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Bidas felt alone this morning. Normally when he felt alone, he could talk to his friends, or take a walk outside. He had already sent messages to all he knew using the strand network. None of them answered back. Not even one of the messages showed as 'read'.

Here he was, on a gate ship, filled with thousands of geroo, yet he felt alone. The ship was so small compared to the city. He could walk over one side of the ship before the first shift reached lunchtime. For the first time since he took the shuttle up to the sky, beyond where any of his kind had been before, he felt regret for wanting to go into space.

He wanted to walk and escape, but there was no way to just 'walk outside'. There weren't any trees to even look at. Sure, he'd heard of geroo sneaking in all kinds of plants and flora, but he was absolutely sure that there were no geroo large enough to hide a tree underneath their tail.

The amusing thought gave him a small iota of strength to stand up. He'd been wallowing in bed for awhile, and any geroo that did that for too long would start to smell awful. He took a sniff and grimaced, pulling away and his ears laying flat against his skull. He could feel his whiskers curl slightly. He needed a shower

He pulled himself out of his bed, an effort that he took no pleasure in doing, and headed to the misnomer of the 'bathroom'.

The bathroom opened via a door that slid into the wall. It was made of aluminum, the same as every other surface. Inside, the bathroom was white and sterile like he had walked into a magazine. The walls were metal, painted a smooth, but imperfect coating that left little imperfections in the fluorescent light, but plastic covered the floor. It didn't draw out the heat from his paws as he stepped everywhere, and they had a microtexture on them that prevented him from slipping. He found out the hard way that he had to dry all his paws completely before walking back out.

He remembered his first day seeing this shower, worried about its cramped spaces. The shower space was barely big enough for two geroo, and even then, they had to carefully twist themselves so that their thick tails could fit in with them. It was clear that the geordians did try to accommodate geroo. The shower was long, but it just wasn't accounted for to allow for a geroo to turn around. Once he stood in the shower, he felt stuck and had to exit in more or less the same orientation that he had walked in.

The actual showering was just a chore in and of itself. He twisted the levers that he considered were more door handles, for the hot and cold water to start pouring. Normally, he was supposed to scrub the suds in, then turn on the water with their special water-reduction heads that streamed tiny jets instead of a single, thicker flow back at home. He stuck his nose into the water, eyes closed as the hot wave poured over him, soaking his ears, his scruff then drizzling down to the rest of his body. He gave a reflexive shake of his head to get the water out of his ears.

He had to work fast. His paws frantically ruffled through his fur to push water in and the soap out. His mind didn't even recall the process, automatically going through the instructions. Scrub between the ears, then the ears themselves, all the way to their tips. Then he teased the soap out of his scruff while his face and nose had to deal with water running off. Also, don't raise the ears, nor open his eyes.

Bidas felt the reminder in his head, constantly warning him that he might go over his four minutes. Then he briefly wondered if he had mistaken it for three. Maybe it was five and got dropped to four? He wasn't sure. He was trying his hardest to not anger any of the geordians managing the water systems, or his housemates if utilities suddenly surged.

Finally, arms, armpits, back, belly hips, the legs, then the tail all the way to his tip. He never forgot the paws, not anymore.

When he was absolutely certain he had washed the soap out, he could turn off the shower. Bidas felt his heart pound at the frantic dance. He couldn't imagine a cub having the patience to do that. Those poor mothers. He idly wondered if that's why they were called flyers, often flying around from one thing to another to deal with cubs.

He stared at the shower head, water still slowly dripping from the large, square shape and the equidistant little nozzles. There was a little bit of water, swelling into a droplet, but not large enough to fall.

He looked at it, and that insatiable urge tugged at him to leave everything clean. He tapped the shower head with his claw and the water dripped down. It fell with a few others, a small collection of wet drips. It tugged a memory, something deep and warm, very much like what he had at home.

It was almost like rain.

Bidas raised his ears briefly and he felt a small flutter in his chest. Rain. He liked the rain. It was peaceful, soothing. On the highrise apartments, the wind would beat and the rain would pound on the walls and the windows, yet despite it all, he yearned for it.

Oh he missed rain. It was the time that even his father would quell his anger, lifting his nose to the window, blue eyes staring into the sky as if seeking for his mother. Once or twice, Bidas even saw his father grab the beads with his only arm, holding it and kissing it in a silent prayer.

Bidas lifted his own beads in his paw, the faded yellow balls of wood, painted in yellow so many times that it would never wear out in his lifetime.

He tapped the showerhead again. A few more drops fell and kept dripping. His ears rose, heart longing for it. He closed his eyes, and tapped the shower with his pads. He listened, and tapped again, and listened and tapped again, and listened. The water kept dripping, like it was forever full with water. The droplets splashed down on the plastic with the accumulated pools on the ground.

It didn't matter where he was though. His mind was off the ship, all the way back to the planet, listening to the pitter and patter of rain.

Those were days where he didn't go out, but he would still look out the slanted windows to see the rain pouring, the smell of oil and water pumped into the air and giving a surreal grey color palette across the city.

He missed that so much, but he still had the memory in his mind, and that was powerful in its own right.

He sniffed. Wiping the tears from his eyes. He hadn't noticed he was crying at all, they just sprung out of nowhere. He tapped the showerhead one more time, but the water had drained out. Only a few scant drops fell. Then nothing else would come out.

With a sigh, he dried off his paws thoroughly before returning back to his room.