Pandora's Box - Pool Hall
The ceiling is set high with churning metal fans. The blades churn a thick
haze of smoke from cheap cigars and the pungent aroma of sweat mixed with stale
spilt beer. The bar runs the length of the far wall much like a saloon in an old
western. A polished brass foot-rail gleams in the fading light of the occasional
dropped match and guttering cigarette butt.
Many of the patrons watch each other with looks of a cautious calculation. Not
only are those opposite the pool table viewed with suspicion, but also the few one
might mistake as a friend. A darkness of nefarious deed reigns within the shadows
as the lighting illuminates from the mouth down. It is as though the dark conspires
to hide the intent deep within the eyes from the light of revelation. Then again
the windows to these souls only come up black.
NIGHTZONE
--> Places and view enabled. <--
Contents:
Eddie
Penny's all alone at the bar. Backlit by the jukebox, her jacket turns different
colors; blue, muddy yellow, bright orange. Everyone else seems to be enjoying their
night. peoplecleaning up at the tables, getting decent service (lip, drink and
otherwise) but not Penny. Surrounding her, a cloud of smoke and another imagined
somewhere above. The hangdog expression does a lot to explain things as do the
number of empty shot glasses lined up in front of her.
This is a long night and these are necessary evils.
Eddie walks in, he does. Counting bills already like a gremlin. Hunger forcing him
to participate in small games with small people. Perhaps not the best night scope a
joint for local suckers, given the scarcity of actual pool playing going down in this pool hall. No cocky green studs with their own sticks. Those are the easiest. Those are the ones that'd jump to throw a game Voodoo's way. Some brown dude with a stolen outfit, underfed, and dirty. Comin' in off the streets to step into a white
man's game. They'd pounce.
But they're not here tonight. So Eddie allows his gaze to drift once this is noted.
Penny shifts on the stool and the headphones looped and hanging off its back follow
gravity, slithering into a loose pile of wire and plastic on the poolhall floor.
Mingling with cigarette butts, spilled beer and the glint of canadian pennies, the
headphones tilt and open flat, kicked underfoot by someone else drunker than Penny. Drunk enough not to notice the loss or the molded pieces of plastic cracking under the pressure of a rough and stumbling foot.
She's busy, damnit. Penny is busy making a dent in their worst whiskey. Bottom of
the barrel, rot gut, acid breath. In her left hand she has poised the next shot.
Wet, dirty and possibly ashed in,her hand is listless. A boney trap of spindly long
fingers and in her right is a cigarette. Unlit.
Over to the overworked. Eddie steps to the plate, stuffing away funny colored
money. The bright pinks and reds associated with far off places. Mainly because
there's no fish in the sea tonight, he won't need the shiny lure. A moment to look
presentable as he switches over from business to one of the few remaining lords of
leisure. Dude does that thing with the licking, and his first and last finger, and
the running them over his eyebrows in different directions.
"Hija." Eddie pretends he's not quite sure it's Penny, that girl that fucked his
game. One hand holds the lapel of his jacket in place when he leans over her at the
bar. Scavenger inspecting a bit of luck.
Oh yeah, that's all you. Slick and even. And Penny? She's all tough jawed, determined. Girl's on a mission; a kind of localized vietnam; wandering through the foreign jungles of a deep, deep alcoholic persuasion. Was that a hiccup or a hello - hard to determine under the whinging of certain other elements in the thinly populated bar tonight - a younger, irresponsible crowd. They type that are always 'on something,' always paying too much for entertainment, getting ripped off by the strung-out waitress and wondering in a passive way what exactly happened to a grand in a night.
Yes, the noise peaks and coughs. Sounds that span the room before they drift down to a bass and acceptable treble. And her hand has barely moved; elbows on the bar, liquid rolling into the fleshy white space between her thumb and forefinger. "Hnn," unable to make her mouth do the talking.
"Ju lookeen..." Well, she looks like shit. "Excellente." Slime. He'd say that to anything. Eddie smiles through the layers of grease that coat his soul. 'There's
somethin' up', you'd be thinkin'. "Can I seet weet ju'?" Fingers uncoil towards the
stool over, one between the prospective bar mates. For good measure. It's all
polite, his approach. Designed specifically for an affirmative or agreeable reply
of sorts. To get him in the door. To get him closer to your paper.
Penny wraps her fingers down around the shotglass. The motion bringing to mind two very specific gestures: the first - a pitcher looking for the sweet spot on the ball and the second - combat oriented reloading, middle and index fingers finding the bottom of the glass. The middle and index tip-shoving the glass into place at the precipice of her lip. She drops her head back and makes it quick, the reflex flinch almost entirely absent - possible she's done enough she's not tasting it.
Setting down the glass to the bar Penny swipes those same two fingers across her shirt, left to right, slurring something in a vague and breakable english "Y'c'gme a li, yah."
At some point, Hiro -- a beacon of pure, shining light amidst the darkness of dark
deeds and dark thoughts ... no. Scratch that. He's just dressed like some kind of
fairy, and is wearing one of those queer temple headlamps. Regardless, he
materializes at Penny's elbow; flicking the goddamn lamp off when he notices the
brooding patrons fixing him with their steely, opaque soul-windows. Which is good,
because the illumination -- once one is accustomed to the oozing inky blackness of
darkville -- was nearly blinding.
"'ey, Pensy," he prompts.
"Como que no." The approach; worked as intended. Hannibal loves it when a job comes together. Eddie has been granted parlay, an audience with drunk party chic. A shiny loafer swings over the seat; dude plants his flag and goes for some matches. Matches with two sticks left, only one in working order. With a bit of luck, he doesn't need the second one anyways. Luck is his venue. Fire for Penny.
Boyo sits a seat over from her, allowing the stool between to act as the platonic
friend pillow guard in a sleepover. Eddie leans over to hand off the burning match.
On that side of the hall are the normal intricacies of the human condition. The simple drink, smoke and flirtation; a casual night out for a Canadian. And like those that traffic in weather and good tidings, they - Penny and Eddie and Hiro together perhaps - seem to exist on the other side of the screen. A strangeness pervades but doesn't move beyond them; the way she drinks is to excess, the way she smokes is indecent - the way she leans across the stool for the light with her whole body, a tattooed arm extended across to even out the keel, the cut of her hair falling off her face, off her wet cheek; an accident - an envelope full of glitter opening. Even the way she bends backward into Hiro before she's fully aware he's there.
"Rosy hm, this is my friennnnd" leaving an opening for an introduction.
Hiro scrubs the back of his hand across his nose, sniffing once, and offers it to
Eddie over Penny's shoulder. "'ey, whatsit," he murmurs, snapping his fingers - as
if to indicate a handshake should be immediate. He comes across as agitated and
nervous and paranoid and full of confidence - a chemical cocktail riding the horse
in place of a personality. "'s Hiro."
A gross whistling noise as Eddie's tongue sucks out the remains of his cheap dinner
from between incisors. Eddie's attention shifts to the colored pig.
The handshakes offered up, even if it forces Voodoo to touch the puerco sooner than he intended. His pace is a tad slower; his words end up waiting till all other actions
are accomplished. "How ju' doeen', 'm Eddie homes." Mexicans slaughtered his native accent in lockdown.
All hands where she can see them, Penny's eyes drift toward the bartender. The way he looks back at her says a couple of things about the place; they don't cut you off here. And they especially don't cut you off if you've got friends. Having a five second quiet moment Penny's eyes drift toward her navel, swung out and leaning half on Hiro, half on the barstool. "Same?" even as she nods yes, already with the bottle in hand, he starts refilling the shot glasses in front of her. No sense in dirtying up new ones but then she asides to the bartender "Cup'l fer these two." New glasses afterall. Lowball - they're all out of the tiny tumblers. Lazy, Penny drags and exhales across Hiro's head, working out the numbness from her tongue "Almost godlike, habatcho?"
Hiro's hand clasps, shifts, snaps off the fingertips. He rocks back on his heels as
he extracts the digit; wedging it back into his labcoat pocket. Not much movement;
just this perpetual slouch that forces him to address Eddie around -- no, more
eclipsed by -- Penny. He tilts his head to the side, regarding the lush sidelong.
"Tuesday, huh?"
Settling back into the counter, the valet. Perceptive. Inside words. Whatever they
mean. Eddie will watch for a moment, using his decoder ring went needed. Tuesday
bit, foreign. The brown man isn't hip. This allows for a brief inventory check. Pat
the jacket, bundle's there. Pat the front pant-leg pocket, keys. Taking stock. Dude
finally reaches out for the bar pretzels as gnaws on a few.
Penny finds it funny, smiles when Hiro says it. She snifs like maybe she needs to blow her nose and bobs her head back and forth; some variation of yes. When she opens her mouth to speak again, Penny already has the next shot lined up. "Was supposed to go to this funeral with Days. Plan was we get medicated," pointing this out for Eddie's edification "you can never last through those things, all those handshakes" emphasizing the word on its first syllable - /hand/, flickflicking an ash down by her knee, somewhere in the dark between the bar and Hiro's thigh "but she never came to get me so I figured," talking mostly to Hiro's orbiting head "why not stay? Chin chin old chap" annunciating tight-lipped in a laughable east-ender accent, Penny snatches a shot and knocks it down.
A hand manifests, bearing one of Daisy's cheap GPCs, and Hiro plucks Penny's
cigarette from between her fingers, using it to light his own. "Ms. A," he states,
rather than asks. He knows which funeral. "The pig said I shouldn't go." The
cigarette is offered for Penny's retrieval. "Guess I won't. He said she was
watching me." He makes a scissor-cutting motion with index and middle fingers;
snaps again. "Like she wanted to do that. Girl was crazy. Loved her, but she was
crazy."
By this time i'd assume the other two drinks P ordered had arrived. That's a
novelty, relative strangers aiding in one's inebriation. Eddie seems quite pleased
to accept the fire water when it arrives, greeting the drink with one cheeked
puffed with munched pretzels. A few remain untouched in the palm of his hand. "Very nice." Nods, he's pleasant and giving thanks despite talk of corpses. A sip to
punctuate his approval of shit whiskeys.
"That pig has a point," infering something like agreement in a low voice, fingers held still to receive the cigarette again. The bartender approaches, murmuring "My shifts's over," hedging for a tip "so maybe you wanna close out your tab?" Penny nods a little, sure-suring him but makes no moves to reach for a wallet or anything that looks like she's pulling money out. Just nods her head and lips the cigarette, continuing when he backs off "besides they /all/ are, take Jesse" for example, she implies, clipping her words "disappears for months at a time doing stuff we can't exactly y'know, talk'bout with the PTA." Penny waves her cigarette around, pontificating and rolling her eyes. Unsteady. "I mean and they want us to act surprised.. stunned... amazed? Uh uh."
Maybe it's the hour and maybe she has a bullseye on her somewhere - some invisible 'tag' sign on her back; whatever it is, it's attracting all the wrong attention and suddenly there's some acne-faced kid standing there. Wall-eyed and grinning like he's at the spring formal getting up the nerve to ask her something. Did he think she was gesturing at him? Lidded, Penny pulls herself together and rasps "What?"
"Thought maybe we could y'know, dance."
There's other people way in the back - they're "dancing" too; a few couples crushed into eachother in the dark. She reeks but Penny is nothing if not indulgent. She spins off the stool and winks broadly over her shoulder at Hiro, leaving him to get chummy with Eddie for a few. Call it a sixth sense but there's a hundred and ten percent chance she'll have the money to cover the tab and then some by the time she gets back.
Bacon and whiskey, fine company. Even if Hiro isn't a white chic. The awkward
silence of two people left at the bar together ensues. Nether know each other for
shit. Friends of friends and that. Not that he knows Penny at all ether.
Eddie looks over to Hiro. A sip of cheap booze fills the void between them. "Pal a
jers get dead recently?" There's a curious starting point.
Thursday, July 31, 2003
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Bitch tried ta' touch my teeth.
It seems to take her a moment to register what you said, or perhaps she is just deciding upon how to address you. Simply enough, she smiles and lifts her hand to wave, just as you did. "Hello." Her hand lowers and she looks off to her right where a lone car is driving in the distance. "Why are you out here so early? It is early, yes?" Her dark gaze sweeps over to focus on your face. The distant car turns onto another street. (Peter is seated on a bench. Mel is standing before him.)
Peter nods quickly, and says, "Yeah, it's early." He doesn't really look away from the woman, now, even as she glances at that car. He hesitates before answering finally, resting his hands on the computer, "I wanted some fresh air. I just like being outside, really. And I couldn't sleep. What about you?"
Her eyes seem to lower further to examine his hands. She shrugs and smiles up at him. "The same. I could not sleep. I have that problem..." She pauses and closes her eyes, waving a finger in thought. Suddenly her eyes open. "Insomnia. I have that. Sometimes." Again she shrugs. "Are you learning something on your laptop?" She takes a sidestep to get a view, though it is closed. Perhaps she expects him to just open it and show her.
The city bus. Hooray for public transportation. It runs all day and night. Even those ungodly hours before 8 AM. Conveniently and strategically, bus benches are placed at most major intersection to service the fleet. This one says '360' on the front, featuring an add for the Energizer Bunny. With a noxious exhale, the smog spewing rectangle comes to a halt at the local bench. Zombified, Eddie steps off as its mechanical doors open. Maybe it's too early, maybe he stayed out all night, and maybe the headphones he wears are blaring too loud. Whatever the case, this brown fellow is in his own special 'zone'. The curb holds a steady footing, as green eyes seek out the nearest street signs. The bus pulls off and burps carbon-dioxide at him.
Peter glances up as the bus pulls up, frowning a little as he sees the smoke. He looks back to the woman, then, not seeming to get the hint to open the computer. He shakes his head, "I was just writing a letter to a friend, who lives up North."
Mel looks up, North, sort of. "Oh. Yes, well I write up North all the time." She does not seem too convincing, of course. With a little twirl of her dress, she does a turn to face the offending sight, smell and sound of the bus. Her hand fans before her nose and she makes a face. "Perhaps he is an... insomniac too," she tells Peter with a half-smile of discovery. She then turns back to face the boy on the bench. "Do your parents know that you go out when it is still dark?"
Synthetic thumps leak from orange puffy headphones. Hands in pockets, Eddie starts down southward having fingered his location from the green signs. Nodding to the beats, it's a good bet he'll be deaf by 40 if he doesn't lower the volume. But his march is halted by a red light. On the corner, his fingers trail up the side of a pole in a suggestive manner. He's working on one hell of a pinky coke nail. Glancing to the left and right, safety first, it's a priority. His pink tongue runs over 14 carrot teeth as he says something to himself in a Latin based language.
Peter glances to Eddie, and then grins back to Mel at her joke. He nods, "Maybe." Then, at the last question, he shakes his head a bit with a bit of a grin. "Not really, no. But, I might not look it, but I am old enough that it doesn't really matter."
Melantha reaches down and gathers up a bit of her dress on either side, likely to aid in walking without tripping over velvet and lace. The toes of her small boots tap as she peers down at what she has uncovered. "I will leave you to that letter," she tells Peter plainly, glancing up from her feet at him. "I am going to follow him now. He seems quite oblivious to the world. That makes me curious." She nods her head toward Eddie and smiles. Oh, a little adventure. Sure.
Red light blues. This is a long one. Built to accommodate heavy traffic from the east and west. And duly, less from the north and south. So it has Eddie waiting, see. It has him standing on the corner at 6 AM. Perfect time for mumbling. What sounds like song lyrics perhaps, muffled by the obscuring sound of the beats being poured into his inner ear.
"Eu estarei esperando aqui at que eu morro."
Peter glances again towards Eddie, curious an then up to Mel again. He nods a bit, and says, "Might be dangerous, you know. But good luck." He smiles again. He opens up his laptop once more, but doesn't start typing right away.
"I would not bother if it was not dangerous. I should not even be out here right now," Melantha states with a practiced grin that is reserved for little girls licking lollipops. She lifts her hand and waves to Peter then turns on her heel to start after Eddie. Stuck at the red light. It must be fate. A few clicks of her boots and she is soon beside him, rocking back and forth with a coy sway. Her ponytail flops around to her shoulder when she not-so-sublty turns to give him a sidelong glance.
Suspect. Dubious. Girls don't approach him. Eddie doesn't like that. Maybe Eddie doesn't like girls. Maybe Eddie doesn't like humans. Maybe Eddie doesn't like anything but his headphones. And she's looking at him now. Cool under fire, dude arches a brow. That's about when the blank red 'don't walk' sign turns green. Time to step off the curb and into harm's way.
Peter smiles again to what the woman says, and nods a bit. As she turns to walk after Eddie, his curiosity won't let him do anything but watch to see what happens. He stays sitting on the bench, though, hands poised as if ready to start typing as soon as his distraction is past.
Suspicion and Melantha seem to be bedfellows, so she takes the arched brow in stride and steps off of the curb in odd time with Eddie. If he does not step, neither does she, that is the rub. Mimicing is likely one of the faster ways to get one's ass handed to them, but that is her approach nonetheless. She is smiling to herself by now, happy to be annoying someone.
Then by the time they've reached the proverbial 'other side', Eddie's aware this isn't a chance encounter. Nothing but a flaming infant falling from the sky could make him run right now; it's too early for that kind of physical exertion. However, once aboard the next concrete curb, one of the puffy orange headphones' are removed from his ear. This of course will allow him to converse in an audible and effective manner.
"Wha' ju' wan'?" Eddie's accent is unmistakably Hispanic. His southward trek doesn't waver, no. If there's to be any sort of conversation here, it's to be a mobile one.
Looking quite equal to the task, Melantha follows, in time, step for step. To the question she gasps and points at your mouth, then covering hers as she laughs. "Is that gold on your teeth? That is amazing," she coos, leaning a bit closer, one finger pointing to your teeth while another rubs at her own teeth. "How did you do that?" She is invading your space now, nearly putting her fingers into your mouth. Like ferrets, she likes shiny things.
"Wha' da fuck..." Shooing hands swat Mel's fingers from Eddie's mouth. Attacking them like invading bees with stinging intents. His neck reflexively pulls back, bringing with them his gold capped wonders. He takes a few steps away, to put a gap between the pair longer than arm's length. "Get away from me, loca." That means 'crazy'. And his eyes seem convinced of the fact. "'S a matter whichu." That's not really a question. Still he walks.
The flailing limbs and smart remarks give her pause and she stops following. Her expression is not so much defeated or sad... no, it is something more along the lines of disappointed realization. The way one looks when told that their ex-lover is sleeping with their ex-best friend. She turns a little toward the morning traffic and tilts her long neck awkwardly to peer up at a streetlamp. The pour of unnatural light causes her to look ghastly pale.
That's noted. The pale bit. But whatever just invaded Eddie's morning walk, doesn't quite compute. Strange mimes reaching for his teeth in an early haze. Weird enough to write about perhaps, but too weird to stick around for. Like a sex crime, he backs from the scene. Wondering what just happened, who that was, and why him. After a suitable distance is placed between Mel and Eddie, and with the benefit of a few comforting glances over his shoulder to make sure this would be dental molester isn't hot on his trail, his headphones are replaced to their rightful position. Leaving in his wake, a trail of electronic emissions and curled lips.
The lamppost holds a fascination that cannot be explained - nor will it be. The molester does not follow. She does not even look after you, but somewhere in the depths of her mind, if she bothered to consider it, she would be quite pleased that she disturbed the intimdating male. Bizarre...
Peter nods quickly, and says, "Yeah, it's early." He doesn't really look away from the woman, now, even as she glances at that car. He hesitates before answering finally, resting his hands on the computer, "I wanted some fresh air. I just like being outside, really. And I couldn't sleep. What about you?"
Her eyes seem to lower further to examine his hands. She shrugs and smiles up at him. "The same. I could not sleep. I have that problem..." She pauses and closes her eyes, waving a finger in thought. Suddenly her eyes open. "Insomnia. I have that. Sometimes." Again she shrugs. "Are you learning something on your laptop?" She takes a sidestep to get a view, though it is closed. Perhaps she expects him to just open it and show her.
The city bus. Hooray for public transportation. It runs all day and night. Even those ungodly hours before 8 AM. Conveniently and strategically, bus benches are placed at most major intersection to service the fleet. This one says '360' on the front, featuring an add for the Energizer Bunny. With a noxious exhale, the smog spewing rectangle comes to a halt at the local bench. Zombified, Eddie steps off as its mechanical doors open. Maybe it's too early, maybe he stayed out all night, and maybe the headphones he wears are blaring too loud. Whatever the case, this brown fellow is in his own special 'zone'. The curb holds a steady footing, as green eyes seek out the nearest street signs. The bus pulls off and burps carbon-dioxide at him.
Peter glances up as the bus pulls up, frowning a little as he sees the smoke. He looks back to the woman, then, not seeming to get the hint to open the computer. He shakes his head, "I was just writing a letter to a friend, who lives up North."
