understanding.  

*

So, you heard our seeker inherited a place of his own? Some acreage, way out over there. Found himself a seeker, and then, well, then the whole you-know—here, lean in—nomad camps—right?—and then his seeker? We warned him. A nook that big—suspicious. We spoke up. He didn't think we would, but we did. Did we expect or even want that kind of a raid? No, but. Well. Well, we contributed to the funeral. It wasn't the family's fault. We bought the place, too, to ease their burden. Bought the neighboring properties, too. Cheaply, considering. All claimed they had no idea, but how do you not? They forfeited, left it for the forest preserve, but we worked around that. Plus how scorched everything got, there wasn't anything to preserve, but the grass is coming back. We'll clear, replant with some trees. Nice orchard trees. Peaches. It should turn into a quiet weekend spot for us once its all fixed up and we've reduced the nook to something a little more modest. Already found a seeker. Signed the first one who didn't remind us of him. We checked. No ties. Charming thing—seemingly no aspirations.

*

These seekers find themselves luckier than most—a gated community on a loosely-monitored beach, miles from any possible pop-up. They pay for that low probability, the price justified by the east-facing stoop. It's small for two-nook—at no point are they far enough away that they cannot not reach each other, but they are in that funny kind of love where proximity isn't yet detestable. They like to wake extra early to await the sunrise. Outside, even with the vastness of all that wide open, they hold each other, and they fiddle with their hands, and they kiss small pecks on small ears and on smaller temples. They sip coffee and they laugh and they grin and they throw shelled peanuts to amnesic chipmunks and, now warm enough, they remove their sandals and run through the dune grass and through the sand and into the waves. The sky is pink and there are strips of purple on the underlining of silhouetted clouds. They are happy and kiss again, longer. Between them, at the absolute nadir of their center is a bract, numinous, ready. They pull back and smile. The tipping pin of time. They run ashore, hand-in-hand. The sky bends to orange, and the sun takes back the horizon. Watched from behind the bay window of the main house, one speaks through a yawn. "Kinda sweet, isn't it? Like we used to be." The other agrees, a snort of derision. "It's like they're human." Soon, even the neighbors hear congealing shrieks of pure joy and pain, though who knows from where. It sounds closer, though, doesn't it? Little by little? 

__

This title comes from Act ii, Scene iii of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which a dog is indifferent, much like my landlord, an LLC.