In the end, they were throwing everything in the back of the truck as fast as they could. They launched dishes in boxes. Crash. They threw boxes of books. Thump. There went bags of clothes. Oomph. There was no pattern to it. No sense of order. It was moving by chaos.

And still, the apartment was too full. They were running out of time to be out, and still, it seemed like all the stuff, their stuff, would never end.

"What are we going to do?" Alice cried.

"I don't know!" Janelle shouted back. "Keep loading." She threw a lamp in the corner. It made a cracking noise.

In hindsight, they might wonder why they collected all this flotsam and jetsam only to lose it in the panic to get out on short notice. None of their carefully curated treasures would survive. Most would not. Most would be dinged or crooked or just plain broken beyond use. But still, they flung things in the back of the U-Haul with abandon.

"I can't keep doing this," Janelle shouted over the din.

"You must," Janelle said, tossing the cat pole over the couch. "We move or die."

"That's a little over dramatic, don't you think?"

"Do you want to be here when they show up?"

"No!"

"Then keep going," Janelle said, throwing a yoga mat on top of a sideways bookcase with broken knickknacks glittery on the hard truck bed floor.

"No," Alice cried.

"Yes," Janelle answered. But it was too late for her to realize fully what she had just done. The sphere of water was arcing gracefully through the air before slamming into the wall up by the truck cab.

"That's my goldfish!" Alice said.

"Was," Janelle answered, picking up Fluffy before arcing him on the same trajectory.