Mel looks up, North, sort of. "Oh. Yes, well I write up North all the time." She does not seem too convincing, of course. With a little twirl of her dress, she does a turn to face the offending sight, smell and sound of the bus. Her hand fans before her nose and she makes a face. "Perhaps he is an... insomniac too," she tells Peter with a half-smile of discovery. She then turns back to face the boy on the bench. "Do your parents know that you go out when it is still dark?"
Synthetic thumps leak from orange puffy headphones. Hands in pockets, Eddie starts down southward having fingered his location from the green signs. Nodding to the beats, it's a good bet he'll be deaf by 40 if he doesn't lower the volume. But his march is halted by a red light. On the corner, his fingers trail up the side of a pole in a suggestive manner. He's working on one hell of a pinky coke nail. Glancing to the left and right, safety first, it's a priority. His pink tongue runs over 14 carrot teeth as he says something to himself in a Latin based language.
Peter glances to Eddie, and then grins back to Mel at her joke. He nods, "Maybe." Then, at the last question, he shakes his head a bit with a bit of a grin. "Not really, no. But, I might not look it, but I am old enough that it doesn't really matter."
Melantha reaches down and gathers up a bit of her dress on either side, likely to aid in walking without tripping over velvet and lace. The toes of her small boots tap as she peers down at what she has uncovered. "I will leave you to that letter," she tells Peter plainly, glancing up from her feet at him. "I am going to follow him now. He seems quite oblivious to the world. That makes me curious." She nods her head toward Eddie and smiles. Oh, a little adventure. Sure.
Red light blues. This is a long one. Built to accommodate heavy traffic from the east and west. And duly, less from the north and south. So it has Eddie waiting, see. It has him standing on the corner at 6 AM. Perfect time for mumbling. What sounds like song lyrics perhaps, muffled by the obscuring sound of the beats being poured into his inner ear.
"Eu estarei esperando aqui at que eu morro."
Peter glances again towards Eddie, curious an then up to Mel again. He nods a bit, and says, "Might be dangerous, you know. But good luck." He smiles again. He opens up his laptop once more, but doesn't start typing right away.
"I would not bother if it was not dangerous. I should not even be out here right now," Melantha states with a practiced grin that is reserved for little girls licking lollipops. She lifts her hand and waves to Peter then turns on her heel to start after Eddie. Stuck at the red light. It must be fate. A few clicks of her boots and she is soon beside him, rocking back and forth with a coy sway. Her ponytail flops around to her shoulder when she not-so-sublty turns to give him a sidelong glance.
Suspect. Dubious. Girls don't approach him. Eddie doesn't like that. Maybe Eddie doesn't like girls. Maybe Eddie doesn't like humans. Maybe Eddie doesn't like anything but his headphones. And she's looking at him now. Cool under fire, dude arches a brow. That's about when the blank red 'don't walk' sign turns green. Time to step off the curb and into harm's way.
Peter smiles again to what the woman says, and nods a bit. As she turns to walk after Eddie, his curiosity won't let him do anything but watch to see what happens. He stays sitting on the bench, though, hands poised as if ready to start typing as soon as his distraction is past.
Suspicion and Melantha seem to be bedfellows, so she takes the arched brow in stride and steps off of the curb in odd time with Eddie. If he does not step, neither does she, that is the rub. Mimicing is likely one of the faster ways to get one's ass handed to them, but that is her approach nonetheless. She is smiling to herself by now, happy to be annoying someone.
Then by the time they've reached the proverbial 'other side', Eddie's aware this isn't a chance encounter. Nothing but a flaming infant falling from the sky could make him run right now; it's too early for that kind of physical exertion. However, once aboard the next concrete curb, one of the puffy orange headphones' are removed from his ear. This of course will allow him to converse in an audible and effective manner.
"Wha' ju' wan'?" Eddie's accent is unmistakably Hispanic. His southward trek doesn't waver, no. If there's to be any sort of conversation here, it's to be a mobile one.
Looking quite equal to the task, Melantha follows, in time, step for step. To the question she gasps and points at your mouth, then covering hers as she laughs. "Is that gold on your teeth? That is amazing," she coos, leaning a bit closer, one finger pointing to your teeth while another rubs at her own teeth. "How did you do that?" She is invading your space now, nearly putting her fingers into your mouth. Like ferrets, she likes shiny things.
"Wha' da fuck..." Shooing hands swat Mel's fingers from Eddie's mouth. Attacking them like invading bees with stinging intents. His neck reflexively pulls back, bringing with them his gold capped wonders. He takes a few steps away, to put a gap between the pair longer than arm's length. "Get away from me, loca." That means 'crazy'. And his eyes seem convinced of the fact. "'S a matter whichu." That's not really a question. Still he walks.
The flailing limbs and smart remarks give her pause and she stops following. Her expression is not so much defeated or sad... no, it is something more along the lines of disappointed realization. The way one looks when told that their ex-lover is sleeping with their ex-best friend. She turns a little toward the morning traffic and tilts her long neck awkwardly to peer up at a streetlamp. The pour of unnatural light causes her to look ghastly pale.
That's noted. The pale bit. But whatever just invaded Eddie's morning walk, doesn't quite compute. Strange mimes reaching for his teeth in an early haze. Weird enough to write about perhaps, but too weird to stick around for. Like a sex crime, he backs from the scene. Wondering what just happened, who that was, and why him. After a suitable distance is placed between Mel and Eddie, and with the benefit of a few comforting glances over his shoulder to make sure this would be dental molester isn't hot on his trail, his headphones are replaced to their rightful position. Leaving in his wake, a trail of electronic emissions and curled lips.
The lamppost holds a fascination that cannot be explained - nor will it be. The molester does not follow. She does not even look after you, but somewhere in the depths of her mind, if she bothered to consider it, she would be quite pleased that she disturbed the intimdating male. Bizarre...
Friday, July 25, 2003
[Of all the tea houses in all the world, he had to walk into this one...]
_________________________ //.etro: Toronto by Night _________________________
//.etro-logical Data
______________________________________________________________________________
It is 20:13 on Tuesday the 07. day of April 2009.
Sunrise: 5:25 Sunset: 18:34
Moonrise: 03:20 Moonset: 13:27
It is week 1 of the month and the waning crescent moon is not up.
The tide is high and rising.
A cool breeze blows from the west, driving dark clouds before it which blot
out the stars in patches overhead. Elsewhere they glitter brightly in the dark sapphire sky.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Rose Tearoom(#1214RlJM)
A renovated older building on the corner hosts a cosy little tea house. A
small sign hanging over the door proclaims it to be 'The Rose Tearoom'.
You open the door and enter the tearoom.
The Rose Tearoom(#1214RlJM)
Upon entering this tea room, it's evident that either the establishment was named for the decor, or decorated to match the name. Though there's nothing gaudy or glaring, roses do seem to be a major theme in the style of the room. Small tables seem to be the norm here, though there are several places where larger groups can be seated. The tables themselves are masterpieces of creation, having the look of handmade quality. Oak surfaces glow from frequent polishings, the legs of each carved to depict roses on trailing vines that circle the leg all the way to the floor. The chairs surrounding the tables are also of oak, though soft cushions have been placed upon the seats, making them comfortable. The floor itself is also hardwood, though woven rugs placed here and there give it a comfortable, warm feeling. The walls have been painted a soft shade of dusty rose, with a wallpaper trim running along the top, where wall meets ceiling, decorated with white roses against a wine-red background. Large windows face the street, of beautiful stained glass, depicting vivid red, white, and pink roses. Towards the back, a long counter runs along the length of the room, where people can sit, or simply place orders, though waitresses also circle the room. Behind the counter are two doors, one of which leads into the kitchen, the other to a staircase leading to the second floor, though this door is locked, with a sign that reads: Private. Music plays constantly, though at a soft volume, ranging from classical to soft jazz, though it's always instrumental, and never vocal. Decorating every table is a vase, with a single, freshcut rose.
Flames burn brightly, encased within hurricane lamps at the center of every table, providing more illumination than one might expect. Discreet overhead lighting also sheds it's glow onto the room, so that the light level remains soft and diffuse, but ample enough to see clearly.
Looking outside, you can see it's fair and mild, with a few clouds in the sky.
** Places and +views present **
Obvious exits:
Private Door U Out O
Tom enters from the street.
Tom has arrived.
It's a pleasant walk from Union Station and the lake is gorgeous. Tom is back in Toronto after his prolonged absence fighting the good fight on the island of Rhodes where against some incredible Globalization-Struggle-Rioting backdrop he did do ferocious battle against some hidden conspiracy of Nazi financiers/media conglomerate owners wherein he defeated, once more, the excesses of the foul advertising industry coupled with the unthinking excesses of global money-power, in so doing, vindicating the righteous power of the mass media to do good and righteous service to the global citizens of Starship Earth...
Man. If only that were true, he wouldn't look so beatdown. There's something about Tom that looks beat like a drum - his hangdog face, the general lack of focus and clarity in his often energized eyes, the 'I simply do not give a fuck' adjustment of his tie, the knot falling quite short of tidy. His amble into the room is aimless, his gaze simply a skitter of sight against rose, red, red red rose, his posture is stooped, his hands clammy. One holds a travelling briefcase. The other tenses... untenses. Tonight is one of those nights. Going to be a tough one to get through. Sweat beads on his forehead. His internal biochemistry is gone haywire. Tom is coming undone at the seams.
On nights like this, the tea room loses most of its patrons.
Warm nights, no traffic.
They should have outside seating; a place where people talk, enjoy a lull, leave change, move on. As it happens, as it so often is the case, the interior mimicks the exterior - very little traffic, warm and pleasant. Certain dialogues exist on certain levels but it's white noise. Impossible to zero in on one particular conversation, insane to discern the nuance of laungages. There's only so much french you can listen to until it becomes a boring nasal drone.
Of course, there's Penny. Strikingly gaunt and towheaded against the muted mauves. Headphones on her table, jacket slung back across the chair. Scarves of steam rise up from the cup of tea in front of her, a little to the left. Threading her fingers together, she watches Tom-the-antithesis-of-calm with her head canted.
And, of course, travel will do this to you. A trans-Atlantic flight is a very
long time in a very uncomfortable environment that absolutely no evolutionary
mechanisms prepare you for.
A night, a week, sometimes even a month is not enough to recover after a particularly strenuous odyssey from home. Especially not when you find yourself, just for instance, waking up at five in the morning because where you were, it's noon. /Especially/ not if you find yourself in the very real situation of being up and moving at eight thirty six pm when it is to you three in the morning.
This is how Tom finds himself here, his eyes blind, ears deaf, even his nose blocked to the rich exchange of information in the form of hand-jive, the patois of invisibly evolving underground linguistic structures, even the careful cryptography of chemical precursors to amino acids that float in specially prepared tea. The entire universe is information, and it offers up a bounty to those willing to open themselves to cosmic patternings. But Tom just can't be fucked to do it, just now, sorry. Instead, the world washes over him in a wave, meaningless, senseless. Arbitrary, imagined, just as it is, as it always has been - without interpretation or the imposition of personal meaning on the recognition of structures. A pair of quarreling lovers don't remind him of a girl in Budapest he nearly married -- instead, they are strangers and it is none of his business. It is a frightful state to be in, and Tom is aware of it, only this, how out of character he is, how utterly not himself he feels, how distant and dissociated he feels from his ordinary self (or even his extraordinary self which is largely something of a secret and especially from his extraextraordinary self which today is given to napping and the occasional emergence in a clumsy, crabby moment).
Tom sits without art or technique in an elegantly carved oak chair perilously close to the secret friend whose name he's never known, the girl who has always been here and yet who he has always been unaware of. He puts the briefcase down carelessly - as a result, it topples with a loudish bang - he doesn't even start. He just opens the front of his jacket and slumps, giving himself over to a hyperfocused study of the rose on his table, vibrant and full.
That one face in a swell of unknowns. Any other soldier home from the war would go running. Would move with the tide of humanity, know his place in it and understand the destination as home, as safe, as terra firma. A place of rest.
Like magnetic north draws all compass points, the seat with its back to Penny is the only obvious stopping point. She behaves as a long-term fixture, the way old men feeding birds in the park do. Moving minimally, making adjustments only with two fingers here. Two fingers there. To her shirt, the jacket. Shoving cup and saucer gently toward the center of the table. Her arrangement is methodical - the very slow and organized taking stock of herself. It's the point of all good neighbors to be only as involved as necessary; to keep all things hers beyond the point of interruption. That side of the fence.
Moving deeper into the zone, Penny peels off a sticker from her headphones and seals it to the table, pulls out a marker and chews on the cap. For a little while this mutual silence evolves in a sequence of sighs and shifting. Taptaping. Spoon drummed on the china.
"Ave," Penny says, subvocalized.
Isn't this the sort of thing that Tom gets all fucking worked out of shape over? Or he's supposed to, anyway. That's what he gets paid this respectable little salary (with benefits and vacation days and plenty of life insure) to do. To get worked up over things that aren't any of his business. To bust heads for holding thoughts that are, really, none of his business.
The peeping tom brigade. The sacrosanct order of reality puritans. Big BrXXXXXXXXXX you. (Classified for security reasons -- your eyes only.) Well, not tonight. Either Tom doesn't care -- or more likely -- he hasn't the energy or desire to notice whatever shenanigan is going on. Society will manage itself nicely without him for an evening. Society always does, always has, always will. Society is an organism. An organism that isn't properly maintained will collapse. An organism at the point of collapse is a danger not to itself but to the organisms immediately bordering it... death, putrefaction, corruption of the flesh, infection, pockets of bile, pus, poison all result.
Tom takes a bottle of poison from his pocket and opens it up. Now, he needs poison to function. He taps two pills into his palm, and swallows them dry. One, first. Into the mouth, over the tongue, down the throat with a grimace. The second, into the mouth, can't get it down, waitwaitwait saliva corrodes the time-release capsule the foul taste on his tongue and down it goes. He dabs the corners of his eyes with the napkin, and hardly notices even that he's done it.
Whales, dolphins, and humans are the only mammals with salt-water secreting ducts at the corners of the eye. They say that humans evolved into whales and dolphins -- they spent so much time in warm, seasonable water that they went native, they evolved to fit it, they left the whole poisonous clusterfuck of human interaction for the embrace of the seas where a whole other show was going on, involving poetry, love, and brotherhood. That's what they say.
Radiating a monday after-work turmoil so deep into a Tuesday keeps everyone else minding their own business or minding Tom's. That couple twice removed in the scheme of things now take turns with a furtive glance. Is he? Isn't he. Homicidal? Derranged. Assumptions scribed in the lines of downturned mouths, twists in a napkin, crowsfeet crinkling in squints; Pill-popping power broker. Fired. On a bender. They look at his hands and take the imagined story further. Bachelor. Lives in a studio. Never seen the inside of a gym.
Penny doesn't look. Can't very well turn around and offer conversation. Not yet. the atmosphere is thick, tension bouncing off the normally tranquil setting walls. Even the tiny lights in the hurricane lamps flare and spark. Working fingers away from the goetia surrounding her, Penny tips two out toward the room. The universal signal to a waitress. Two.
Without much delay a small woman wearing a small apron, stooped low to the ground by arthritis and poor nutrition in her better days, shuffles into the room (her way around the counter was a journey bracketed by cracking bones and gutteral grunts) with a cup and a pot of hot water. She makes her way toward Penny, smiling toothless, her eyes lost dots in the crinkled lattice of puffy eye skin and jowl. In broken english, the waitress coughs "Water, yes. Yes," pleasant, happy to be useful and doing something, not shored up in the network of socialist homes for the aging "other cup? you?"
Penny shakes her head, nods backward indicating Tom. The waitress nods like she knows the score and sets it and the saucer down. Gruff "Meelk, shoogar" pointing a bony finger at the accoutrements on the table. The tiny tin can of milk. The lidded bowl with the tiny spoon of sugar.
The waitress pours water from her one-shot tea pot, shuffles away and it's almost like you can feel the heat warming the thin walls of the porcelin. The sensation is not startling so much as it feels like the atmosphere of the tea room is finally seeping in. Into your bones and behind your eyes, a tranquil, easy feeling.
The drugs, perhaps. They kicked in sometime after the refugee from the People's States of Europe set down the tea Tom didn't ask for but didn't have any goddamn energy at all to send back -- too busy getting the childproof cap back on, too busy keeping the bile down, too busy ignoring the pointed stares, the accusatory glances from people who are here by design of the Universe specifically to pry into his business. There is a somehow appropriate inversion of values and status here.
But Tom, well. He's already looking up, bottle in jacket pocket, contemplating with much more weight than necessary the not-quite-tranquil surface of the tea. Invisible eddies of air stir the liquid. Convection currents within the cup echo the stirring motion of the faint breeze, and make with their own answering distortions of the hot tea, liquid joined by surface tension. As above, so below. In the world, there is pain and hurt. Now, Tom, who has put himself into step with the world, is filled with pain and hurt. But Tom wants the world to be filled with love and knowledge -- so he lets the love and knowledge regenerate within him. He is too busy contemplating drinking the tea to vomit -- he is too busy enjoying the perverse satisfaction of his penance, to be snooped upon, to bother to snoop on the snoopers. Let them stare! Tom will drink his tea.
And he does. Tom lifts the cup and holds it in his cupped palms. The Chinese have a saying -- too hot to hold, too hot to drink. And it is, but still, he does. Only a little, a sip, and it goes down easy... and he sips a bit more, just a bit, not enough to be really hot, to do a lot of damage... but to remind him he is, you know, alive. And for now, Tom does not question where this tea came from (indeed, to his mind, the salvation has the face of a wrinkled, shrunken woman in advanced stages of collapse), or how or why... in fact, he doesn't question at all. He sips. Relaxed. Content. Evolutionarily satisfied.
Better.
Everything, it seems, will be alright. This sensation permeates, changes perception and things begin to slow down. It's warm and pleasant and certain dialogues have begun to disappear; like so much vapor. The door has performed its function, swinging open and closed time and again. People, customers and off-shift waitresses, leave the tea room. It's not a hurried leave-taking but an amiable parting. Perhaps they overtip. Maybe they kiss and make-up. Behind the bar at the back, there's a kind of cleaning up happening. Neatening, straightening, wiping down. A younger waitress thumps her way down the little aisle in thick-heeled shoes. Quick swipes across both occupied tables; she even rights the fallen comrade briefcase.
Penny moves for the first time since the waitress left, her wrist, elbow, vertebrae cracking loudly - protesting the sudden flexing. There are not the noises of a body that wants to move. Like a stick-figure pulled reluctantly off the page, Penny shifts. The chair creaks, rivets in the wood carving released from incidental weight; she was never part of the tree it came from. Never had to bear the pressure of the wind, the pull of the root, the fall of the axe.
Somewhere a clock ticks. The inner workings loud, suddenly.
She touches her teacup, stirring the hot water inside, with a sugar-crusted spoon. Her mouth makes a long slurping sound when she sips and slouches further in the chair. Further in the background are the noises of plates being stacked.
Like so much vapor, the tea disappears into Tom. Warm and flowing, it floats down into the digestive system and out into the capillaries and veins and arteries and other mechanisms of irrigation. Warm water and Lord knows what else reinvigorate a damaged system. The organism was damaged - now, the damage seems put at bay if not addressed completely.
The room empties out, molecules spinning off and away. Like a vapor, like a gas, humanity in the tea room dissipates. Tom serenely sips, some weary office buddha who has found his contentment. Who knows what thoughts boil through that head? Who knows what plans, what misty-eyed schemes for global brotherhood are being rewound, given a second try, in this rare moment of harmony and all-togetherness. The sweat has dried, the hair is matted. Tom will live.
And he goes. He stands up without weariness, without complaint -- the mind/body dichotomy has been subdued, and his body no longer serves the mind unwillingly like a put-upon serf, but rather in the uncomplaining manner of a lover fetching a lost item of his beloved. Each task is performed with uncomplaining devotion - why should it not be so? The two are one!
Tom leaves a generous tip for the waitstaff on his table, and stoops to grasp the once-fallen, now-righted briefcase. The two have much in common -- the universe is a swarm of symbolic relationships and occulted meanings. With a clearer mind and an easier step, he walks back out into the luxuriously warm night to do things unguessed at.
//.etro-logical Data
______________________________________________________________________________
It is 20:13 on Tuesday the 07. day of April 2009.
Sunrise: 5:25 Sunset: 18:34
Moonrise: 03:20 Moonset: 13:27
It is week 1 of the month and the waning crescent moon is not up.
The tide is high and rising.
