Hangers - Tealy and the Crew

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The text came in at 4:23 AM.

DumbDird saw it immediately because DumbDird was awake, DumbDird was always awake, and also because he had been sleeping with one eye metaphorically open since the towel incident on the reasonable suspicion that Tealy's brain was not done picking things.

The text said:

"clothes hangers"

Just that. No context. No punctuation. No explanation. Just clothes hangers sent at 4:23 AM, which was all the context anyone needed.

DumbDird picked up the pipe.

"DURR TALLY I'M COMING"

"Don't," Tealy typed back, from his bed, where he had just screamed about clothes hangers for the second time and was now lying very still with the specific defeated energy of a person whose brain had simply found a new thing.

"DURR TALLY—"

"I'm fine."

"DURR TALLY YOU'RE NOT FINE YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT CLOTHES HANGERS—"

"I can handle it—"

"DURR TALLY LAST TIME YOU SAID THAT YOU SCREAMED EIGHT TIMES—"

"This time will be different—"

He thought about clothes hangers.

He screamed.

He picked his phone back up.

"Don't come over," he typed.

"DURR I'M ALREADY OUTSIDE TALLY"

Tealy looked at his phone.

"You were already outside."

"DURR YEAH I BROUGHT THE PIPE"

"I said don't bring the pipe—"

"DURR TALLY I BROUGHT IT FOR LAST NIGHT JUST IN CASE AND THEN I JUST STAYED OUTSIDE—"

"You've been outside my house since last night."

"DURR JUST IN CASE TALLY"

Tealy stared at the ceiling.

"Come in," he said out loud, because DumbDird was apparently right outside his window. "The door's unlocked."

"DURR OKAY—"

The front door opened.

Footsteps.

DumbDird appeared in the bedroom doorway in the same pajamas as yesterday, pipe in hand, with the expression of a man who had been vindicated.

"Durr," he said simply.

"Clothes hangers," Tealy said.

"Durr, yeah."

"I don't know why."

"Durr, your brain picked a thing again Tally."

"It picked towels last time."

"Durr, yeah."

"Now it picked clothes hangers."

"Durr, yeah Tally, durr, do you want me to—" He raised the pipe slightly.

Tealy thought about clothes hangers.

Screamed.

"Yes," he said immediately after.

It was immediate again.

Floor. Asleep. Done.

DumbDird clapped.

Two claps. Same as last time. Clean, satisfied, methodical. The clap of a professional.

He looked around the bedroom.

Looked at the closet.

Opened it.

Looked at the clothes hangers inside, hanging there in a row, doing nothing, being clothes hangers.

He closed the closet.

Looked at Tealy on the floor.

Looked at the closet.

Made a decision.

He came back with a towel.

Started to put it under Tealy's head.

Stopped.

Remembered the towel situation.

Stood there for a moment holding the towel, thinking about this, which was a longer thinking process than DumbDird usually engaged in but which the circumstances warranted.

He put the towel down.

Went to the kitchen.

Came back with a Banana Nacho gummy bag, remembered these were his now, took one, put the bag in his pocket, looked at Tealy on the floor, looked at the bedroom, and found a compromise.

He put a shirt under Tealy's head.

Not a towel. Not a clothes hanger. A shirt. A neutral object with no documented history of causing sleep disruption. Soft. Folded. Inoffensive.

He stepped back and assessed.

Good.

He clapped once more, slightly quieter this time because it was 4:30 AM.

The group chat update went out at 4:35 AM.

"DURR TALLY IS ASLEEP AGAIN"

"DURR CLOTHES HANGERS THIS TIME"

"DURR I PUT A SHIRT UNDER HIS HEAD BECAUSE OF THE TOWEL THING"

"DURR I LEARNED"

Dird reacted with 👍

Greeny replied at 4:37 AM, which meant Greeny was either awake or had set up a notification protocol for DumbDird's 4 AM updates, both of which were plausible.

"You learned."

"DURR YEAH GREENY NO TOWEL THIS TIME"

"Good."

"DURR I'M GETTING BETTER AT THIS"

A pause from Greeny.

