The Twisted-Streeters
Have you ever wondered about who cleans the streets? Who disposes of the waste? Who fixes that broken sign, that loose paving stone, that cracked brick?
The ones that do it are a little known fact of Alvadas. Men and women managing waste disposal, street cleaning and general repairs, the twisted-streeters only operate at night. Ever present pranksters, they like to dress up in ridiculous outfits and have competitions amongst their ranks to see who can scare someone the most with a ludicrous costume. Oft-times crude, the twisted-streeters love practical jokes. During the night-time, they walk through Alvadas pretending to be illusions, but instead are the silent heroes of Alvadas, fixing broken things, cleaning dirt and horse dung and other stuff besides, making Alvadas as presentable as they can- like making Alvadas a clean slate for Ionu to play with. They also deal with human waste, and rubbish generated by businesses, restaurants and shops. Some amongst the twisted-streeters are in fact Listeners too, as the role requires them to often move about unseen, and may give the worker a glimpse into things that would ordinarily be shut off to them. One rule of the twisted-streeter is that they must never talk to other people when in their disguise. Yet anyone who encounters them will often be met with laughter, or jibberish words spoken to confuse or amuse. On their days off, or when in plain clothes, the twisted-streeter is just the same as any other Alvad. They are seen as the affable and strange, the well-meaning and infallible. Yet they are a part of the invisible background of Alvadas that keeps it running day to day, and as such many Alvads know little to nothing about them, apart from childhood stories and strange encounters late at night.
Becoming a Twisted-Streeter
Most streeters are streeters through birth. The job is more of a tradition, passed down through family members, father to daughter, mother to son. Occasionally an entirely new person will become part of the twisted-streeters, through taking an interest in them after some encounter late at night.
When a new street-cleaner is being trained, they are taken to the headquarters- a building known simply as, 'The Twist'. It's an old stone bungalow with a thatched roof, slightly and surprisingly run down on the inside, with only two rooms. New recruits are taken to the room on the right, which is filled to the brim with cleaning equipment of all kinds. Their induction is given there, and then they are free to go out into Alvadas. Learning takes place on the job- if you can't keep quiet, another twisted-streeter will pull you up on it. If you don't know how to clean, you may find yourself the butt of jokes instead. However despite this, there is a certain camaraderie amongst the individuals that make up the whole. The second room in the Twist is a place for this camaraderie to find a home. It's a common room of sorts, a place for streeters to have a quick chat with their fellows before returning to whatever home they belong to. Friendships are strong and lasting, and the streeters treat each other like family.
What happens to the waste?
The only requirements for a twisted-streeter are a knowledge of the Alvadas Underground. A door will be opened, the rubbish disposed of, and life goes on as usual. Yet no-one really knows where in the Underground all this waste goes, and even if the door they open really leads there. All that is known is that it keeps Alvadas clean, and that's that.
Job details
Those who wish to be a twisted-streeter will soon learn that disguise is just as much of a useful skill as cleaning is. A streeter is not a streeter unless they are regularly coming up with new costumes, face-paints and pranks to go with them. Whether that be pretending to be a building and jump-scaring people, or pushing rotten fruit under someone's step whilst dressed as a gigantic ape... the list is endless and competitive. Other streeters will often be as quiet as possible, choosing to blend into the background rather than drawing attention to themselves through costumes and japes.
Being a street cleaner for the twisted-streeters is often a job that is paired with another, such as a regular daytime job. As such the pay is low, at only 5 SM/day. A regular salary for a twisted-streeter is low for a season, as twisted-streeters can have as many days off as they like. The job is demanding and sometimes demeaning, but there is opportunity to find interesting things that others have thrown away, and learn of facts you would never have imagined as you traverse practically unseen through the streets.