A cool breeze blows from the west, driving dark clouds before it which blot
out the stars in patches overhead. Elsewhere they glitter brightly in the dark sapphire sky.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Rose Tearoom(#1214RlJM)
A renovated older building on the corner hosts a cosy little tea house. A
small sign hanging over the door proclaims it to be 'The Rose Tearoom'.
You open the door and enter the tearoom.
The Rose Tearoom(#1214RlJM)
Upon entering this tea room, it's evident that either the establishment was named for the decor, or decorated to match the name. Though there's nothing gaudy or glaring, roses do seem to be a major theme in the style of the room. Small tables seem to be the norm here, though there are several places where larger groups can be seated. The tables themselves are masterpieces of creation, having the look of handmade quality. Oak surfaces glow from frequent polishings, the legs of each carved to depict roses on trailing vines that circle the leg all the way to the floor. The chairs surrounding the tables are also of oak, though soft cushions have been placed upon the seats, making them comfortable. The floor itself is also hardwood, though woven rugs placed here and there give it a comfortable, warm feeling. The walls have been painted a soft shade of dusty rose, with a wallpaper trim running along the top, where wall meets ceiling, decorated with white roses against a wine-red background. Large windows face the street, of beautiful stained glass, depicting vivid red, white, and pink roses. Towards the back, a long counter runs along the length of the room, where people can sit, or simply place orders, though waitresses also circle the room. Behind the counter are two doors, one of which leads into the kitchen, the other to a staircase leading to the second floor, though this door is locked, with a sign that reads: Private. Music plays constantly, though at a soft volume, ranging from classical to soft jazz, though it's always instrumental, and never vocal. Decorating every table is a vase, with a single, freshcut rose.
Flames burn brightly, encased within hurricane lamps at the center of every table, providing more illumination than one might expect. Discreet overhead lighting also sheds it's glow onto the room, so that the light level remains soft and diffuse, but ample enough to see clearly.
Looking outside, you can see it's fair and mild, with a few clouds in the sky.
** Places and +views present **
Obvious exits:
Private Door U Out O
Tom enters from the street.
Tom has arrived.
It's a pleasant walk from Union Station and the lake is gorgeous. Tom is back in Toronto after his prolonged absence fighting the good fight on the island of Rhodes where against some incredible Globalization-Struggle-Rioting backdrop he did do ferocious battle against some hidden conspiracy of Nazi financiers/media conglomerate owners wherein he defeated, once more, the excesses of the foul advertising industry coupled with the unthinking excesses of global money-power, in so doing, vindicating the righteous power of the mass media to do good and righteous service to the global citizens of Starship Earth...
Man. If only that were true, he wouldn't look so beatdown. There's something about Tom that looks beat like a drum - his hangdog face, the general lack of focus and clarity in his often energized eyes, the 'I simply do not give a fuck' adjustment of his tie, the knot falling quite short of tidy. His amble into the room is aimless, his gaze simply a skitter of sight against rose, red, red red rose, his posture is stooped, his hands clammy. One holds a travelling briefcase. The other tenses... untenses. Tonight is one of those nights. Going to be a tough one to get through. Sweat beads on his forehead. His internal biochemistry is gone haywire. Tom is coming undone at the seams.
On nights like this, the tea room loses most of its patrons.
Warm nights, no traffic.
They should have outside seating; a place where people talk, enjoy a lull, leave change, move on. As it happens, as it so often is the case, the interior mimicks the exterior - very little traffic, warm and pleasant. Certain dialogues exist on certain levels but it's white noise. Impossible to zero in on one particular conversation, insane to discern the nuance of laungages. There's only so much french you can listen to until it becomes a boring nasal drone.
Of course, there's Penny. Strikingly gaunt and towheaded against the muted mauves. Headphones on her table, jacket slung back across the chair. Scarves of steam rise up from the cup of tea in front of her, a little to the left. Threading her fingers together, she watches Tom-the-antithesis-of-calm with her head canted.
And, of course, travel will do this to you. A trans-Atlantic flight is a very
long time in a very uncomfortable environment that absolutely no evolutionary
mechanisms prepare you for.
A night, a week, sometimes even a month is not enough to recover after a particularly strenuous odyssey from home. Especially not when you find yourself, just for instance, waking up at five in the morning because where you were, it's noon. /Especially/ not if you find yourself in the very real situation of being up and moving at eight thirty six pm when it is to you three in the morning.
This is how Tom finds himself here, his eyes blind, ears deaf, even his nose blocked to the rich exchange of information in the form of hand-jive, the patois of invisibly evolving underground linguistic structures, even the careful cryptography of chemical precursors to amino acids that float in specially prepared tea. The entire universe is information, and it offers up a bounty to those willing to open themselves to cosmic patternings. But Tom just can't be fucked to do it, just now, sorry. Instead, the world washes over him in a wave, meaningless, senseless. Arbitrary, imagined, just as it is, as it always has been - without interpretation or the imposition of personal meaning on the recognition of structures. A pair of quarreling lovers don't remind him of a girl in Budapest he nearly married -- instead, they are strangers and it is none of his business. It is a frightful state to be in, and Tom is aware of it, only this, how out of character he is, how utterly not himself he feels, how distant and dissociated he feels from his ordinary self (or even his extraordinary self which is largely something of a secret and especially from his extraextraordinary self which today is given to napping and the occasional emergence in a clumsy, crabby moment).
Tom sits without art or technique in an elegantly carved oak chair perilously close to the secret friend whose name he's never known, the girl who has always been here and yet who he has always been unaware of. He puts the briefcase down carelessly - as a result, it topples with a loudish bang - he doesn't even start. He just opens the front of his jacket and slumps, giving himself over to a hyperfocused study of the rose on his table, vibrant and full.
That one face in a swell of unknowns. Any other soldier home from the war would go running. Would move with the tide of humanity, know his place in it and understand the destination as home, as safe, as terra firma. A place of rest.
Like magnetic north draws all compass points, the seat with its back to Penny is the only obvious stopping point. She behaves as a long-term fixture, the way old men feeding birds in the park do. Moving minimally, making adjustments only with two fingers here. Two fingers there. To her shirt, the jacket. Shoving cup and saucer gently toward the center of the table. Her arrangement is methodical - the very slow and organized taking stock of herself. It's the point of all good neighbors to be only as involved as necessary; to keep all things hers beyond the point of interruption. That side of the fence.
Moving deeper into the zone, Penny peels off a sticker from her headphones and seals it to the table, pulls out a marker and chews on the cap. For a little while this mutual silence evolves in a sequence of sighs and shifting. Taptaping. Spoon drummed on the china.
"Ave," Penny says, subvocalized.
Isn't this the sort of thing that Tom gets all fucking worked out of shape over? Or he's supposed to, anyway. That's what he gets paid this respectable little salary (with benefits and vacation days and plenty of life insure) to do. To get worked up over things that aren't any of his business. To bust heads for holding thoughts that are, really, none of his business.
The peeping tom brigade. The sacrosanct order of reality puritans. Big BrXXXXXXXXXX you. (Classified for security reasons -- your eyes only.) Well, not tonight. Either Tom doesn't care -- or more likely -- he hasn't the energy or desire to notice whatever shenanigan is going on. Society will manage itself nicely without him for an evening. Society always does, always has, always will. Society is an organism. An organism that isn't properly maintained will collapse. An organism at the point of collapse is a danger not to itself but to the organisms immediately bordering it... death, putrefaction, corruption of the flesh, infection, pockets of bile, pus, poison all result.
Tom takes a bottle of poison from his pocket and opens it up. Now, he needs poison to function. He taps two pills into his palm, and swallows them dry. One, first. Into the mouth, over the tongue, down the throat with a grimace. The second, into the mouth, can't get it down, waitwaitwait saliva corrodes the time-release capsule the foul taste on his tongue and down it goes. He dabs the corners of his eyes with the napkin, and hardly notices even that he's done it.
Whales, dolphins, and humans are the only mammals with salt-water secreting ducts at the corners of the eye. They say that humans evolved into whales and dolphins -- they spent so much time in warm, seasonable water that they went native, they evolved to fit it, they left the whole poisonous clusterfuck of human interaction for the embrace of the seas where a whole other show was going on, involving poetry, love, and brotherhood. That's what they say.
Radiating a monday after-work turmoil so deep into a Tuesday keeps everyone else minding their own business or minding Tom's. That couple twice removed in the scheme of things now take turns with a furtive glance. Is he? Isn't he. Homicidal? Derranged. Assumptions scribed in the lines of downturned mouths, twists in a napkin, crowsfeet crinkling in squints; Pill-popping power broker. Fired. On a bender. They look at his hands and take the imagined story further. Bachelor. Lives in a studio. Never seen the inside of a gym.
Penny doesn't look. Can't very well turn around and offer conversation. Not yet. the atmosphere is thick, tension bouncing off the normally tranquil setting walls. Even the tiny lights in the hurricane lamps flare and spark. Working fingers away from the goetia surrounding her, Penny tips two out toward the room. The universal signal to a waitress. Two.
Without much delay a small woman wearing a small apron, stooped low to the ground by arthritis and poor nutrition in her better days, shuffles into the room (her way around the counter was a journey bracketed by cracking bones and gutteral grunts) with a cup and a pot of hot water. She makes her way toward Penny, smiling toothless, her eyes lost dots in the crinkled lattice of puffy eye skin and jowl. In broken english, the waitress coughs "Water, yes. Yes," pleasant, happy to be useful and doing something, not shored up in the network of socialist homes for the aging "other cup? you?"
Penny shakes her head, nods backward indicating Tom. The waitress nods like she knows the score and sets it and the saucer down. Gruff "Meelk, shoogar" pointing a bony finger at the accoutrements on the table. The tiny tin can of milk. The lidded bowl with the tiny spoon of sugar.
The waitress pours water from her one-shot tea pot, shuffles away and it's almost like you can feel the heat warming the thin walls of the porcelin. The sensation is not startling so much as it feels like the atmosphere of the tea room is finally seeping in. Into your bones and behind your eyes, a tranquil, easy feeling.
The drugs, perhaps. They kicked in sometime after the refugee from the People's States of Europe set down the tea Tom didn't ask for but didn't have any goddamn energy at all to send back -- too busy getting the childproof cap back on, too busy keeping the bile down, too busy ignoring the pointed stares, the accusatory glances from people who are here by design of the Universe specifically to pry into his business. There is a somehow appropriate inversion of values and status here.
But Tom, well. He's already looking up, bottle in jacket pocket, contemplating with much more weight than necessary the not-quite-tranquil surface of the tea. Invisible eddies of air stir the liquid. Convection currents within the cup echo the stirring motion of the faint breeze, and make with their own answering distortions of the hot tea, liquid joined by surface tension. As above, so below. In the world, there is pain and hurt. Now, Tom, who has put himself into step with the world, is filled with pain and hurt. But Tom wants the world to be filled with love and knowledge -- so he lets the love and knowledge regenerate within him. He is too busy contemplating drinking the tea to vomit -- he is too busy enjoying the perverse satisfaction of his penance, to be snooped upon, to bother to snoop on the snoopers. Let them stare! Tom will drink his tea.
And he does. Tom lifts the cup and holds it in his cupped palms. The Chinese have a saying -- too hot to hold, too hot to drink. And it is, but still, he does. Only a little, a sip, and it goes down easy... and he sips a bit more, just a bit, not enough to be really hot, to do a lot of damage... but to remind him he is, you know, alive. And for now, Tom does not question where this tea came from (indeed, to his mind, the salvation has the face of a wrinkled, shrunken woman in advanced stages of collapse), or how or why... in fact, he doesn't question at all. He sips. Relaxed. Content. Evolutionarily satisfied.
Better.
Everything, it seems, will be alright. This sensation permeates, changes perception and things begin to slow down. It's warm and pleasant and certain dialogues have begun to disappear; like so much vapor. The door has performed its function, swinging open and closed time and again. People, customers and off-shift waitresses, leave the tea room. It's not a hurried leave-taking but an amiable parting. Perhaps they overtip. Maybe they kiss and make-up. Behind the bar at the back, there's a kind of cleaning up happening. Neatening, straightening, wiping down. A younger waitress thumps her way down the little aisle in thick-heeled shoes. Quick swipes across both occupied tables; she even rights the fallen comrade briefcase.
Penny moves for the first time since the waitress left, her wrist, elbow, vertebrae cracking loudly - protesting the sudden flexing. There are not the noises of a body that wants to move. Like a stick-figure pulled reluctantly off the page, Penny shifts. The chair creaks, rivets in the wood carving released from incidental weight; she was never part of the tree it came from. Never had to bear the pressure of the wind, the pull of the root, the fall of the axe.
Somewhere a clock ticks. The inner workings loud, suddenly.
She touches her teacup, stirring the hot water inside, with a sugar-crusted spoon. Her mouth makes a long slurping sound when she sips and slouches further in the chair. Further in the background are the noises of plates being stacked.
Like so much vapor, the tea disappears into Tom. Warm and flowing, it floats down into the digestive system and out into the capillaries and veins and arteries and other mechanisms of irrigation. Warm water and Lord knows what else reinvigorate a damaged system. The organism was damaged - now, the damage seems put at bay if not addressed completely.
The room empties out, molecules spinning off and away. Like a vapor, like a gas, humanity in the tea room dissipates. Tom serenely sips, some weary office buddha who has found his contentment. Who knows what thoughts boil through that head? Who knows what plans, what misty-eyed schemes for global brotherhood are being rewound, given a second try, in this rare moment of harmony and all-togetherness. The sweat has dried, the hair is matted. Tom will live.
And he goes. He stands up without weariness, without complaint -- the mind/body dichotomy has been subdued, and his body no longer serves the mind unwillingly like a put-upon serf, but rather in the uncomplaining manner of a lover fetching a lost item of his beloved. Each task is performed with uncomplaining devotion - why should it not be so? The two are one!
Tom leaves a generous tip for the waitstaff on his table, and stoops to grasp the once-fallen, now-righted briefcase. The two have much in common -- the universe is a swarm of symbolic relationships and occulted meanings. With a clearer mind and an easier step, he walks back out into the luxuriously warm night to do things unguessed at.
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
through the line and orders fries and a coke, then settles in a seat near the counter and begins to survey name badges.
To those who know her from her party persona, Daisy would be virtually unrecognizable: she's wearing a garish red and yellow polo, and her Bettie Page bob is piled up underneath a baseball cap on top of her cab. At the moment, she's the only one working the McDonald's counter.
Perhaps "working" is an exaggeration: she's listlessly daubing at it with a dingy grey cloth while staring across the mall.
Name tag? No dice.
Daisy's reads 'Sandra'.
What, you thought 'Daisy Inscrutable' was her real name?
Darke looks around for the obvious, then it seems to fail. He gets up and heads back into the mall to the nearby Hallmark card store...
Darke comes back in and settles in the back of the place. He begins to fill out an assortment of cards - Mother's Day, Valentine's, Birthday, etc. He seals each one and labels the outside with the same name.
A number of raver kids -- big pants, candy jewelry -- cluster around a table in front of the McDonalds. One of them, possibly the elder, grins over at the mall McDonalds' single apparent employee.
Daisy just scowls back.
Daisy sorts through the cards one by one, dragging her thumbnail along each seam to open the envelope. With each card, her expression of consternation grows deeper. "Really, now?", she asks. "Someone left all them cards all over the back table?"
Her deft fingers pluck out one at random. 'Happy 50th Anniversary!', the card cheerily declares.
"I dunno how they knew it was me an' Charlie's fiftieth," she adds.
Darke shrugs as he looks at the woman. "Maybe they were just being thorough.. shotgun approach or something like that." he points at the Happy Halloween card and the hand written inscription 'Do you dream?' "Looks like some of them are even personalized."
"Personalized," Daisy echoes. She thumbs open the Happy Halloween card, and she frowns. "And no. I don't dream, on account of I don't sleep."
She means it. The shadows underneath her eyes are deep and bruise-coloured.
Darke flips through the cards to the condolences card in the stack. Written inside is the phrase, 'I need the help of the dream speaker'. He slides he card over to you. "All or nothing time I guess."
Daisy's eyes narrow. Daisy's lips press together into a thin colourless line. Daisy's nostrils flare.
"Okay," she says, "rule number one that this is my day job, and you don't ask me about what I do at night while I'm at my day job. When I'm here, I'm just the girl what cleans the counter, dig? That's all I do."
The expression doesn't fade, though she adds: "I don't know you from Adam. You got ten seconds to explain why you're buggin' me here. Clock starts ... now."
Darke looks around, "There is something fucking with dreams, and I have only started to grasp the basics. I need a teacher... I was told you might be able to help. I was getting the run-around on the streets and would have tried to contact you at a social event, but I don't tolerate being jerked around."
"Riiiiight," Daisy says flatly. The expression fades from anger into trademark inscrutability. "I'll tell you what: I'll see what I can do, but I got to get together the entire College. There ain't no way I'm gonna do freelancing without my homies."
Darke nods a bit as he looks around. "On the streets, I go by Grave Robber. Next time we meet, you can call the place and time. I am looking to either earn your trust, or hire you outright. You and the rest of your homies can talk it through, just don't leave me hanging. if you are not interested, let me know as well. Lives are in the balance."
"Dig," Daisy repeats, rubbing at the corner of her mouth with her thumb. "We'll see what we can do."
Darke nods a bit. "Works for me..."
"I'm daisy@junkho.org, if you've got a net connection," Daisy says, "and you can catch up to any of us at our parties. We got a roster of future map points on junkho, too."
Darke ahs and nods. "I wander the digital world under the name Prometheus. prometheus@maildump.com. Send it there and I wil catch it in transit"
Daisy bobs her head sharply, perhaps in affirmation, perhaps because she's falling asleep.
Darke slides his coat on "Hope to hear from you soon." is all he offers before he pulls the cliche arcane-induced vanishing into the crowd stunt
To those who know her from her party persona, Daisy would be virtually unrecognizable: she's wearing a garish red and yellow polo, and her Bettie Page bob is piled up underneath a baseball cap on top of her cab. At the moment, she's the only one working the McDonald's counter.
Perhaps "working" is an exaggeration: she's listlessly daubing at it with a dingy grey cloth while staring across the mall.
Name tag? No dice.
Daisy's reads 'Sandra'.
What, you thought 'Daisy Inscrutable' was her real name?
Darke looks around for the obvious, then it seems to fail. He gets up and heads back into the mall to the nearby Hallmark card store...
Darke comes back in and settles in the back of the place. He begins to fill out an assortment of cards - Mother's Day, Valentine's, Birthday, etc. He seals each one and labels the outside with the same name.
A number of raver kids -- big pants, candy jewelry -- cluster around a table in front of the McDonalds. One of them, possibly the elder, grins over at the mall McDonalds' single apparent employee.
Daisy just scowls back.
Daisy sorts through the cards one by one, dragging her thumbnail along each seam to open the envelope. With each card, her expression of consternation grows deeper. "Really, now?", she asks. "Someone left all them cards all over the back table?"
Her deft fingers pluck out one at random. 'Happy 50th Anniversary!', the card cheerily declares.
"I dunno how they knew it was me an' Charlie's fiftieth," she adds.
Darke shrugs as he looks at the woman. "Maybe they were just being thorough.. shotgun approach or something like that." he points at the Happy Halloween card and the hand written inscription 'Do you dream?' "Looks like some of them are even personalized."
"Personalized," Daisy echoes. She thumbs open the Happy Halloween card, and she frowns. "And no. I don't dream, on account of I don't sleep."
She means it. The shadows underneath her eyes are deep and bruise-coloured.
Darke flips through the cards to the condolences card in the stack. Written inside is the phrase, 'I need the help of the dream speaker'. He slides he card over to you. "All or nothing time I guess."
Daisy's eyes narrow. Daisy's lips press together into a thin colourless line. Daisy's nostrils flare.
"Okay," she says, "rule number one that this is my day job, and you don't ask me about what I do at night while I'm at my day job. When I'm here, I'm just the girl what cleans the counter, dig? That's all I do."
The expression doesn't fade, though she adds: "I don't know you from Adam. You got ten seconds to explain why you're buggin' me here. Clock starts ... now."
Darke looks around, "There is something fucking with dreams, and I have only started to grasp the basics. I need a teacher... I was told you might be able to help. I was getting the run-around on the streets and would have tried to contact you at a social event, but I don't tolerate being jerked around."
"Riiiiight," Daisy says flatly. The expression fades from anger into trademark inscrutability. "I'll tell you what: I'll see what I can do, but I got to get together the entire College. There ain't no way I'm gonna do freelancing without my homies."
Darke nods a bit as he looks around. "On the streets, I go by Grave Robber. Next time we meet, you can call the place and time. I am looking to either earn your trust, or hire you outright. You and the rest of your homies can talk it through, just don't leave me hanging. if you are not interested, let me know as well. Lives are in the balance."