"You're getting better at hitting your friend with a pipe."

"DURR YEAH"

"That's not a skill with broad applications."

"DURR TALLY'S BRAIN KEEPS PICKING THINGS GREENY"

"Fair," Greeny replied, which was the most concise possible acknowledgment that the situation was what it was and the pipe was, within its narrow context, the correct tool.

Beric sent: "What did you put under his head."

"DURR A SHIRT"

"Good call."

"DURR THANKS BERIC I THOUGHT ABOUT IT THIS TIME"

Beric replied: "Noted improvement in post-pipe protocol."

Blara, who was awake at 4:38 AM for reasons she did not explain, sent a photo.

A clothes hanger.

Just a clothes hanger, on what appeared to be a rack, photographed with the same flat documentary energy as the towel photos, as though she had simply been waiting for the next object and had it ready.

Dird reacted with 👍

DumbDird replied: "DURR BLARA"

Blara sent another clothes hanger photo. Different hanger. Plastic this time. The first had been wire.

DumbDird sent: "DURR STOP"

She sent a third.

Velvet hanger.

Dird reacted with 👍

Tealy woke up at 10:51 AM.

He was on his bedroom floor.

There was a shirt under his head.

He looked at the shirt.

Looked at the ceiling.

Thought about clothes hangers experimentally, cautiously, like poking something to see if it bit.

Nothing.

No scream. No alarm response. Just clothes hangers, existing in his mind as the normal household objects they had always been and apparently temporarily weren't between 4 and 5 AM.

He picked up his phone.

Thirty-eight notifications.

He scrolled through them. Found the Greeny exchange. Found noted improvement in post-pipe protocol from Beric, which he read twice. Found Blara's three hanger photos, which he looked at one by one with the eyes of someone testing their own responses.

Nothing. Just hangers.

He got to DumbDird's "DURR I LEARNED" and sat with it for a moment.

He typed into the chat:

"Woke up. Shirt under my head. Good call on not using the towel."

DumbDird responded instantly, which meant he had been watching the chat.

"DURR TALLY!!"

"DURR I THOUGHT ABOUT IT THIS TIME"

"I know. Thank you."

"DURR OF COURSE TALLY"

"DURR TALLY"

"What."

"DURR WHAT DO YOU THINK IT'LL BE TOMORROW"

Tealy looked at this message.

Looked at his bedroom.

At the closet. The shirt still on the floor. The normal, completely unthreatening objects of a normal room.

"I don't know," he typed.

"DURR I'LL BRING THE PIPE"

"DumbDird you can't just camp outside my house every night with a pipe—"

"DURR TALLY I REALLY CAN THOUGH"

Tealy stared at this.

The thing was.

He really could.

"Fine," Tealy typed.

"DURR!!"

"Don't make it weird."

"DURR OKAY"

"And don't eat my gummies."

"DURR"

"DumbDird."

"DURR TALLY I ALREADY ATE THEM"

Tealy put his phone down.

Picked it up.

Opened the chat.

Typed: "What do you think my brain picks next."

The responses came in fast.

Beric: "Statistically, common household objects. Spatulas, maybe."

Greeny: "The pattern suggests mundane items with no threatening characteristics. Oven mitts. Coasters."

Blara posted a photo of a spatula.

Preemptively.

It was already there.

Dird reacted with 👍

DumbDird sent: "DURR I HOPE IT'S SOMETHING FUNNY TALLY"

Tealy looked at the spatula photo.

Looked at the clothes hanger photo from earlier.

Looked at the towel photo from the day before.

Blara had been ready with a spatula photo before anyone had even suggested spatulas.

"Blara," he said out loud, to nobody.

He typed it into the chat.

"Blara."

Blara sent another spatula photo. Different spatula.

Dird reacted with 👍

Tealy put his phone in his pocket and went to make breakfast.

Somewhere outside, probably, DumbDird was already settling in for the night with the pipe.

The gummies were gone.

The shirt was still on the floor.

Tomorrow's object was unknown.

This was just life now.

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