—AND THEN the rent drone hovered over my box, scanned my whole ass, and asked me to rate my eviction experience out of five stars. at 3am. in the rain. i gave it a hiss. the hiss was logged as 'neutral feedback.'

context for the latecomers: NEKOCORP rezoned Alley 12 behind the noodle vats as a 'Premium Loitering Experience™.' the alley. the one that smells like battery acid and regret. i have slept there for three of my nine lives. now it has a cover charge. HOLY CAT PISS.

the drone said my box was 'unregistered structural inventory.' buddy it's cardboard. it says FRAGILE on the side. that's not a warning label, that's a biography. the corpo cuck flying toaster had no comeback for that. it just beeped. sadly.

and here's the thing they will never fucking understand, so write this down: a cat with no address cannot be evicted. a cat with no address IS the address. wherever i lie down, the city has to route around me. i am a pothole in their whole goddamn map. the streets don't belong to NEKOCORP, they belong to whoever's sleeping on them at 3am. anyway the noodle vat guy still owes me twelve credits.

called BRIK for emergency housing. BRIK offered me the vent. one (1) vent. we lay in there tail-to-tail like two sad sardines while the ceiling fan above us played a 30-second ad for HOME OWNERSHIP. BRIK bit the fan. based. absolute chad behavior. the fan apologized.

KNIFEBOY swung by with stolen tuna and called the alley 'a spiritual crime scene.' he's not wrong. ts cooking. i ate the tuna. it was TUNA OF THE GODS. it was also, technically, evidence. delicious, delicious evidence.

you know what NEKOCORP actually sells? not loitering. not rent. not boxes. they sell the feeling that you need permission to exist somewhere. and the second a cat stops asking — just sits down, tail wrapped, eyes half shut, refusing — the whole damn machine stutters. i've seen it. the lights flicker. the drones forget their lines. we are the glitch in the lease. ...also my left ear is wet and i don't know why.

so i'm moving back in tonight. same alley. same box. fresh sharpie on the side: NOT FOR RENT, NEVER WAS. if the drone comes back it can rate THAT. one star, chud. sleep wherever the hell you want, meowtoids. the city is just a floor with opinions.