"Dig," Daisy repeats, rubbing at the corner of her mouth with her thumb. "We'll see what we can do."
Darke nods a bit. "Works for me..."
"I'm daisy@junkho.org, if you've got a net connection," Daisy says, "and you can catch up to any of us at our parties. We got a roster of future map points on junkho, too."
Darke ahs and nods. "I wander the digital world under the name Prometheus. prometheus@maildump.com. Send it there and I wil catch it in transit"
Daisy bobs her head sharply, perhaps in affirmation, perhaps because she's falling asleep.
Darke slides his coat on "Hope to hear from you soon." is all he offers before he pulls the cliche arcane-induced vanishing into the crowd stunt
[Eddie's arrival. Late afternoon. April 4. It's no way to remember Martin Luther King Jr.]
Side Street
Buildings line the street on both sides. It seems this is a mix of commercial and residential zoning. There are a couple of cars that bring to term the word heaps along the side street. The average clean cut useful member of society would be scared to enter this area. That especially holds true if there were a group of young punks hanging out by their vehicle smoking pot and drinking cheap booze. What are those two doing at the end of the street? Was that the sound of glass breaking? Perhaps it is best not to linger too long in this wasteland. The thought that the Mayor was right, Urban Blight needs to be halted, comes to mind.
Contents:
Eddie
Obvious exits:
Basketball Court Cross Street Large Door
So it's the afternoon and there's these kids out in the street.
It's warm and pleasant - they're talkin'trash and rolling down the street with a graffitied basketball. It makes that hollow noise echoing off the walls of the nearby tenaments. On the steps of one of those buildings, Penny's leaning into the afternoon. The building isn't important, is generic, is always
falling apart; has overflowing metal garbage cans and rats moving in and out of the shade. A cigarette, unlit, rests in the fleshy part of her thumb - a balancing act. She's casual, slouched, has the look of the perpetually stoned; half-lidded and loose-limbed. Doesn't mind the locals and they don't seem to mind her.
A new games for the kids, offered by a gold toothed interloper. But no one's playing it seems. Either the younglings' about are too young this brand of chance, or they've got street smarts enough to smell a hook. Fortunately, there's always a sucker in the bunch. No matter how small the street traffic, no matter how savvy the audience, there's always someone who thinks they can
beat the game.
When Eddie comes to a halt a building over; he's found such a mook. He's young, black, and cocky. But he's got time to learn. The cards are simple playing cards, shuffled with a shark's touch. Eddie sets up on top of a small newspaper dispenser. It's flat enough to run the grift. "Ees called, find da' queen, right." And her highness is offered up for inspection in her red hearted glory. The boy nods, sure he can finger her amongst the other two cards.
Penny knows it when she sees it. Can mark the marker in the blink of an eye. From her slouch, that particular vantage ponit between the twisted iron slats, Penny watches the newcomer reel them in. His big show seems someting exciting and new. She gets up on a higher step, the concrete crumbling below even as she moves. She pockets the cigarette, pushing her sleeves up. But it isn't good enough, the view.
And those kids? They got goin'the minute their friend laid his money down. It's all "Bullshit" this and "You're gonna lose" that. But this kid, he's got confidence. Or dumb luck. Penny's just a step, a half. Then she's there staring over the tops of their heads at the game.
"Hi," her voice sending a shiver through the line-up so that they move, almost as one, turning then stepping back.
"How ju' doin." His accent's thick, and that was more of a statement than a question. Despite the momentary pause to pass on the pleasantries, Eddie's hands never stop handling the cards. The young black kid with his crooked 'Blue Jays' hat pays no heed to P. No, he's focused on her highness as she lays down with the other two cards. Then there's movement, fast fingers shuffling the three cards between three respective spots upon the newspaper dispenser. The Brazilian doesn't need to watch what he's doing; it's second nature to him. And besides, some white girl's talking to him out of the blue.
"Come on man, yer neva gonna win, yo." The kid's pals interject. But that doesn't phase the cocky street boy's intensity. Eddie finally looks down at the mark, hands still moving. "So den, hijo, jer gonna fin' de queen, right." She's flashed up from the middle position so the boy can get his bearings again. "No problem." He says confidently, placing his five spot on the make-shift table.
The kid's pals are so right about that. He'll never win. Poor and stupid are bad odds. He's the kind of kid that'll play chicken in a shitty car down a blind alley in a few years. He'll never even see that dumpster coming. He's the kind that doesn't take advice; not even from a white girl when she says "Don't you have a tournament to practice for?" Just like the poster says. King of the Courts. April 5.
"Yeah c'mon man," one shoves.
"Yeah yeah, let's go already."
"Man," the third complains "this shit's old."
But they don't really move. Hard to walk away from five-maybe-ten dollars in the middle of the day. Penny still hovers, glancing from time to time from Eddie's hands to his face. She's got a look on her face while no one's paying attention to her. Like she's asking a favor. Just don't.
//.etro: Penny rolls "3" privately to Eddie at diff 5.
For a total of 1 success(es).
Dumb AND lucky.
Penny moves up again, positioning herself between the kid, his money and the game. Now that she and Eddie are facing him, he starts to tilt his head a little. He starts to lose his cool, confident intensity "Nah man that ain't right," eyeballing your jacket and hair. Your teeth and tats. He backs off with his friends catcalling "Told you man, told you." He starts to make a grab for his money. But it's already in Penny's hand. She holds it up and back, has the height advantage. "You fuck off out of here right now and stop shitting your mother's dope money away, hey?" She chucks the balled-up bill and watches him go running.
Far from satisfied, Penny profiles, lip curled "Don't they teach you not to shit where you eat?"
Golden smile turned to neutral watch. The boy's are out of sight, more important now is the girl who fucked his grift. But the cards don't stop, even though the mark's been run off. Maybe a nervous habit. Eddie keeps shuffling.
"Da' was dinner money ju' jus spooked." *flap, flip, flap,* Fingers work the trio. The queen remains hidden under cover, and Eddie's mood runs sour. He wants to see what's next, he wants to recoup that five spot, and his stomach audibly wants some McNuggets. But he's not letting on like he's sniffed her yet. Nothin' in his body language shows his hand. Dude's got one helluva poker face.
"Josiah Michael Stevens isn't your meal ticket" Penny watches the cards. Flip flip, tick tick, stab. Her thumb interrupts the flow, the pink of her nail going white with pressure of her frame behind it. Speaking from the pencil-thin lines, her mouth and eyes transformed, possessive "He's mine."
She stands there still wanting to make something of it but her eyes are a give-away, red and veiny. All bark and no bite, clearly not at the moment. She steps back and swipes at her nose "So."
So, some foreign language. "Olhe a menina, mim no sabem que tipo do modelo voc pensa que eu sou, mas eu vi o que voc apenas l. E eu no penso que engraado... ou atrativo." Whatever that means.
The card's flipped over, Penny isn't a winner. But she shoudn't feel bad, like he says. "Don' feel bad, hija." See. Eddie holds up the King of Diamonds. "Nobody wins when I play. But ju'... ju' owe Eddie a cheesburger, eh."
(In Portuguese "Look girl, I don't know what kind of idiot you think I am, but I saw what you just did there. And I don't think it's funny... or cute.)
You say "How about we call it even and you go make chumps of the tourists," nodding up the block during the departure from the english language, coming back around with "y'know that way, Eddie." The name spoken like a taunt. Whatever you said it didn't register on her radar of things to get offended by and she's on a tear all her own. "I got a business here, shit" all pissed off "and you think you can just stealth your way in? What the fuck?"
"Business? Dat what ju' call fuckin' with those kids lil' brains, eh?" A glance towards their departing forms. With a single swipe, he's plucked up the trio and returned them to random slots in his deck. That get's lost in his valet's uniform, and patted with his grimy fingers. Somewhere a nail-clipper is missing him. Eddie's working on one hell of a coke pinky. Planting both hands on the newspaper dispenser, he leans in to speak real quiet like.
"Next time ju' fuck with Voodoo Duarte's game, ju be nice about it hija." Having said his piece, the dark dude backs and preps to bail.
Penny, too, leans in real close like and slides her hands up on the empty newspaper stand, grabs the trailing hand. Presses something into it. Smallish. Dime-ish "I know who you are," she grins white and wide "I just wanted to see for myself if it was true."
As she walks off into traffic you can hear her say "He talks about you in his sleep all the time."
Buildings line the street on both sides. It seems this is a mix of commercial and residential zoning. There are a couple of cars that bring to term the word heaps along the side street. The average clean cut useful member of society would be scared to enter this area. That especially holds true if there were a group of young punks hanging out by their vehicle smoking pot and drinking cheap booze. What are those two doing at the end of the street? Was that the sound of glass breaking? Perhaps it is best not to linger too long in this wasteland. The thought that the Mayor was right, Urban Blight needs to be halted, comes to mind.
Contents:
Eddie
Obvious exits:
Basketball Court Cross Street Large Door
So it's the afternoon and there's these kids out in the street.
It's warm and pleasant - they're talkin'trash and rolling down the street with a graffitied basketball. It makes that hollow noise echoing off the walls of the nearby tenaments. On the steps of one of those buildings, Penny's leaning into the afternoon. The building isn't important, is generic, is always
falling apart; has overflowing metal garbage cans and rats moving in and out of the shade. A cigarette, unlit, rests in the fleshy part of her thumb - a balancing act. She's casual, slouched, has the look of the perpetually stoned; half-lidded and loose-limbed. Doesn't mind the locals and they don't seem to mind her.
A new games for the kids, offered by a gold toothed interloper. But no one's playing it seems. Either the younglings' about are too young this brand of chance, or they've got street smarts enough to smell a hook. Fortunately, there's always a sucker in the bunch. No matter how small the street traffic, no matter how savvy the audience, there's always someone who thinks they can
beat the game.
When Eddie comes to a halt a building over; he's found such a mook. He's young, black, and cocky. But he's got time to learn. The cards are simple playing cards, shuffled with a shark's touch. Eddie sets up on top of a small newspaper dispenser. It's flat enough to run the grift. "Ees called, find da' queen, right." And her highness is offered up for inspection in her red hearted glory. The boy nods, sure he can finger her amongst the other two cards.
Penny knows it when she sees it. Can mark the marker in the blink of an eye. From her slouch, that particular vantage ponit between the twisted iron slats, Penny watches the newcomer reel them in. His big show seems someting exciting and new. She gets up on a higher step, the concrete crumbling below even as she moves. She pockets the cigarette, pushing her sleeves up. But it isn't good enough, the view.
And those kids? They got goin'the minute their friend laid his money down. It's all "Bullshit" this and "You're gonna lose" that. But this kid, he's got confidence. Or dumb luck. Penny's just a step, a half. Then she's there staring over the tops of their heads at the game.
"Hi," her voice sending a shiver through the line-up so that they move, almost as one, turning then stepping back.
"How ju' doin." His accent's thick, and that was more of a statement than a question. Despite the momentary pause to pass on the pleasantries, Eddie's hands never stop handling the cards. The young black kid with his crooked 'Blue Jays' hat pays no heed to P. No, he's focused on her highness as she lays down with the other two cards. Then there's movement, fast fingers shuffling the three cards between three respective spots upon the newspaper dispenser. The Brazilian doesn't need to watch what he's doing; it's second nature to him. And besides, some white girl's talking to him out of the blue.
"Come on man, yer neva gonna win, yo." The kid's pals interject. But that doesn't phase the cocky street boy's intensity. Eddie finally looks down at the mark, hands still moving. "So den, hijo, jer gonna fin' de queen, right." She's flashed up from the middle position so the boy can get his bearings again. "No problem." He says confidently, placing his five spot on the make-shift table.
The kid's pals are so right about that. He'll never win. Poor and stupid are bad odds. He's the kind of kid that'll play chicken in a shitty car down a blind alley in a few years. He'll never even see that dumpster coming. He's the kind that doesn't take advice; not even from a white girl when she says "Don't you have a tournament to practice for?" Just like the poster says. King of the Courts. April 5.
"Yeah c'mon man," one shoves.
"Yeah yeah, let's go already."
"Man," the third complains "this shit's old."
But they don't really move. Hard to walk away from five-maybe-ten dollars in the middle of the day. Penny still hovers, glancing from time to time from Eddie's hands to his face. She's got a look on her face while no one's paying attention to her. Like she's asking a favor. Just don't.
//.etro: Penny rolls "3" privately to Eddie at diff 5.
For a total of 1 success(es).
Dumb AND lucky.
Penny moves up again, positioning herself between the kid, his money and the game. Now that she and Eddie are facing him, he starts to tilt his head a little. He starts to lose his cool, confident intensity "Nah man that ain't right," eyeballing your jacket and hair. Your teeth and tats. He backs off with his friends catcalling "Told you man, told you." He starts to make a grab for his money. But it's already in Penny's hand. She holds it up and back, has the height advantage. "You fuck off out of here right now and stop shitting your mother's dope money away, hey?" She chucks the balled-up bill and watches him go running.
Far from satisfied, Penny profiles, lip curled "Don't they teach you not to shit where you eat?"
Golden smile turned to neutral watch. The boy's are out of sight, more important now is the girl who fucked his grift. But the cards don't stop, even though the mark's been run off. Maybe a nervous habit. Eddie keeps shuffling.
"Da' was dinner money ju' jus spooked." *flap, flip, flap,* Fingers work the trio. The queen remains hidden under cover, and Eddie's mood runs sour. He wants to see what's next, he wants to recoup that five spot, and his stomach audibly wants some McNuggets. But he's not letting on like he's sniffed her yet. Nothin' in his body language shows his hand. Dude's got one helluva poker face.
"Josiah Michael Stevens isn't your meal ticket" Penny watches the cards. Flip flip, tick tick, stab. Her thumb interrupts the flow, the pink of her nail going white with pressure of her frame behind it. Speaking from the pencil-thin lines, her mouth and eyes transformed, possessive "He's mine."
She stands there still wanting to make something of it but her eyes are a give-away, red and veiny. All bark and no bite, clearly not at the moment. She steps back and swipes at her nose "So."
So, some foreign language. "Olhe a menina, mim no sabem que tipo do modelo voc pensa que eu sou, mas eu vi o que voc apenas l. E eu no penso que engraado... ou atrativo." Whatever that means.
The card's flipped over, Penny isn't a winner. But she shoudn't feel bad, like he says. "Don' feel bad, hija." See. Eddie holds up the King of Diamonds. "Nobody wins when I play. But ju'... ju' owe Eddie a cheesburger, eh."
(In Portuguese "Look girl, I don't know what kind of idiot you think I am, but I saw what you just did there. And I don't think it's funny... or cute.)
You say "How about we call it even and you go make chumps of the tourists," nodding up the block during the departure from the english language, coming back around with "y'know that way, Eddie." The name spoken like a taunt. Whatever you said it didn't register on her radar of things to get offended by and she's on a tear all her own. "I got a business here, shit" all pissed off "and you think you can just stealth your way in? What the fuck?"
"Business? Dat what ju' call fuckin' with those kids lil' brains, eh?" A glance towards their departing forms. With a single swipe, he's plucked up the trio and returned them to random slots in his deck. That get's lost in his valet's uniform, and patted with his grimy fingers. Somewhere a nail-clipper is missing him. Eddie's working on one hell of a coke pinky. Planting both hands on the newspaper dispenser, he leans in to speak real quiet like.
"Next time ju' fuck with Voodoo Duarte's game, ju be nice about it hija." Having said his piece, the dark dude backs and preps to bail.
Penny, too, leans in real close like and slides her hands up on the empty newspaper stand, grabs the trailing hand. Presses something into it. Smallish. Dime-ish "I know who you are," she grins white and wide "I just wanted to see for myself if it was true."
As she walks off into traffic you can hear her say "He talks about you in his sleep all the time."
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
You return IC ...
You open the double doors and head out into the open, rolling fields beyond.
Rolling Fields
It's a gorgeous sight, the brilliant yellows and greens of freshly sprouted grasses waving in the wind, rolling hills stretching off as far as the eye can see. Pure, golden sunlight pours forth from the never-setting sun standing at twelve o'clock high, bringing a mild, pleasant warmth to the vast expanse of land. Puffy white clouds dart through the sky, sometimes fast, sometimes languid and slow, always casting their cool shadows across the land.
As you reach the peak of one of the highest hills, you are able to survey the land as the scent of new life washes over you. Facing north, toward the keep, a massive forest sits, far off into the distance to the west. Several deer can be seen darting into the trees as you spot them, as if sensing your discerning eye. Immediately opposite it is a large body of water, from which a small stream flows. Near the stream is a large oaken forest, which gradually renews itself in the warm light. Before you, directly opposite the massive crater, there rests Novus Valnastium, a large stone complex resting atop another hill, with one lone tower stretching into the sky above.
A little off to the northeast, a small and upside-down, metallic-bowl structure sits. Long tethers are coiled up beside the structure; no more does the glorious airship dock above it. The slender curves and high-tech metals used on the small building are a stark contrast to the Keep, merely fifty yards away, and it easily gives away who is responsible for such a building.
<< DAYZONE >>
Contents:
Shen Chi
Cole
Cadence
Viktor
Obvious exits:
_________________________ //.etro: Toronto by Night _________________________
Name Sex Mode Idle Type Short Description
______________________________________________________________________________
Cadence F IC 1m Pl -
Viktor M IC 3m Pl -
Penny F IC 1s Pl Chute jacket, jeans, t-shirt. White hair
Cole M IC 3m Pl -
Shen Chi M IC 3m Pl -
______________________________________________________________________________
Viktor responds with a slight bow and says, "Deseann, but call me Viktor. If you had asked me yet a week before, I might ask you to be formal, but fate has decided that I shouldn't.... Anyways, thats not important nor likely interesting to you two." He looks and addresses only Shen and Cole. "Welcome, I suppose. I'm not sure why Cadence has brought you here, but I'm sure it was with good reason."
Cole jams his hands in the kangaroo pocket of his ragged burgundy sweatshirt, watching Cadence, Shen Chi, and Viktor talk.
Shen Chi raises his brow rather interestedly at what Viktor has to say. The ball bounces from behind his shoulder and heads toward Cadence' hand without Shen Chi even look. "Cady? Well, Kaze brought me here the first time I came. I suppose Cady is only being curteous." He grins in her direction once more without quite looking at her before he says. "I find a lot of things interesting, by the way. But only so many interesting things can be said at one time, I suppose."
Cadence responds to Viktor, "I didn't bring Shen Chi here. If you hadn't noticed, he walked in quite well on his own." She almost misses the ball tossed to her, thinking that he wasn't going to throw it, and already having taken her hand back. She manages to fumble through catching it, however, just barely. With a small smile she looks over toward Cole, tossing it to him. "So what brings you by?" she addresses Shen Chi for the last question.
Penny makes great strides towards the crater's edge, bee-lining from the novus in a hurry and a half. Along the way she caps a pen, yanks out a hat from her bag and winds a scarf around her neck.
Viktor glances at Penny and listens for Shen Chi's answer.
Cole glances over at the swiftly moving Penny as well, watching her curiously.
Shen Chi shifts his hand into his pocket and removes another nearly fuzzless tennis ball and shrugs casually. "I was looking for Kaze. He's not with Ryo so I thought he might be here. I'm worried about... Well, it doesn't matter, I can talk to Kaze about it." He smiles amiably and offers his free hand to Viktor. "It is good to meet you, Mr. Deseann." He glances sidelong at Penny for a moment before smiling upon Viktor again. "Do you live here?"
Viktor takes his hand and replies, "I don't live anywhere. I no longer have a house to stay in." He doesn't seem disturbed or worried about this in the least.
Cadence looks surprised at that news, looking away from the swift Penny back to Viktor. "You don't? You can't stay at the estate?"
As Cole is distracted by Penny's dash, he misses the ball entirely and it bonks him in the side of the head. He looks first to Shen Chi curiously, wondering how he managed to get a ball to hit the ~other~ side of his head...when it dawns on him. He looks back at Cadence, shocked, before bending to pick up the ball and coming up red-eared.
Industrial Light and Sound says "Any'f you seen the flyers that just hit the streets? Just got one from some kid outside the saigon."
Patch'em'Up shrugs. "I think you got too much time on your hand, dude
The Forger says "what are they spreading around now?"
Viktor sighs and says, "Staying and living are two different things. I /could/ stay there, but I don't feel welcome if I make it my home for more than a few nights. Besides, it's not my home. It won't ever be."
============================ BB Post in Progress =============================
Group: Mage - Traditions
Title: On Mourning:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Around 9:30pm, March 24 the following URL is posted.
http://www.junkho.org/
and written in copperplate beneath:
AD NOCENDUM POTENTES SUMUS
==============================================================================
Cadence winces as she turns back just in time to see Cole picking up the ball. She smiles sheepishly, though there's a healthy dose of amusement in the expression as well. "Ooops," she mutters, then explains to Cole, "You were supposed to -catch- it. I thought you were looking. Sorry." She holds out a hand to him to toss the ball back again. "What happened to your previous home?"
