Units Available
Joy-Glen Apartments are nestled between quiet green mountains. Units are coveted for roominess, light, and all-inclusive utilities. Monitored surveillance cameras and twenty-foot electrified razor wire perimeter fences ensure safety. The waiting list to get in is longer than a dragon’s tail.
Management insists applicants read the fine print of their leases. Most do.
Management has found a way to make units available in perpetuity, through The Annual Summer Solstice Lottery.
It is Jane and forty-nine other tenants’ last day as residents. Lottery numbers were posted last week; next week is The Annual Yard Sale; New Neighbors Day the following.
[99 words]
Afterword: I foresee this sort of set-up will happen as the housing shortage gets more critical.
At first I had the “winners” of the lottery put to death, but changed it to forced homelessness.
Question: if you had a chance at living in an affordable luxury apartment but knew every year you could lose it, would you do it?
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields is the host of Friday Fictioneers.
Tao-Talk 
I definitely wouldn’t do it! I cant imagine living from year to year with the threat of losing my home looming each year! Great story Li!
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I would have to give it some serious thought. Depends on the availability of other places, I guess. Maybe get on a waiting list of a more permanent complex? Maybe this will be standard practice at some point :(
Thanks, CA.
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Starting July 1, our apartment complex is setting down rules that are ridiculous. All of us are angry, but as you say, we could lose our home if we protest much. I don’t know what will happen. It’s uncomfortable. I think this administration is filtering down through businesses and homes and it’s disconcerting.
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I like living where I am and at my age, moving would be a real pain.
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