Shen Chi seems to miss this interplay and just watches Viktor, tilting his head curiously. "I could talk to some people in low income housing and help you find an apartment, Mr. Deseann. How much money do you make? A roof over one's head does wonders for the Self."
Street> Industrial Light and Sound says "Here, check't out. (http://www.junkho.org/) Creepy shit for a party, man."
Cole tosses the ball back to Cadence and returns his wavering attention to the matter at hand, housing. Clearly a weighty issue. He nods to Viktor, seconding Shen Chi's offer and encouragement.
Viktor gives Cadence a rather mean look for seemingly no reason and says, "If I have to explain to you whats happened to me recently, then you obviously didn't care enough to listen before... meaning I doubt you do now. As for your offer, I must decline. A librarians salary is hardly enough to cover much buy my eating, and I prefer to sleep here more often than not, mostly because I won't be bothered."
Cole glances over at Shen Chi...
Shen Chi nods solemnly to Viktor, as if he certainly has all the freedom in the world to make that choice. However, he does clarify. "Low income housing is intended for people with low incomes, but it is okay. I am sure living here is just fine." He smiles in a friendly manner upon Viktor before shifting his gaze to Cole and Cadence, "Just showing Cole around? He needs his hand held?"
A shadow of a shadow, Penny's form diminshes. Moving toward the vanishing point between the tall grasses and the crater's edge, not even her path remains - swaying reeds that part and bend so easily snap back to their own form.
You walk south along Parliament to Queens Quay.
Waterfront - Parliament and Queens Quay(#1111RJ)
The intersection here is a patchwork of overpasses and onramps that join the city streets, with the Gardiner Expressway stretching east and west, and the Don Valley Parkway heading north through the city. The expressway is literally a dividing line between the downtown core and the waterfront, and below it, the development of the city center gives way to a mix of run down warehouses, seedy industrial infrastructure, and commercial docks further south. While one can make out the Toronto Star building lit up to the West, and the soaring height and sparkling lights of the CN Tower in the midst of the skyline beyond, this part of Toronto is clearly far removed from all of that. This area is dirtier than the city center, and graffiti marks the support structures of the overpass and is scrawled on some of the warehouse walls, colorful gang tags dimly visible. After dark, with most of the actual businesses closed, that same criminal element tends to wander a bit more visibly, making this a dangerous part of the city indeed, its grimier side not easily hidden by the rows of trees and other foliage planted along the waterfront, the most recent attempt at urban renewal just coming into bloom.
It's fair and mild, with a few clouds in the sky.
Obvious exits:
Warehouse WA
It is larger than most warehouses on the block. Standing tall and preeminent in its domain you are faced with clerestory windows and a set of large doors. They are opened only for for tractor trailers and large panel vans to load and unload their shipping. There is a side door which allows for individual traffic without all the effort required to open the much larger sliding doors.
Hiro has arrived.
Everyone has a distinctive walk, a particular kind of footstep. She knows it's you before you say anything. "Should check it for bugs," Penny comments in an offhand, distracted way "can never be too careful." Hands on her hips, some flyers folded under her arm, she looks up, scanning the line of the rooftop. "Get tight on the door, yeah? Otherwise this is gonna be a bitch. Last thing we need is another lysergic puke fest."
"Nobody's botherin' to bug these shitholes," answers Hiro, coming to a stop just behind your left shoulder. He hits his cigarette, the precognitive emphysemic wheeze of smoke sucked through a filter. "We do a map point block and a half away, use one of the kids -- bring them in a few at a time. No big groups."
Penny reaches over, ashes the cigarette - her hand on yours - and takes it to the corner of her mouth. Dragging long, she exhales with a rattling cough "Should get a screen up in there so they can't see .." pausing to look up the block "..everything."
Another immense pause. Everything behind the curtain. "Wonder if Alex'll show," testing the boundary of a smile, fasting made her lips chapped and raw. "Kinda beats you got lined up?"
"We open with dawn and some fluff-cheese. Some kinda uplifting bullshit." Hiro rolls a shoulder, giving a tug to the lapel of his technicolor dream coat. "Mix in some Klute, go right for the hard dee'n'bee. Maybe psy when things wind down and everybody's fuckered to the gills..." He trails off, squinting up at the warehouse's high windows; mouthing something wordless to himself. Numbers.
"You're gonna be gone, too" examining the cigarette, it's filter, like she's never smoked before. She tosses it into a drainage grate "Better get the monkey on board to take over when it starts to hit."
"I'm gonna go get the.. get things started." They say you should never do anything you can not admit to later. But some things. Some things are unutterable.
"I'm eating a ten-strip tonight," Hiro answers absently, tilting a sidelong look towards Penny as she turns away. "I do my best work fuckered to the gills." A killing drag from his cigarette, flicked aside -- an end-on-end red-orange parabola in the dark, then *hsst* into a pool of filthy water -- and he turns away as well, heading down the street.
[MEANWHILE… 8 hours later…]
Waterfront - Parliament and Queens Quay(#1111RJ)
The intersection here is a patchwork of overpasses and onramps that join the city streets, with the Gardiner Expressway stretching east and west, and the Don Valley Parkway heading north through the city. The expressway is literally a dividing line between the downtown core and the waterfront, and below it, the development of the city center gives way to a mix of run down warehouses, seedy industrial infrastructure, and commercial docks further south. While one can make out the Toronto Star building lit up to the West, and the soaring height and sparkling lights of the CN Tower in the midst of the skyline beyond, this part of Toronto is clearly far removed from all of that. This area is dirtier than the city center, and graffiti marks the support structures of the overpass and is scrawled on some of the warehouse walls, colorful gang tags dimly visible. After dark, with most of the actual businesses closed, that same criminal element tends to wander a bit more visibly, making this a dangerous part of the city indeed, its grimier side not easily hidden by the rows of trees and other foliage planted along the waterfront, the most recent attempt at urban renewal just coming into bloom.
It's fair and mild, with a few clouds in the sky.
Obvious exits:
You return IC ...
You open the warehouse door and walk in off the street.
Main Floor - Warehouse(#1811RIXJM)
On a normal evening, the warehouse would be nothing more than a giant, empty metal cavern. Tonight, however, it's been transformed into a technicolor, sensual version of Heaven and Hell. The corrugated metal walls and ceiling have been painted - half the room in black, and half the room in white - separated from each other with only a sheer veil of gauzy scarves and sparkling beads that dangle from the rafters. Music throbs throughout at a volume that's nearly deafening.
In order to get to Heaven, one must first go through Hell. The black portion of the warehouse is dark and forbidding. Black-stemmed electric candles with red flickering bulbs are mounted on the walls, illuminating a scattering of second-hand sofas where the weary may find respite. Two large television screens hang from high, blasting images of dancing concert crowds interspersed with scenes of destruction, fire, death and mayhem. Three black, corinthian columns rise from the floor to the endless blackness above, while the fourth column lays on its side. The floor is littered with sparkling silver dust and black feathers from Fallen angels.
Heaven is nearly a mirror image of Hell. Ivory-stemmed electric candles featuring white lights cast a warm, steady glow around the perimeter where a collection of comfortable sofas and chairs can be found. Two large television screens hang from high on the walls, scenes of televangelists and religious congregations flickering between images of nude bodies entwined in rhythmic coupling. Four pearly, corinthian columns rest majestically, one in each corner, and the floor is covered with gold dust and the white feathers of Heaven's chosen.
** * **
Contents:
Taliesin
Alexandre
Daisy
Standingwater
Niko
Abel
Hiro
Obvious exits:
Taliesin smiles to Abel, "That's wonderful." He winks, "I was hoping you would do something like that when faced with her being sent away. She'll be in good hands, and I'm sure we'll be able to arrange for you to visit." He looks around, "As for the party. I'll miss the guy, I really will."
Hiro snaps the top of the sound console down, checks the power, and begins to switch the remainder of his equipment on. There's a lot more there than just the turntables and mixer -- small black boxes with small knobs and softly glowing LCD screens. "Five till takeoff, Daisy," he announces, examining his watch again.
Alexandre nods slightly to Standingwater, "It seems a lot of us are waiting for that." Frowns slightly, then looks to Niko, then back to Standingwater, "A lot of things were put on hold, I suppose."
Abel says, "We're only engaged... I don't have a place to live yet... or a job that will pay enough... but... but The One willing IFYA will happen and then I'll have a bit more of something to offer her."
Viktor opens the door and enters from the streetside.
Viktor has arrived.
Niko glances over to Alexandre, 'I'm ready to do it now if you folks are..'
Viktor enters and says, "Ah ha! There they are." He appears to have just arrived from scanning all the warehouses.
Jake has arrived.
Alexandre looks over to Niko, shakes his head, "Not right now. Later this week? I don't have all my instruments with me."
Abel's slightly hazed look scans the room as he turns toward Niko, pausing at one moment to look into empty space, then continuing on to Niko, Jamaia, and Alexandre. "Are you heading toward Michigan? he asks?"
Standingwater just grunts, pulls his hat back down, and settles more comfortably against the wall.
Standingwater grunts from under his hat, "Michigan. Hell. It doesn't matter. I'll go."
The entity that has come to pay its respect to the late Chase Kettle moves about the room again, leaving the slumbering Maisri to her foggy dreams.
Alexandre looks to Abel, somewhat surprised by the question, "Mmm... No. I'm not sure to what you're referring." He smiles slightly as Viktor walks in, raising his hand to greet him.
Jake walks in quietly.
Penny, obviously, is bringing in the tv.
There's a big commotion at the doors, see; jostling and shouting. Pushing a television stand on wheels through a small army of ravers is a difficult thing. They kind of back up, their arms spreading back and outward, giving Penny plenty of room.
The tv itself is something decades old. Straight out of the eighties. There's a crack running down the center of the glass. Or maybe it's a pattern? It doesn't have the look of a natural smash. Snaking out between her steps is the tail of large, orange extension cord.
"Oi," she shouts.
Daisy stands from her sand-painting and carefully edges her way around it, expression neutral, to take a place in front of the microphone.
For those that haven't seen her in the past two weeks, her condition -- already questionable -- continues to deteriorate. Heavy bags hang underneath her dishwater-coloured eyes; her skin hangs like rags over bones. Catabolism has eaten her down to her core.
"Hi," she says uncertainly, wincing at the sound of her amplified voice. "The Invisible College would like to welcome you to the Invisible Party. You all know ... you all know why you're here."
Abel turns to Daisy as she makes her announcement. He nods.
Viktor nudges aside someone to get a good look has an expression like he /doesn't/ know why hes there.
Hiro steps aside to make room for Daisy, his thumb held down on a cut-out button on his console. The kids near the front of the venue are getting to their feet, dusting gold-dust from their gargantuan pants. His expression is, perhaps, less neutral - more on the side of grm.
Alexandre shifts where he stands, looking towards Daisy as she speaks. He adjusts his satchel so that it hangs mostly over his back.
Hiro drops SETUP: READ ME!.
This area is temporarially a DAYZONE.
The party is taking place starting at IC dawn.
Those of you with broadband and winamp can tune in:
http://205.188.234.65:8024
Almost anyone can view the flyers:
http://www.junkho.org
"You're here," Daisy continues, "because Chase Kettle is dead. He died ... well, he died to save the Invisible College from monsters we don't quite understand. But. I mean. There --"
-- and she nearly falls over, tendons standing out against pale skin as she grips the microphone --
"-- I mean, I'm sorry. We, and I mean by that Penny and me, we've been fasting waiting for this. So all of you pull up a beer. There's gonna be a show, and then some dancing. Listen, though: we respect your religions. Just this once, respect ours."
Taliesin makes his way over to Penny pushing through the crowd, although they clear out of his way fairly helpfully. He mutters to Penny, "... do... want... place... honour?" He smiles slightly as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out what appears to be a black silk handkerchief, which he begins unfolding slowly, while waiting for Penny's response to his question.
You sense Taliesin makes his way over to Penny pushing through the crowd, although they clear out of his way fairly helpfully. "Where do you want me to place the guest of honour?" He smiles slightly as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out what appears to be a black silk handkerchief, which he begins unfolding slowly, while waiting for Penny's response to his question.
Jake waits quietly.
...the kids, the crew that's been hanging around, is already clustering around the pair of pony kegs; someone brought plastic cups. Strangely, they each take only an inch of beer or so; about a fifth of a cup each. They cluster around of the edges of the warehouse with their cups, silent.
Abel looks concernedly up at Daisy and starts to move toward her when he sees her stumble, but she seems to be OK... well... sorta.
Through the glitter and feathers, Penny shoves the stand on squeaky wheels finally to where it belongs. She wheels the stand around so that the screen faces the crowd. Then she starts undressing, walking towards Hiro, scarf, mittens, jacket, hat. These things are discarded as Taliesin follows in their wake. She slows down, pausing while she unbuckles her belt and kicks off her shoes, "Follow me," and leads Tal behind the curtain.
With a wan smile to Abel, Daisy adds, "We're okay," and turns around to take the television's plug, to run it toward the wall, to plug it in. This all takes much longer than it might otherwise: the cord jumps and twists in her impaired perception, remaining steady only at the margins of her peripheral vision.
The handerchief now looks like a flag as Taliesin continues unfolding it even as he walks behind Penny, the thing hanging by one hand to his gleaming oaken staff. Is there an end to the thing? No one will know because he's slipped behind the curtain after Penny.
Abel nods to Daisy. "If you need me let me know." He looks over at the Pony kegs then. A small look of fear passes though his grey eyes, pretty easy to see it too sinc ehtey have that partially stoned, distant seeing look.
Penny draws and ties the curtain onto a pole. It seems to be one of those unwritten rules of the party - you don't go near the decks, you do not pass go. A small group of glitter-tykes reassemble in the area, filling in the holes Penny, Tal and Daisy left in the crowd.
Hiro bends down to retrieve a record from the plastic milk crate behind the decks, examing the label, flipping it over, and sliding it onto the spindle of the leftmost table. He cranks the volume all the way down -- a barely perceptible thrum, somewhere at the edge of perception -- and lays the needle down. No music yet.
Abel heads over to Hiro and leans into whisper to him, the slightly hesitant look still in his eyes.
As Hiro lays the needle down, the television springs to life. The screen casts Heaven and Hell in a cool blue glow for a long moment. Phantom shapes play across the split in the screen, glowing in shades of green and red and blue.
Daisy takes the microphone again, murmuring, "Take seats, if you want. There're couches around the edges of the room. This will take a while, but I'm sure you'll want to see it."
With a hesitant look around the room -- she's still not used to taking the job of MC -- she steps back.
[BEHIND THE CURTAIN]
It seems to be an altar, the overturned area of squatted living - a bathtub smashed into pieces, a sink and mirror equally shattered. "Here," continuing to remove her clothing, she walks into an unlit area where the light can't find her skin "put him here. And his blood, if you have it."
A rustling then. Of loose fabric. She reappears, tying on a sheet. Horribly emaciated, a lone survivor of some civil unrest. "Okay?"
Taliesin finishes unfolding the black silk cloth to its full dimensions eight feet across and six feet wide. He sets it down over the bathtub as directed. He shakes his head, "No blood I'm afraid. Whomever embalmed him either did it with magic or got rid of it." He sets down his staff for a moment and spreads the cloth out a bit over something, a form that was certainly not anything in the bathtub. He looks at it for a moment, concentrates and then, with an almost theatrical gesture, grabs one end of the black cloth and yanks, flinging it off of the headless corpse of one Chase Kettle, Esq.
[OUT THERE IN THE WAREHOUSE]
Alexandre remains in the back, then makes his way towards the front. He accepts a plastic cup that's passed to him, peers at its contents. Sniffs it. Wrinkles his nose, then steps back slightly from the ravers. His left hand, with the cup, drops to his side as he waits.
One of the kids leaves the crowd; approaching Hiro as he slips a pair of headphones around his neck. Pig-boy leans forward to accept a plastic cup -- half-full of beer -- with two hands; giving Abel a sidelong look. "Don't sweat it, Abel. Just watch." He thumbs the microphone off, and turns to face the television.
Jake does not sit, he mearly remains standing and watches everything in a quiet manner.
Abel nods, looking a bit relieved. "Thanks Hiro. Maybe I'll explain someday." Then he moves away to get a view of the TV.
Abel looks back over. "I'll pray if it will help, though.
Penny unhooks the curtain allowing Tal to leave. She stands there a moment, looking over her shoulder. "It'll do." She hangs back and waits a moment, watching the blue light start to flicker across the crowd.
Alexandre read your description.
Penny(#6870PIOAC)
The refined sythesis of hard living and regular controlled substance abuse is as much a draw as it is obvious; this woman is tall and lean in a way that exaggerates her features. The countenance is the portrait of the soul and the eyes mark its intentions. Summed up in a word; pin-points. Green eyes, dyed-black eyebrows obvious on the paler skin. Her mouth a red, ripe stain; a suggestion of violence in the curve of her lips.
She's got white hair, a canvas for other color. With a part on the extreme left, it was cut with a blunt tool and layered across. If you could stand above her, it's shaped exactly like an almond and drops across one eye.
She has an incredibly pretty face, nothing hidden, no lines of early aging, no mark or scar. An eternity of cheek bones, a long neck and around it one long silver chain vee-ing into the collar of her shirt, something suspended at the end. The lack of sun has turned her pale and she's become translucent where the skin is thinnest, the bluest veins risen to the surface.
She wears white fabric wrapped badly, like a toga. She is skin and bones. This is not the look of a healthy young woman - there's hollowness, spaces waiting to be filled. Around her arms are tattoos in india ink - words and phrases in a language not known to many or at all. Her feet are covered in the same manner.
Daisy stands at the microphone for a moment. She clears her throat. She shuffles her feet. She closes her eyes. When she speaks, her voice is low; her diction is stuttering. She misses words, trips over them, goes back and corrects them.
"Praise be unto thee, O Osiris, the Lord of Eternity," she says. "Un-Nefer, Heru-Khuti, whose forms are manifold, whose attributes are majestic. Praise be unto thee, O thou who art Ptah-Seker-Tem in Anu. Thou Lord of the hidden shrine. Thou Creator of Het-ka-Ptah and of the gods therein, thou Guide of the Tuat, who art glorified when thou settest in the sky."
And the screen lights up.
The film is familiar by now. Jackie Kennedy and the President are driving in Dallas. The book depository is invisible and inevitable. It lurks outside the frame, impatient for history to catch up. The crowd swells and bulges with the anticipation of a spectacle.
The President smiles.
Two hundred saw it. Only Zapruder's grainy film and unsteady camera is preserved. The event is expected. The expectation hangs in the air, and Daisy continues to chant.
Taliesin steps out from behind the curtain. He occupies himself near it by folding up the now huge piece of silk cloth that he's carrying, before shoving back into the crowd. When all is said and done, its a neatly folded handkerchief again and goes into his pocket.
Sound creeps in at the lower edge of perception; a wash of incomprehensible female vocals, the decibel level of a television in the next room. A beat, irregular and surreal, vibrates at a level more felt than heard.
Viktor watches curiously.
The President waves. His expression is opaque; contemplative.
The cantor intones, "Thou turnest thy face towards Amentet. Thou makest the earth to shine as with refined copper. "
And it happens.
Through Zapruder's eyes, the event is silent, sterile. The six immortal frames pass in a moment. There is no hot rush of blood. There is no sound, and out of the frame, Secret Service agents scatter, though Zapruder directs his attention elsewhere; down. It is Jacqueline's face, still uncomprehending, which is the focus of the camera.
"Those who have lain down in death rise up to see thee," whispers Daisy. "They still breathe."
Abel stands where he can see, his eyes still distant looking... you'd say he was stoned if you didn't Abel never gets stoned. His lips move in silent prayer.
Alexandre closes his eyes for a moment, right after the the moment, then opens his eyes to look at the image.
"Isis embraceth thee in peace," murmurs Daisy, voice wavering, on the verge of breaking. "She driveth away the fiends from the entrances of thy paths. She driveth away the fiends from the entrance of your paths."
Jacqueline cradles Jack's head. The tears are immediate, but only a projection: the grain of the film is too strong. They can only be imagined. The scene leaps. The film threatens to tear.
From behind the television, the chorus intones:
"Their hearts are at peace since they behold thee, o thou who art Eternity and Everlastingness. Their hearts are at peace since they behold thee, o Osiris.""
The crowd of ravers is silent - immobile. They all hold their cups still; none of them have consumed the small quantity of beer. All eyes are on the television.
Walking out from behind the curtain, Penny mouths the words Daisy speaks, the way people familiar with a body of work do. She puts her hands on two people, leaning at first like she might faint. They walk her up onto the dais to stand next to Hiro.
Niko read your description.
Abel read your description.
The film cuts away.
The film is no longer Zapruder's. It's less grainy. More professional. It depicts a dissection table: a heavy surgical light hangs overhead, casting the theatre in sharp-edged shadows. Four surgeons surround a corpse; Kennedy's, you presume.
"The hair of the Osiris Ani," Daisy says, breaking with the liturgy, for those who remember it. Her tone is opaque. "The hair of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, is the hair of Nu."
Without turning his attention away from the television, Hiro lays a hand on Penny's shoulder; gives it a wordless squeeze. The single record continues to spin silently behind him, the tactile bassline going through a subtle shift in tone; from merely trippy, to something more alien - darker.
The doctors begin to cut away the hair on the back of the corpse's head. The slim blade of a scalpel is inserted between scalp and skull; a thin incision is made. The screen has begun to throb; the glass gently pulsates with the shifting glow of the video playing beneath.
"The face of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, is the face of Ra," Daisy says, voice firm.
Acting with wordless coordination, the doctors turn the corpse over. One is staring at something behind the cameraman, just over his shoulder. Another disappears behind the cameraman for a moment. The remaining two begin to make incisions into Kennedy's forehead, near the exit wound. Blood has collected in thick dry cakes in the President's eyes; it spills in runnels over his cheeks.
With delicate precision, the doctors extract the bullet. They operate solemnly, wordlessly. It clinks down hard in a surgical pan.
Peculiarly, there is a wine rack positioned along the back wall, full of bottles. The labels are unreadable.
Abel is engrossed in the video. Watching with the others.. He actually seemed to react when Daisy changes the liturgy. Maybe he knows it as well?
"The eyes of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the eyes of Hathor."
One of the doctors opens the corpse's eyes, checks their dilated pupils with a scope. The doctor that had disappeared behind the frame returns, unwinding a length of surgical tubing from around his upper arm. Laughing (and silently; the microphone isn't turned on) he punches another of the surgeons in the arm.
Viktor watches silently, but confused at the purpose of all this. He looks around at all the people near him.
"The ears of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the ears of Up-uatu."
The ears are checked for obstructions. The doctor who has just come back from out of frame is weaving; his eyes are bloodshot, unfocused, and his hands tremble. A stroke of his knife removes a section of Kennedy's ear: a thick crescent of flesh that disfigures the organ into unrecognizability.
The crowd seems full of what some present might consider children. Teenagers. Young twenty-somethings. They're dressed for a party, but a solemn mood prevails. More have filed in, while the video was running; perhaps thirty, forty people now. Each holds a single plastic cup, the contents untouched. No pleasant greetings ring out. None of the candy kids hugs each other. There is an aura of familiarity between them -- but not joviality.
Standingwater goes home.
Standingwater has left.
"The lips of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the lips of Anpu," the chorus intones as one doctor inserts a metal appliance into the President's mouth. The inebriated doctor stands aside as the other attendants wind it open. "The teeth of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the teeth of Serqet."
Underneath the surgical masks, one of the doctors is laughing. The joke is lost to history. Undeterred, the cantor continues:
"The cheeks of the Osiris Ani," Daisy says, clinging to the microphone, "whose word is truth, are the cheeks of Isis."
At least not yet there isn't. Penny and Hiro watch Daisy sweat the microphone along with everybody else. There isn't a smiling face in the house, no uncomfortable fidgiting or throat-clearing either. This is not your average group of afterhours kids - they're seasoned professionals.
Abel looks over to see what Tal is doing.
Because we want to wake these ravers up some day and they need to get used to the wierder shit we do ..like summon spirits.
Taliesin is standing there silently, holding his staff in his right hand. He makes no sound, barely breathes in fact, perhaps he's praying, perhaps he's stunned by the moment. It is difficult to read his expression, although there is something soft in his eyes that suggests a bittersweet mix of joy and grief.
Daisy says, "The arms of the Osiris Ani," the cantor says, "whose word is truth, are the arms of Ba-neb-Tetu."
While Daisy speaks, something on the screen is going wrong. The doctors are bringing out a surgical saw. Two of the doctors retreat behind the cameraman; the others bring the to sparking life. The camera cuts out for a moment. The lights flicker. The throbbing becomes a backbeat to Daisy's voice. One. Two. Three. Each beat hits a different word.
They have cut the President's arms off.
If the suspension of disbelief had not been broken yet, it is almost certainly broken now."
Abel turns back to the video, eyes still wide.
Jake opens the door and heads out streetside.
Jake has left.
Someone breaks off from the crowd, moving to stand a short distance from Daisy. He places his cup next to Daisy, on the platform housing turntables and mixer, and dissapears back from whence he came.
"The thighs of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the thighs of Nut."
The doctors weave slowly down the President's body. Briefly, from just out of frame, you can see the nose of an ass, lips pulled back in a terrible idiot grin. The cameraman is disinterested; the viewers therefore get no better view.
Their intention to cut off the President's legs is obvious. The camera mercifully cuts away, but the chorus is unrelenting. "The breast of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, is the breast of the Lady of Sais," Daisy pronounces. "The breast of the Osiris Ani is become the breast of the Lady of Sais."
Abel seems to blanche but then seems glad, maybe he noticed the Ommission?
Viktor yawks and looks away as this starts to get a little sick.
Taliesin, perhaps a bit stronger of constitution, or will, remains watching the ceremony unchanged by the events taking place on the screen.
Abel also keeps watching. He still looks pale, though.
Alexandre's eyes narrow as he watches; he looks towards Daisy, looks towards Penny, gaze shifting between them. The cup in his left hand shifts slightly, he returns to looking at the screen, but he keeps the same suspicious look.
Niko has watched the entire thing without a flinch, though he is not holding a cup, just remaining against the wall.
-- and as Daisy pronounces 'the breast', the surgical table in the video rises up and spins, spilling its contents on the floor. The torso, all that remains of the President, falls onto the floor.
A spume of fresh blood and deep red wine rises up in front of the camera. Silverware is laid out on the counter behind. Only one figure, a doctor masked with the head of an ass, remains in frame, staring down at the tableau.
As the autopsy begins to fade, Hiro and Penny begin to speak as well:
"His sister hath protected his soul; hath repulsed the fiends, and turned aside calamities. She uttered the spell with the magical power of her mouth. Her tongue was perfect, and it never halted at a word. Beneficent in command and word was Isis, the woman of magical spells, the advocate of her brother. She sought him untiringly, she wandered round and round about this earth in sorrow, and she alighted not without finding him. She made light with her feathers, she created air with her wings, and she uttered the death wail for her brother. She raised up the inactive members of whose heart was still, she drew from him his essence, she made an heir, she reared the child in loneliness, and the place where he was not known, and he grew in strength and stature, and his hand was mighty in the House of Keb. The Company of the Gods rejoiced, rejoiced, at the coming of Horus, the son of Osiris, the spirit of Osiris, whose heart was firm, the triumphant, the son of Isis, the heir of Osiris."
Abel turns to the door from where he is standing, his grey eyes open and distant, standing near the back of the crowd that is watching the scene up on the stage.
[GO ON, LAUGH FUCKERS]
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." H. L. Mencken
PHENOMENON: Penny removed her street gear for a toga. The toga is the symbol of all that is well-learned, all that is philosophical and possessed of great knowledge. Earlier in the evening she decorated her skin with Pythagorean symbols, with glyphs from the Book of the Dead. These lend her an other-worldliness and she becomes, in the eyes of ravers, someone to be believed in. Someone like a leader.
ACTION & THEORY: It's a Mind effect. It's her job to begin the festivities, her job to get it started. This has always been her role. The first phrase "Bibamus, moriendum est!" means "Let us drink, death is inevitable." This is the cue she gives at all Invisible Parties. They raise their glasses and toast. She is reaching out to these open minds as she speaks the second phrase "Omne ignotum pro magnifico est!" which means "We have great notions of everything unknown" and encouraging them to see greater things than the lies on what is set before them. In this instance: the television screen. Penny, with the mere presence of her voice, is ushering these kids towards enlightenment."
OOC> Hiro mocks Penny.
OOC> Penny says ""Ah crap. Well. There you have it."
"Those who have lain down in death rise up," the chorus pronounces vehemently.
"Those who have lain down in death rise up. They still breathe. The grave sings."
Then just Daisy: "The flesh is a vessel. Those who have lain down in death rise up. The grave sings. They still breathe."
The TV flickers. Behind the screen, the ghostly image of a skull appears, CRTs plugged into its empty sockets, circuitry inlaid in whorls about its crown. For a moment, the image of sallow flesh superimposes itself on the skull. Then the picture appears again:
Pillbox hats place the time of the event in the 1960s. Endless rows of tombstones roll into the grainy middle distance. Kennedy is being laid down on his funeral barge. The Eternal Flame burns on its prow. She is veiled, she is visible only from the back, but the flip to her hair is unmistakable: this is Jackie Kennedy. She lays Excalibur on the fallen President's chest, which rises once, then falls.
Jacqueline steps back from the barge. The barge departs for open water, and Daisy continues to chant, voice faltering.
Viktor looks around, confused, and wonders what the whole point of this is, as he does not get it.
Abel looks around the room to see how many drink.
Penny surfaces slowly. From where? From somehere below the decks. Just before the screen starts to fill with snow, she grabs the mic from infront of Hiro and puts her lips to the metal mesh
"Bibamus," her voice a purr compared to Daisy's chanting. Like she isn't really speaking at all. The crowd stirs, comes alive at once with a responding cry inunison with Penny "moriendum est!"
Hanging onto the mic cord, Penny leans back on Hiro, forehead tucked into his shoulder. She's smiling. She screams at them, at Hiro's headphone'd ear "Omne ignotum pro magnifico est!" and they raise up their plastic cups to drink fast.
Hiro turns to face the console, and raises his cup towards the mob - now swelled to almost ten times it's original size. The crowd has grown more diverse while no-one was looking - punks and gutter trash intermingling with ravers.
A hundred drink with him.
Contents:
finishes unfolding the black silk cloth to its full dimensions eight feet across and six feet wide. He sets it down over the bathtub as directed. He shakes his head, "No blood I'm afraid. Whomever embalmed him either did it with magic or got rid of it." He sets down his staff for a moment and spreads the cloth out a bit over something, a form that was certainly not anything in the bathtub. He looks at it for a moment, concentrates and then, with an almost theatrical gesture, grabs one end of the black cloth and yanks, flinging it off of the headless corpse of one Chase Kettle, Esq.
Viktor
Taliesin
Alexandre
Daisy
Niko
Abel
Hiro
Obvious exits:
Wharf WH Streetside S
Hiro turns to face the console, and raises his cup towards the mob - now swelled to almost ten times it's original size. The crowd has grown more diverse while no-one was looking - punks and gutter trash intermingling with ravers.
A hundred drink with him.
"Drink to him," Daisy murmurs, dropping out of her chant. She grips the microphone with both hands, eyes beginning to roll into the back of her her head. "And if you have anything you wish you'd said to him -- you'd best say it quickly."
The moment of weakness, the break in her cadence, only lasts for a moment. Choking back tears, she continues:
“The grave is flesh. Those who have lain down still breathe. They still rise up. The flesh in death is become Osiris; the flesh of Osiris, divided, is become the gods. O Osiris, the Lord of Eternity, the flesh still sings to you. They still rise up. The grave rises up to sing to you. Those who have lain down in death have the flesh of Osiris. Those who have lain down still sing. O king; O Osiris The dead rise up and sing. Sing to the dead, O Osiris; the dead sing to you. They rise up. The grave rises up. Flesh becomes flesh. O Osiris, the dead still live. The flesh lives within us. There is no fear in us. Flesh becomes flesh. The grave sings to us."
"Rise up."
"Come back to us."
Hiro ducks down to retrieve a second record from the milk crate; sliding it smoothly onto the second turntable. One headphone is propped between shoulder and ear; he lays down the needle, giving the spindle a few quick twists. Hands move of their own accord; keying the sampler, bringing things into synch. His eyes are not on the decks; they are on the crowd. The speakers, still, give only their near-inaudible murmur.
Alexandre raises his cup in the air, whispers something to himself, then drinks the little bit quickly. He lowers his hand, looks around himself, then smiles slightly. He then manuevers out of the crowd he's found himself in.
Abel closes his eyes and bows his head, murmuring softly.
Taliesin seems to have gotten a cup from somewhere, and he closes his eyes finally before lifting it to drink with Hiro and the multitudes.
Abel mutters to Taliesin, "... One,... may perpetual..."
There is a stirring of something that starts just beyond the edge of perception. It hovers briefly above the forms on the dias, hanging there gently in mid-air supported by nothing at all. As eyes throughout the crowd lift to look upon the figure, it seemingly gains some semblance of solidity. To those who know him, the countenance is Chase Kettle, though now he is glorified. His eyes look down with fiery wisdom upon the gathered believers, arms outstretched as if to embrace them all in love.
Penny peels herself off Hiro's shoulder and hooks the mic back where it belongs. The few steps down to Daisy take her an eternity. Hands reach out to her, help her, guide her toward Daisy, move her in a back and forth weave. Dropping cups. Dropping. And looking up, staring at what could easily be part of the light show.
It's the beginning. "Daisy, daisy.." a whisper in the microphone. Together Penny and Daisy fail to collapse. Stoicly aright, they watch the crowd, sense the thing Hiro's about to do.
Hiro spreads his hands out across the decks, fingers hovering over the records in a gesture of silent supplication. Reflected in the lenses of his spectacles, glowing red numerals begin a backwards countdown from ten.
A wash of sound envelops the warehouse. The babel of a million disconnected voices, a million incomprehensible languages -- joined by the roar of the crowd. They are screaming; fists are raised; words loop back in on themselves, hidden microphone amplifying the screams, looping them over each other.
With a flourish of her arm, Daisy lifts the proferred plastic cup, then slumps in against Penny, trembling side pressed to hers. The beer is Keystone Light. The ergot is cheap blotter acid. The sentiment is the same.
"There ain't nothin' to fear," she says, maybe to Chase's apparition, maybe to Penny. "There ain't nothin'. There ain't nothin'. The grave sings to us."
Abel looks up at the figure of Chase... it's not the Chase he knew. He winces a bit at the screaming coming from the speakers.
And then: silence.
This is when the lights kick in.
Hiro drops his hands. With them, the curtains on the high warehouse windows drop -- the cavernous space flooded with the light of the rising sun. Head tilted back, he passes his hands over the console: once, twice.
...and a heavy baseline rises up out of the floor, music exploding over the sea of upturned faces. The roar returns - the unamplified screams competing with the music, which only grows louder.
A thumb hits the audio cut-out.
"Now, we forget. Dance, you fuckers."
Six beats. And music returns as a palable force.
The apparition that is Chase Kettle is robed in white glory, an angel to create the pinnacle of the Heaven side of the party. To the more astute observer, this is no manufactured light show, no tell tale flickering or imperfection, just a simple peace that somehow manages to be carried throughout the assembly on the wild death cries manufactured by Hiro's sound system.
And then, the figure seems to be raising its arm in a benediction. Its spectral fingers close once its right arm reaches the apex of its arc and curls into a fist. A single 'Oi' is heard in the silence preceeding the music, and the figure vanishes, rising up on invisible wings.
Abel blinks at Chase again. "Oi."
From afar (to Penny, Hiro, and Daisy), Cassius realizes that sometimes there are players who make it all worth it. ;)
"Til death do us start," a cup pressed into Penny's hand out of a thin circle of writhing limbs. She drinks long, her cup fuller than it should be, holding Daisy or holding to Daisy.
And they dance.
Those fuckers dance like angels on the head of a pin. All at once and without end, arms in the air. Groups of seven and seven and seven colliding, reforming, rolling into eachother and sliding like mercury.
Viktor yelps as he is suddenly assualted by a whole crowd. He starts making his way to the nearest side he can guestimate.
Abel gets pulled into a group of dancers. He looks a bit uncertain, then he glances back up to where Chase disappeared, and tries. He's slow to get into the rhythm of it, though... hesitant...
And then, Abel smiles... no... he grins. The flashing lights around him reflect off of his sun symbol, he closes his eyes, and he begins to feel the music... the Time of it in his body... and he dances. And he laughs.
Viktor falls onto the stage, having made it away from the masses and he gasps, being out of breath. It looks like he got beat up a little. A little wide eyed, he looks for an exit and starts going for it.
Penny thumbs off Daisy's microphone before she drops it and feedbacks the whole sound system. When it does fall, it goes unnoticed kicked underfoot with other empty cups. The swaying masses start moving faster and faster syncing up and out of time with the beats-per-second thumping out across the warehouse.
Glitter and feathers everywhere, shining in the light of day. Somber to ecstatic in split seconds, the music climbs to a new pitch.
Taliesin whirls into the crowd both hands holding his staff high above his head. He shifts and flows as though he is keeping track of the bodies of everyone in the room. His spinning movements make him look like a sort of human helicopter as he rolls on through the crowd.
There is an explosion of flowers from above... white lilies fall upon the dancing masses. Probably just another special effect arranged for by the party's hosts. The funeral flowers pirouette as they descend into the masses below.
Niko has remained on the fringes of the group, watching the goings on, smiling a bit as he sees some break into dance. He moves back from the throng towards the doors, not leaving yet, but seemingly not intent on getting trampled either
Abel dances with his eyes closed. He isn't a dancer, but this isn't really dance is it... this is... this is celebration... this is something unformulated... And though his eyes are closed, and he doesn't move as well as your average raver, he doesn't get trampled... he weaves in and out of the crowd... merging and melding with it.
It comes on in waves. Hiro, hunched over the tables, captures one side of his headphones between ear and shoulder; fingers on the vinyl. The music feeds on itself; echoing ouroboros of sound following its own tail. A crescendo, the beat grows faster, faster, and ...break, cut, gone, a moment of silence, the tide ebbed--
--only to return in a tsunami, a beat skipped, a thumb released from the audio cut: the floor explodes.
Viktor shoves a little through the crowd, and makes his way to /an/ exit. He gasps for air and is then promptly pushed out as a dancer jumps or gets wild. Crashing into the door, he makes his way out.
OOC> Alexandre must crash. Neat stuff. Bye!
Alexandre goes home.
Alexandre has left.
OOC> Hiro says "I hate to do this guys, but I really gotta crash. I had to get up hella early for a class."
OOC> Penny kinda has stuff in the morning, too. We'll do this next time NOT on a school night.
OOC> Taliesin says "Night Hiro."
OOC> Taliesin says "Night Penny."
OOC> Abel says "Night Guys"
Abel waeves his way through the crowd toward where Daisy and Penny are nearly crashed.
Niko smiles and if he catches the eyes of the hosts, nods softly before slipping ou tthe door himself
OOC> Hiro says "Hope you guys enjoyed the show. Next time, we'll actually throw a proper party ;)"
OOC> Abel says "great party"
OOC> Niko says "Very different :)"
OOC> Hiro says "Funerals are boring. -_^"
Hiro escapes OOC.
Hiro has left.
You open the double doors and head out into the open, rolling fields beyond.
Rolling Fields
It's a gorgeous sight, the brilliant yellows and greens of freshly sprouted grasses waving in the wind, rolling hills stretching off as far as the eye can see. Pure, golden sunlight pours forth from the never-setting sun standing at twelve o'clock high, bringing a mild, pleasant warmth to the vast expanse of land. Puffy white clouds dart through the sky, sometimes fast, sometimes languid and slow, always casting their cool shadows across the land.
As you reach the peak of one of the highest hills, you are able to survey the land as the scent of new life washes over you. Facing north, toward the keep, a massive forest sits, far off into the distance to the west. Several deer can be seen darting into the trees as you spot them, as if sensing your discerning eye. Immediately opposite it is a large body of water, from which a small stream flows. Near the stream is a large oaken forest, which gradually renews itself in the warm light. Before you, directly opposite the massive crater, there rests Novus Valnastium, a large stone complex resting atop another hill, with one lone tower stretching into the sky above.
A little off to the northeast, a small and upside-down, metallic-bowl structure sits. Long tethers are coiled up beside the structure; no more does the glorious airship dock above it. The slender curves and high-tech metals used on the small building are a stark contrast to the Keep, merely fifty yards away, and it easily gives away who is responsible for such a building.
<< DAYZONE >>
Contents:
Shen Chi
Cole
Cadence
Viktor
Obvious exits:
_________________________ //.etro: Toronto by Night _________________________
Name Sex Mode Idle Type Short Description
______________________________________________________________________________
Cadence F IC 1m Pl -
Viktor M IC 3m Pl -
Penny F IC 1s Pl Chute jacket, jeans, t-shirt. White hair
Cole M IC 3m Pl -
Shen Chi M IC 3m Pl -
______________________________________________________________________________
Viktor responds with a slight bow and says, "Deseann, but call me Viktor. If you had asked me yet a week before, I might ask you to be formal, but fate has decided that I shouldn't.... Anyways, thats not important nor likely interesting to you two." He looks and addresses only Shen and Cole. "Welcome, I suppose. I'm not sure why Cadence has brought you here, but I'm sure it was with good reason."
Cole jams his hands in the kangaroo pocket of his ragged burgundy sweatshirt, watching Cadence, Shen Chi, and Viktor talk.
Shen Chi raises his brow rather interestedly at what Viktor has to say. The ball bounces from behind his shoulder and heads toward Cadence' hand without Shen Chi even look. "Cady? Well, Kaze brought me here the first time I came. I suppose Cady is only being curteous." He grins in her direction once more without quite looking at her before he says. "I find a lot of things interesting, by the way. But only so many interesting things can be said at one time, I suppose."
Cadence responds to Viktor, "I didn't bring Shen Chi here. If you hadn't noticed, he walked in quite well on his own." She almost misses the ball tossed to her, thinking that he wasn't going to throw it, and already having taken her hand back. She manages to fumble through catching it, however, just barely. With a small smile she looks over toward Cole, tossing it to him. "So what brings you by?" she addresses Shen Chi for the last question.
Penny makes great strides towards the crater's edge, bee-lining from the novus in a hurry and a half. Along the way she caps a pen, yanks out a hat from her bag and winds a scarf around her neck.
Viktor glances at Penny and listens for Shen Chi's answer.
Cole glances over at the swiftly moving Penny as well, watching her curiously.
Shen Chi shifts his hand into his pocket and removes another nearly fuzzless tennis ball and shrugs casually. "I was looking for Kaze. He's not with Ryo so I thought he might be here. I'm worried about... Well, it doesn't matter, I can talk to Kaze about it." He smiles amiably and offers his free hand to Viktor. "It is good to meet you, Mr. Deseann." He glances sidelong at Penny for a moment before smiling upon Viktor again. "Do you live here?"
Viktor takes his hand and replies, "I don't live anywhere. I no longer have a house to stay in." He doesn't seem disturbed or worried about this in the least.
Cadence looks surprised at that news, looking away from the swift Penny back to Viktor. "You don't? You can't stay at the estate?"
As Cole is distracted by Penny's dash, he misses the ball entirely and it bonks him in the side of the head. He looks first to Shen Chi curiously, wondering how he managed to get a ball to hit the ~other~ side of his head...when it dawns on him. He looks back at Cadence, shocked, before bending to pick up the ball and coming up red-eared.
Viktor sighs and says, "Staying and living are two different things. I /could/ stay there, but I don't feel welcome if I make it my home for more than a few nights. Besides, it's not my home. It won't ever be."
============================ BB Post in Progress =============================
Group: Mage - Traditions
Title: On Mourning:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Around 9:30pm, March 24 the following URL is posted.
http://www.junkho.org/
and written in copperplate beneath:
AD NOCENDUM POTENTES SUMUS
==============================================================================
Cadence winces as she turns back just in time to see Cole picking up the ball. She smiles sheepishly, though there's a healthy dose of amusement in the expression as well. "Ooops," she mutters, then explains to Cole, "You were supposed to -catch- it. I thought you were looking. Sorry." She holds out a hand to him to toss the ball back again. "What happened to your previous home?"
Shen Chi seems to miss this interplay and just watches Viktor, tilting his head curiously. "I could talk to some people in low income housing and help you find an apartment, Mr. Deseann. How much money do you make? A roof over one's head does wonders for the Self."
Street> Industrial Light and Sound says "Here, check't out. (http://www.junkho.org/) Creepy shit for a party, man."
Cole tosses the ball back to Cadence and returns his wavering attention to the matter at hand, housing. Clearly a weighty issue. He nods to Viktor, seconding Shen Chi's offer and encouragement.
Viktor gives Cadence a rather mean look for seemingly no reason and says, "If I have to explain to you whats happened to me recently, then you obviously didn't care enough to listen before... meaning I doubt you do now. As for your offer, I must decline. A librarians salary is hardly enough to cover much buy my eating, and I prefer to sleep here more often than not, mostly because I won't be bothered."
Cole glances over at Shen Chi...
Shen Chi nods solemnly to Viktor, as if he certainly has all the freedom in the world to make that choice. However, he does clarify. "Low income housing is intended for people with low incomes, but it is okay. I am sure living here is just fine." He smiles in a friendly manner upon Viktor before shifting his gaze to Cole and Cadence, "Just showing Cole around? He needs his hand held?"
A shadow of a shadow, Penny's form diminshes. Moving toward the vanishing point between the tall grasses and the crater's edge, not even her path remains - swaying reeds that part and bend so easily snap back to their own form.
You walk south along Parliament to Queens Quay.
Waterfront - Parliament and Queens Quay(#1111RJ)
The intersection here is a patchwork of overpasses and onramps that join the city streets, with the Gardiner Expressway stretching east and west, and the Don Valley Parkway heading north through the city. The expressway is literally a dividing line between the downtown core and the waterfront, and below it, the development of the city center gives way to a mix of run down warehouses, seedy industrial infrastructure, and commercial docks further south. While one can make out the Toronto Star building lit up to the West, and the soaring height and sparkling lights of the CN Tower in the midst of the skyline beyond, this part of Toronto is clearly far removed from all of that. This area is dirtier than the city center, and graffiti marks the support structures of the overpass and is scrawled on some of the warehouse walls, colorful gang tags dimly visible. After dark, with most of the actual businesses closed, that same criminal element tends to wander a bit more visibly, making this a dangerous part of the city indeed, its grimier side not easily hidden by the rows of trees and other foliage planted along the waterfront, the most recent attempt at urban renewal just coming into bloom.
It's fair and mild, with a few clouds in the sky.
Obvious exits:
Warehouse WA
It is larger than most warehouses on the block. Standing tall and preeminent in its domain you are faced with clerestory windows and a set of large doors. They are opened only for for tractor trailers and large panel vans to load and unload their shipping. There is a side door which allows for individual traffic without all the effort required to open the much larger sliding doors.
Hiro has arrived.
Everyone has a distinctive walk, a particular kind of footstep. She knows it's you before you say anything. "Should check it for bugs," Penny comments in an offhand, distracted way "can never be too careful." Hands on her hips, some flyers folded under her arm, she looks up, scanning the line of the rooftop. "Get tight on the door, yeah? Otherwise this is gonna be a bitch. Last thing we need is another lysergic puke fest."
"Nobody's botherin' to bug these shitholes," answers Hiro, coming to a stop just behind your left shoulder. He hits his cigarette, the precognitive emphysemic wheeze of smoke sucked through a filter. "We do a map point block and a half away, use one of the kids -- bring them in a few at a time. No big groups."
Penny reaches over, ashes the cigarette - her hand on yours - and takes it to the corner of her mouth. Dragging long, she exhales with a rattling cough "Should get a screen up in there so they can't see .." pausing to look up the block "..everything."
Another immense pause. Everything behind the curtain. "Wonder if Alex'll show," testing the boundary of a smile, fasting made her lips chapped and raw. "Kinda beats you got lined up?"
"We open with dawn and some fluff-cheese. Some kinda uplifting bullshit." Hiro rolls a shoulder, giving a tug to the lapel of his technicolor dream coat. "Mix in some Klute, go right for the hard dee'n'bee. Maybe psy when things wind down and everybody's fuckered to the gills..." He trails off, squinting up at the warehouse's high windows; mouthing something wordless to himself. Numbers.
"You're gonna be gone, too" examining the cigarette, it's filter, like she's never smoked before. She tosses it into a drainage grate "Better get the monkey on board to take over when it starts to hit."
"I'm gonna go get the.. get things started." They say you should never do anything you can not admit to later. But some things. Some things are unutterable.
"I'm eating a ten-strip tonight," Hiro answers absently, tilting a sidelong look towards Penny as she turns away. "I do my best work fuckered to the gills." A killing drag from his cigarette, flicked aside -- an end-on-end red-orange parabola in the dark, then *hsst* into a pool of filthy water -- and he turns away as well, heading down the street.
[MEANWHILE… 8 hours later…]
Waterfront - Parliament and Queens Quay(#1111RJ)
The intersection here is a patchwork of overpasses and onramps that join the city streets, with the Gardiner Expressway stretching east and west, and the Don Valley Parkway heading north through the city. The expressway is literally a dividing line between the downtown core and the waterfront, and below it, the development of the city center gives way to a mix of run down warehouses, seedy industrial infrastructure, and commercial docks further south. While one can make out the Toronto Star building lit up to the West, and the soaring height and sparkling lights of the CN Tower in the midst of the skyline beyond, this part of Toronto is clearly far removed from all of that. This area is dirtier than the city center, and graffiti marks the support structures of the overpass and is scrawled on some of the warehouse walls, colorful gang tags dimly visible. After dark, with most of the actual businesses closed, that same criminal element tends to wander a bit more visibly, making this a dangerous part of the city indeed, its grimier side not easily hidden by the rows of trees and other foliage planted along the waterfront, the most recent attempt at urban renewal just coming into bloom.
It's fair and mild, with a few clouds in the sky.
Obvious exits:
You return IC ...
You open the warehouse door and walk in off the street.
Main Floor - Warehouse(#1811RIXJM)
On a normal evening, the warehouse would be nothing more than a giant, empty metal cavern. Tonight, however, it's been transformed into a technicolor, sensual version of Heaven and Hell. The corrugated metal walls and ceiling have been painted - half the room in black, and half the room in white - separated from each other with only a sheer veil of gauzy scarves and sparkling beads that dangle from the rafters. Music throbs throughout at a volume that's nearly deafening.
In order to get to Heaven, one must first go through Hell. The black portion of the warehouse is dark and forbidding. Black-stemmed electric candles with red flickering bulbs are mounted on the walls, illuminating a scattering of second-hand sofas where the weary may find respite. Two large television screens hang from high, blasting images of dancing concert crowds interspersed with scenes of destruction, fire, death and mayhem. Three black, corinthian columns rise from the floor to the endless blackness above, while the fourth column lays on its side. The floor is littered with sparkling silver dust and black feathers from Fallen angels.
Heaven is nearly a mirror image of Hell. Ivory-stemmed electric candles featuring white lights cast a warm, steady glow around the perimeter where a collection of comfortable sofas and chairs can be found. Two large television screens hang from high on the walls, scenes of televangelists and religious congregations flickering between images of nude bodies entwined in rhythmic coupling. Four pearly, corinthian columns rest majestically, one in each corner, and the floor is covered with gold dust and the white feathers of Heaven's chosen.
**
Contents:
Taliesin
Alexandre
Daisy
Standingwater
Niko
Abel
Hiro
Obvious exits:
Taliesin smiles to Abel, "That's wonderful." He winks, "I was hoping you would do something like that when faced with her being sent away. She'll be in good hands, and I'm sure we'll be able to arrange for you to visit." He looks around, "As for the party. I'll miss the guy, I really will."
Hiro snaps the top of the sound console down, checks the power, and begins to switch the remainder of his equipment on. There's a lot more there than just the turntables and mixer -- small black boxes with small knobs and softly glowing LCD screens. "Five till takeoff, Daisy," he announces, examining his watch again.
Alexandre nods slightly to Standingwater, "It seems a lot of us are waiting for that." Frowns slightly, then looks to Niko, then back to Standingwater, "A lot of things were put on hold, I suppose."
Abel says, "We're only engaged... I don't have a place to live yet... or a job that will pay enough... but... but The One willing IFYA will happen and then I'll have a bit more of something to offer her."
Viktor opens the door and enters from the streetside.
Viktor has arrived.
Niko glances over to Alexandre, 'I'm ready to do it now if you folks are..'
Viktor enters and says, "Ah ha! There they are." He appears to have just arrived from scanning all the warehouses.
Jake has arrived.
Alexandre looks over to Niko, shakes his head, "Not right now. Later this week? I don't have all my instruments with me."
Abel's slightly hazed look scans the room as he turns toward Niko, pausing at one moment to look into empty space, then continuing on to Niko, Jamaia, and Alexandre. "Are you heading toward Michigan? he asks?"
Standingwater just grunts, pulls his hat back down, and settles more comfortably against the wall.
Standingwater grunts from under his hat, "Michigan. Hell. It doesn't matter. I'll go."
The entity that has come to pay its respect to the late Chase Kettle moves about the room again, leaving the slumbering Maisri to her foggy dreams.
Alexandre looks to Abel, somewhat surprised by the question, "Mmm... No. I'm not sure to what you're referring." He smiles slightly as Viktor walks in, raising his hand to greet him.
Jake walks in quietly.
Penny, obviously, is bringing in the tv.
There's a big commotion at the doors, see; jostling and shouting. Pushing a television stand on wheels through a small army of ravers is a difficult thing. They kind of back up, their arms spreading back and outward, giving Penny plenty of room.
The tv itself is something decades old. Straight out of the eighties. There's a crack running down the center of the glass. Or maybe it's a pattern? It doesn't have the look of a natural smash. Snaking out between her steps is the tail of large, orange extension cord.
"Oi," she shouts.
Daisy stands from her sand-painting and carefully edges her way around it, expression neutral, to take a place in front of the microphone.
For those that haven't seen her in the past two weeks, her condition -- already questionable -- continues to deteriorate. Heavy bags hang underneath her dishwater-coloured eyes; her skin hangs like rags over bones. Catabolism has eaten her down to her core.
"Hi," she says uncertainly, wincing at the sound of her amplified voice. "The Invisible College would like to welcome you to the Invisible Party. You all know ... you all know why you're here."
Abel turns to Daisy as she makes her announcement. He nods.
Viktor nudges aside someone to get a good look has an expression like he /doesn't/ know why hes there.
Hiro steps aside to make room for Daisy, his thumb held down on a cut-out button on his console. The kids near the front of the venue are getting to their feet, dusting gold-dust from their gargantuan pants. His expression is, perhaps, less neutral - more on the side of grm.
Alexandre shifts where he stands, looking towards Daisy as she speaks. He adjusts his satchel so that it hangs mostly over his back.
Hiro drops SETUP: READ ME!.
This area is temporarially a DAYZONE.
The party is taking place starting at IC dawn.
Those of you with broadband and winamp can tune in:
http://205.188.234.65:8024
Almost anyone can view the flyers:
http://www.junkho.org
"You're here," Daisy continues, "because Chase Kettle is dead. He died ... well, he died to save the Invisible College from monsters we don't quite understand. But. I mean. There --"
-- and she nearly falls over, tendons standing out against pale skin as she grips the microphone --
"-- I mean, I'm sorry. We, and I mean by that Penny and me, we've been fasting waiting for this. So all of you pull up a beer. There's gonna be a show, and then some dancing. Listen, though: we respect your religions. Just this once, respect ours."
Taliesin makes his way over to Penny pushing through the crowd, although they clear out of his way fairly helpfully. He mutters to Penny, "... do... want... place... honour?" He smiles slightly as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out what appears to be a black silk handkerchief, which he begins unfolding slowly, while waiting for Penny's response to his question.
You sense Taliesin makes his way over to Penny pushing through the crowd, although they clear out of his way fairly helpfully. "Where do you want me to place the guest of honour?" He smiles slightly as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out what appears to be a black silk handkerchief, which he begins unfolding slowly, while waiting for Penny's response to his question.
Jake waits quietly.
...the kids, the crew that's been hanging around, is already clustering around the pair of pony kegs; someone brought plastic cups. Strangely, they each take only an inch of beer or so; about a fifth of a cup each. They cluster around of the edges of the warehouse with their cups, silent.
Abel looks concernedly up at Daisy and starts to move toward her when he sees her stumble, but she seems to be OK... well... sorta.
Through the glitter and feathers, Penny shoves the stand on squeaky wheels finally to where it belongs. She wheels the stand around so that the screen faces the crowd. Then she starts undressing, walking towards Hiro, scarf, mittens, jacket, hat. These things are discarded as Taliesin follows in their wake. She slows down, pausing while she unbuckles her belt and kicks off her shoes, "Follow me," and leads Tal behind the curtain.
With a wan smile to Abel, Daisy adds, "We're okay," and turns around to take the television's plug, to run it toward the wall, to plug it in. This all takes much longer than it might otherwise: the cord jumps and twists in her impaired perception, remaining steady only at the margins of her peripheral vision.
The handerchief now looks like a flag as Taliesin continues unfolding it even as he walks behind Penny, the thing hanging by one hand to his gleaming oaken staff. Is there an end to the thing? No one will know because he's slipped behind the curtain after Penny.
Abel nods to Daisy. "If you need me let me know." He looks over at the Pony kegs then. A small look of fear passes though his grey eyes, pretty easy to see it too sinc ehtey have that partially stoned, distant seeing look.
Penny draws and ties the curtain onto a pole. It seems to be one of those unwritten rules of the party - you don't go near the decks, you do not pass go. A small group of glitter-tykes reassemble in the area, filling in the holes Penny, Tal and Daisy left in the crowd.
Hiro bends down to retrieve a record from the plastic milk crate behind the decks, examing the label, flipping it over, and sliding it onto the spindle of the leftmost table. He cranks the volume all the way down -- a barely perceptible thrum, somewhere at the edge of perception -- and lays the needle down. No music yet.
Abel heads over to Hiro and leans into whisper to him, the slightly hesitant look still in his eyes.
As Hiro lays the needle down, the television springs to life. The screen casts Heaven and Hell in a cool blue glow for a long moment. Phantom shapes play across the split in the screen, glowing in shades of green and red and blue.
Daisy takes the microphone again, murmuring, "Take seats, if you want. There're couches around the edges of the room. This will take a while, but I'm sure you'll want to see it."
With a hesitant look around the room -- she's still not used to taking the job of MC -- she steps back.
[BEHIND THE CURTAIN]
It seems to be an altar, the overturned area of squatted living - a bathtub smashed into pieces, a sink and mirror equally shattered. "Here," continuing to remove her clothing, she walks into an unlit area where the light can't find her skin "put him here. And his blood, if you have it."
A rustling then. Of loose fabric. She reappears, tying on a sheet. Horribly emaciated, a lone survivor of some civil unrest. "Okay?"
Taliesin finishes unfolding the black silk cloth to its full dimensions eight feet across and six feet wide. He sets it down over the bathtub as directed. He shakes his head, "No blood I'm afraid. Whomever embalmed him either did it with magic or got rid of it." He sets down his staff for a moment and spreads the cloth out a bit over something, a form that was certainly not anything in the bathtub. He looks at it for a moment, concentrates and then, with an almost theatrical gesture, grabs one end of the black cloth and yanks, flinging it off of the headless corpse of one Chase Kettle, Esq.
[OUT THERE IN THE WAREHOUSE]
Alexandre remains in the back, then makes his way towards the front. He accepts a plastic cup that's passed to him, peers at its contents. Sniffs it. Wrinkles his nose, then steps back slightly from the ravers. His left hand, with the cup, drops to his side as he waits.
One of the kids leaves the crowd; approaching Hiro as he slips a pair of headphones around his neck. Pig-boy leans forward to accept a plastic cup -- half-full of beer -- with two hands; giving Abel a sidelong look. "Don't sweat it, Abel. Just watch." He thumbs the microphone off, and turns to face the television.
Jake does not sit, he mearly remains standing and watches everything in a quiet manner.
Abel nods, looking a bit relieved. "Thanks Hiro. Maybe I'll explain someday." Then he moves away to get a view of the TV.
Abel looks back over. "I'll pray if it will help, though.
Penny unhooks the curtain allowing Tal to leave. She stands there a moment, looking over her shoulder. "It'll do." She hangs back and waits a moment, watching the blue light start to flicker across the crowd.
Alexandre read your description.
Penny(#6870PIOAC)
The refined sythesis of hard living and regular controlled substance abuse is as much a draw as it is obvious; this woman is tall and lean in a way that exaggerates her features. The countenance is the portrait of the soul and the eyes mark its intentions. Summed up in a word; pin-points. Green eyes, dyed-black eyebrows obvious on the paler skin. Her mouth a red, ripe stain; a suggestion of violence in the curve of her lips.
She's got white hair, a canvas for other color. With a part on the extreme left, it was cut with a blunt tool and layered across. If you could stand above her, it's shaped exactly like an almond and drops across one eye.
She has an incredibly pretty face, nothing hidden, no lines of early aging, no mark or scar. An eternity of cheek bones, a long neck and around it one long silver chain vee-ing into the collar of her shirt, something suspended at the end. The lack of sun has turned her pale and she's become translucent where the skin is thinnest, the bluest veins risen to the surface.
She wears white fabric wrapped badly, like a toga. She is skin and bones. This is not the look of a healthy young woman - there's hollowness, spaces waiting to be filled. Around her arms are tattoos in india ink - words and phrases in a language not known to many or at all. Her feet are covered in the same manner.
Daisy stands at the microphone for a moment. She clears her throat. She shuffles her feet. She closes her eyes. When she speaks, her voice is low; her diction is stuttering. She misses words, trips over them, goes back and corrects them.
"Praise be unto thee, O Osiris, the Lord of Eternity," she says. "Un-Nefer, Heru-Khuti, whose forms are manifold, whose attributes are majestic. Praise be unto thee, O thou who art Ptah-Seker-Tem in Anu. Thou Lord of the hidden shrine. Thou Creator of Het-ka-Ptah and of the gods therein, thou Guide of the Tuat, who art glorified when thou settest in the sky."
And the screen lights up.
The film is familiar by now. Jackie Kennedy and the President are driving in Dallas. The book depository is invisible and inevitable. It lurks outside the frame, impatient for history to catch up. The crowd swells and bulges with the anticipation of a spectacle.
The President smiles.
Two hundred saw it. Only Zapruder's grainy film and unsteady camera is preserved. The event is expected. The expectation hangs in the air, and Daisy continues to chant.
Taliesin steps out from behind the curtain. He occupies himself near it by folding up the now huge piece of silk cloth that he's carrying, before shoving back into the crowd. When all is said and done, its a neatly folded handkerchief again and goes into his pocket.
Sound creeps in at the lower edge of perception; a wash of incomprehensible female vocals, the decibel level of a television in the next room. A beat, irregular and surreal, vibrates at a level more felt than heard.
Viktor watches curiously.
The President waves. His expression is opaque; contemplative.
The cantor intones, "Thou turnest thy face towards Amentet. Thou makest the earth to shine as with refined copper. "
And it happens.
Through Zapruder's eyes, the event is silent, sterile. The six immortal frames pass in a moment. There is no hot rush of blood. There is no sound, and out of the frame, Secret Service agents scatter, though Zapruder directs his attention elsewhere; down. It is Jacqueline's face, still uncomprehending, which is the focus of the camera.
"Those who have lain down in death rise up to see thee," whispers Daisy. "They still breathe."
Abel stands where he can see, his eyes still distant looking... you'd say he was stoned if you didn't Abel never gets stoned. His lips move in silent prayer.
Alexandre closes his eyes for a moment, right after the the moment, then opens his eyes to look at the image.
"Isis embraceth thee in peace," murmurs Daisy, voice wavering, on the verge of breaking. "She driveth away the fiends from the entrances of thy paths. She driveth away the fiends from the entrance of your paths."
Jacqueline cradles Jack's head. The tears are immediate, but only a projection: the grain of the film is too strong. They can only be imagined. The scene leaps. The film threatens to tear.
From behind the television, the chorus intones:
"Their hearts are at peace since they behold thee, o thou who art Eternity and Everlastingness. Their hearts are at peace since they behold thee, o Osiris.""
The crowd of ravers is silent - immobile. They all hold their cups still; none of them have consumed the small quantity of beer. All eyes are on the television.
Walking out from behind the curtain, Penny mouths the words Daisy speaks, the way people familiar with a body of work do. She puts her hands on two people, leaning at first like she might faint. They walk her up onto the dais to stand next to Hiro.
Niko read your description.
Abel read your description.
The film cuts away.
The film is no longer Zapruder's. It's less grainy. More professional. It depicts a dissection table: a heavy surgical light hangs overhead, casting the theatre in sharp-edged shadows. Four surgeons surround a corpse; Kennedy's, you presume.
"The hair of the Osiris Ani," Daisy says, breaking with the liturgy, for those who remember it. Her tone is opaque. "The hair of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, is the hair of Nu."
Without turning his attention away from the television, Hiro lays a hand on Penny's shoulder; gives it a wordless squeeze. The single record continues to spin silently behind him, the tactile bassline going through a subtle shift in tone; from merely trippy, to something more alien - darker.
The doctors begin to cut away the hair on the back of the corpse's head. The slim blade of a scalpel is inserted between scalp and skull; a thin incision is made. The screen has begun to throb; the glass gently pulsates with the shifting glow of the video playing beneath.
"The face of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, is the face of Ra," Daisy says, voice firm.
Acting with wordless coordination, the doctors turn the corpse over. One is staring at something behind the cameraman, just over his shoulder. Another disappears behind the cameraman for a moment. The remaining two begin to make incisions into Kennedy's forehead, near the exit wound. Blood has collected in thick dry cakes in the President's eyes; it spills in runnels over his cheeks.
With delicate precision, the doctors extract the bullet. They operate solemnly, wordlessly. It clinks down hard in a surgical pan.
Peculiarly, there is a wine rack positioned along the back wall, full of bottles. The labels are unreadable.
Abel is engrossed in the video. Watching with the others.. He actually seemed to react when Daisy changes the liturgy. Maybe he knows it as well?
"The eyes of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the eyes of Hathor."
One of the doctors opens the corpse's eyes, checks their dilated pupils with a scope. The doctor that had disappeared behind the frame returns, unwinding a length of surgical tubing from around his upper arm. Laughing (and silently; the microphone isn't turned on) he punches another of the surgeons in the arm.
Viktor watches silently, but confused at the purpose of all this. He looks around at all the people near him.
"The ears of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the ears of Up-uatu."
The ears are checked for obstructions. The doctor who has just come back from out of frame is weaving; his eyes are bloodshot, unfocused, and his hands tremble. A stroke of his knife removes a section of Kennedy's ear: a thick crescent of flesh that disfigures the organ into unrecognizability.
The crowd seems full of what some present might consider children. Teenagers. Young twenty-somethings. They're dressed for a party, but a solemn mood prevails. More have filed in, while the video was running; perhaps thirty, forty people now. Each holds a single plastic cup, the contents untouched. No pleasant greetings ring out. None of the candy kids hugs each other. There is an aura of familiarity between them -- but not joviality.
Standingwater goes home.
Standingwater has left.
"The lips of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the lips of Anpu," the chorus intones as one doctor inserts a metal appliance into the President's mouth. The inebriated doctor stands aside as the other attendants wind it open. "The teeth of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the teeth of Serqet."
Underneath the surgical masks, one of the doctors is laughing. The joke is lost to history. Undeterred, the cantor continues:
"The cheeks of the Osiris Ani," Daisy says, clinging to the microphone, "whose word is truth, are the cheeks of Isis."
At least not yet there isn't. Penny and Hiro watch Daisy sweat the microphone along with everybody else. There isn't a smiling face in the house, no uncomfortable fidgiting or throat-clearing either. This is not your average group of afterhours kids - they're seasoned professionals.
Abel looks over to see what Tal is doing.
Because we want to wake these ravers up some day and they need to get used to the wierder shit we do ..like summon spirits.
Taliesin is standing there silently, holding his staff in his right hand. He makes no sound, barely breathes in fact, perhaps he's praying, perhaps he's stunned by the moment. It is difficult to read his expression, although there is something soft in his eyes that suggests a bittersweet mix of joy and grief.
Daisy says, "The arms of the Osiris Ani," the cantor says, "whose word is truth, are the arms of Ba-neb-Tetu."
While Daisy speaks, something on the screen is going wrong. The doctors are bringing out a surgical saw. Two of the doctors retreat behind the cameraman; the others bring the to sparking life. The camera cuts out for a moment. The lights flicker. The throbbing becomes a backbeat to Daisy's voice. One. Two. Three. Each beat hits a different word.
They have cut the President's arms off.
If the suspension of disbelief had not been broken yet, it is almost certainly broken now."
Abel turns back to the video, eyes still wide.
Jake opens the door and heads out streetside.
Jake has left.
Someone breaks off from the crowd, moving to stand a short distance from Daisy. He places his cup next to Daisy, on the platform housing turntables and mixer, and dissapears back from whence he came.
"The thighs of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, are the thighs of Nut."
The doctors weave slowly down the President's body. Briefly, from just out of frame, you can see the nose of an ass, lips pulled back in a terrible idiot grin. The cameraman is disinterested; the viewers therefore get no better view.
Their intention to cut off the President's legs is obvious. The camera mercifully cuts away, but the chorus is unrelenting. "The breast of the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth, is the breast of the Lady of Sais," Daisy pronounces. "The breast of the Osiris Ani is become the breast of the Lady of Sais."
Abel seems to blanche but then seems glad, maybe he noticed the Ommission?
Viktor yawks and looks away as this starts to get a little sick.
Taliesin, perhaps a bit stronger of constitution, or will, remains watching the ceremony unchanged by the events taking place on the screen.
Abel also keeps watching. He still looks pale, though.
Alexandre's eyes narrow as he watches; he looks towards Daisy, looks towards Penny, gaze shifting between them. The cup in his left hand shifts slightly, he returns to looking at the screen, but he keeps the same suspicious look.
Niko has watched the entire thing without a flinch, though he is not holding a cup, just remaining against the wall.
-- and as Daisy pronounces 'the breast', the surgical table in the video rises up and spins, spilling its contents on the floor. The torso, all that remains of the President, falls onto the floor.
A spume of fresh blood and deep red wine rises up in front of the camera. Silverware is laid out on the counter behind. Only one figure, a doctor masked with the head of an ass, remains in frame, staring down at the tableau.
As the autopsy begins to fade, Hiro and Penny begin to speak as well:
"His sister hath protected his soul; hath repulsed the fiends, and turned aside calamities. She uttered the spell with the magical power of her mouth. Her tongue was perfect, and it never halted at a word. Beneficent in command and word was Isis, the woman of magical spells, the advocate of her brother. She sought him untiringly, she wandered round and round about this earth in sorrow, and she alighted not without finding him. She made light with her feathers, she created air with her wings, and she uttered the death wail for her brother. She raised up the inactive members of whose heart was still, she drew from him his essence, she made an heir, she reared the child in loneliness, and the place where he was not known, and he grew in strength and stature, and his hand was mighty in the House of Keb. The Company of the Gods rejoiced, rejoiced, at the coming of Horus, the son of Osiris, the spirit of Osiris, whose heart was firm, the triumphant, the son of Isis, the heir of Osiris."
Abel turns to the door from where he is standing, his grey eyes open and distant, standing near the back of the crowd that is watching the scene up on the stage.
[GO ON, LAUGH FUCKERS]
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable." H. L. Mencken
PHENOMENON: Penny removed her street gear for a toga. The toga is the symbol of all that is well-learned, all that is philosophical and possessed of great knowledge. Earlier in the evening she decorated her skin with Pythagorean symbols, with glyphs from the Book of the Dead. These lend her an other-worldliness and she becomes, in the eyes of ravers, someone to be believed in. Someone like a leader.
ACTION & THEORY: It's a Mind effect. It's her job to begin the festivities, her job to get it started. This has always been her role. The first phrase "Bibamus, moriendum est!" means "Let us drink, death is inevitable." This is the cue she gives at all Invisible Parties. They raise their glasses and toast. She is reaching out to these open minds as she speaks the second phrase "Omne ignotum pro magnifico est!" which means "We have great notions of everything unknown" and encouraging them to see greater things than the lies on what is set before them. In this instance: the television screen. Penny, with the mere presence of her voice, is ushering these kids towards enlightenment."
OOC> Hiro mocks Penny.
OOC> Penny says ""Ah crap. Well. There you have it."
"Those who have lain down in death rise up," the chorus pronounces vehemently.
"Those who have lain down in death rise up. They still breathe. The grave sings."
Then just Daisy: "The flesh is a vessel. Those who have lain down in death rise up. The grave sings. They still breathe."
The TV flickers. Behind the screen, the ghostly image of a skull appears, CRTs plugged into its empty sockets, circuitry inlaid in whorls about its crown. For a moment, the image of sallow flesh superimposes itself on the skull. Then the picture appears again:
Pillbox hats place the time of the event in the 1960s. Endless rows of tombstones roll into the grainy middle distance. Kennedy is being laid down on his funeral barge. The Eternal Flame burns on its prow. She is veiled, she is visible only from the back, but the flip to her hair is unmistakable: this is Jackie Kennedy. She lays Excalibur on the fallen President's chest, which rises once, then falls.
Jacqueline steps back from the barge. The barge departs for open water, and Daisy continues to chant, voice faltering.
Viktor looks around, confused, and wonders what the whole point of this is, as he does not get it.
Abel looks around the room to see how many drink.
Penny surfaces slowly. From where? From somehere below the decks. Just before the screen starts to fill with snow, she grabs the mic from infront of Hiro and puts her lips to the metal mesh
"Bibamus," her voice a purr compared to Daisy's chanting. Like she isn't really speaking at all. The crowd stirs, comes alive at once with a responding cry inunison with Penny "moriendum est!"
Hanging onto the mic cord, Penny leans back on Hiro, forehead tucked into his shoulder. She's smiling. She screams at them, at Hiro's headphone'd ear "Omne ignotum pro magnifico est!" and they raise up their plastic cups to drink fast.
Hiro turns to face the console, and raises his cup towards the mob - now swelled to almost ten times it's original size. The crowd has grown more diverse while no-one was looking - punks and gutter trash intermingling with ravers.
A hundred drink with him.
Contents:
finishes unfolding the black silk cloth to its full dimensions eight feet across and six feet wide. He sets it down over the bathtub as directed. He shakes his head, "No blood I'm afraid. Whomever embalmed him either did it with magic or got rid of it." He sets down his staff for a moment and spreads the cloth out a bit over something, a form that was certainly not anything in the bathtub. He looks at it for a moment, concentrates and then, with an almost theatrical gesture, grabs one end of the black cloth and yanks, flinging it off of the headless corpse of one Chase Kettle, Esq.
Viktor
Taliesin
Alexandre
Daisy
Niko
Abel
Hiro
Obvious exits:
Wharf WH Streetside S
Hiro turns to face the console, and raises his cup towards the mob - now swelled to almost ten times it's original size. The crowd has grown more diverse while no-one was looking - punks and gutter trash intermingling with ravers.
A hundred drink with him.
"Drink to him," Daisy murmurs, dropping out of her chant. She grips the microphone with both hands, eyes beginning to roll into the back of her her head. "And if you have anything you wish you'd said to him -- you'd best say it quickly."
The moment of weakness, the break in her cadence, only lasts for a moment. Choking back tears, she continues:
“The grave is flesh. Those who have lain down still breathe. They still rise up. The flesh in death is become Osiris; the flesh of Osiris, divided, is become the gods. O Osiris, the Lord of Eternity, the flesh still sings to you. They still rise up. The grave rises up to sing to you. Those who have lain down in death have the flesh of Osiris. Those who have lain down still sing. O king; O Osiris The dead rise up and sing. Sing to the dead, O Osiris; the dead sing to you. They rise up. The grave rises up. Flesh becomes flesh. O Osiris, the dead still live. The flesh lives within us. There is no fear in us. Flesh becomes flesh. The grave sings to us."
"Rise up."
"Come back to us."
Hiro ducks down to retrieve a second record from the milk crate; sliding it smoothly onto the second turntable. One headphone is propped between shoulder and ear; he lays down the needle, giving the spindle a few quick twists. Hands move of their own accord; keying the sampler, bringing things into synch. His eyes are not on the decks; they are on the crowd. The speakers, still, give only their near-inaudible murmur.
Alexandre raises his cup in the air, whispers something to himself, then drinks the little bit quickly. He lowers his hand, looks around himself, then smiles slightly. He then manuevers out of the crowd he's found himself in.
Abel closes his eyes and bows his head, murmuring softly.
Taliesin seems to have gotten a cup from somewhere, and he closes his eyes finally before lifting it to drink with Hiro and the multitudes.
Abel mutters to Taliesin, "... One,... may perpetual..."
There is a stirring of something that starts just beyond the edge of perception. It hovers briefly above the forms on the dias, hanging there gently in mid-air supported by nothing at all. As eyes throughout the crowd lift to look upon the figure, it seemingly gains some semblance of solidity. To those who know him, the countenance is Chase Kettle, though now he is glorified. His eyes look down with fiery wisdom upon the gathered believers, arms outstretched as if to embrace them all in love.
Penny peels herself off Hiro's shoulder and hooks the mic back where it belongs. The few steps down to Daisy take her an eternity. Hands reach out to her, help her, guide her toward Daisy, move her in a back and forth weave. Dropping cups. Dropping. And looking up, staring at what could easily be part of the light show.
It's the beginning. "Daisy, daisy.." a whisper in the microphone. Together Penny and Daisy fail to collapse. Stoicly aright, they watch the crowd, sense the thing Hiro's about to do.
Hiro spreads his hands out across the decks, fingers hovering over the records in a gesture of silent supplication. Reflected in the lenses of his spectacles, glowing red numerals begin a backwards countdown from ten.
A wash of sound envelops the warehouse. The babel of a million disconnected voices, a million incomprehensible languages -- joined by the roar of the crowd. They are screaming; fists are raised; words loop back in on themselves, hidden microphone amplifying the screams, looping them over each other.
With a flourish of her arm, Daisy lifts the proferred plastic cup, then slumps in against Penny, trembling side pressed to hers. The beer is Keystone Light. The ergot is cheap blotter acid. The sentiment is the same.
"There ain't nothin' to fear," she says, maybe to Chase's apparition, maybe to Penny. "There ain't nothin'. There ain't nothin'. The grave sings to us."
Abel looks up at the figure of Chase... it's not the Chase he knew. He winces a bit at the screaming coming from the speakers.
And then: silence.
This is when the lights kick in.
Hiro drops his hands. With them, the curtains on the high warehouse windows drop -- the cavernous space flooded with the light of the rising sun. Head tilted back, he passes his hands over the console: once, twice.
...and a heavy baseline rises up out of the floor, music exploding over the sea of upturned faces. The roar returns - the unamplified screams competing with the music, which only grows louder.
A thumb hits the audio cut-out.
"Now, we forget. Dance, you fuckers."
Six beats. And music returns as a palable force.
The apparition that is Chase Kettle is robed in white glory, an angel to create the pinnacle of the Heaven side of the party. To the more astute observer, this is no manufactured light show, no tell tale flickering or imperfection, just a simple peace that somehow manages to be carried throughout the assembly on the wild death cries manufactured by Hiro's sound system.
And then, the figure seems to be raising its arm in a benediction. Its spectral fingers close once its right arm reaches the apex of its arc and curls into a fist. A single 'Oi' is heard in the silence preceeding the music, and the figure vanishes, rising up on invisible wings.
Abel blinks at Chase again. "Oi."
From afar (to Penny, Hiro, and Daisy), Cassius realizes that sometimes there are players who make it all worth it. ;)
"Til death do us start," a cup pressed into Penny's hand out of a thin circle of writhing limbs. She drinks long, her cup fuller than it should be, holding Daisy or holding to Daisy.
And they dance.
Those fuckers dance like angels on the head of a pin. All at once and without end, arms in the air. Groups of seven and seven and seven colliding, reforming, rolling into eachother and sliding like mercury.
Viktor yelps as he is suddenly assualted by a whole crowd. He starts making his way to the nearest side he can guestimate.
Abel gets pulled into a group of dancers. He looks a bit uncertain, then he glances back up to where Chase disappeared, and tries. He's slow to get into the rhythm of it, though... hesitant...
And then, Abel smiles... no... he grins. The flashing lights around him reflect off of his sun symbol, he closes his eyes, and he begins to feel the music... the Time of it in his body... and he dances. And he laughs.
Viktor falls onto the stage, having made it away from the masses and he gasps, being out of breath. It looks like he got beat up a little. A little wide eyed, he looks for an exit and starts going for it.
Penny thumbs off Daisy's microphone before she drops it and feedbacks the whole sound system. When it does fall, it goes unnoticed kicked underfoot with other empty cups. The swaying masses start moving faster and faster syncing up and out of time with the beats-per-second thumping out across the warehouse.
Glitter and feathers everywhere, shining in the light of day. Somber to ecstatic in split seconds, the music climbs to a new pitch.
Taliesin whirls into the crowd both hands holding his staff high above his head. He shifts and flows as though he is keeping track of the bodies of everyone in the room. His spinning movements make him look like a sort of human helicopter as he rolls on through the crowd.
There is an explosion of flowers from above... white lilies fall upon the dancing masses. Probably just another special effect arranged for by the party's hosts. The funeral flowers pirouette as they descend into the masses below.
Niko has remained on the fringes of the group, watching the goings on, smiling a bit as he sees some break into dance. He moves back from the throng towards the doors, not leaving yet, but seemingly not intent on getting trampled either
Abel dances with his eyes closed. He isn't a dancer, but this isn't really dance is it... this is... this is celebration... this is something unformulated... And though his eyes are closed, and he doesn't move as well as your average raver, he doesn't get trampled... he weaves in and out of the crowd... merging and melding with it.
It comes on in waves. Hiro, hunched over the tables, captures one side of his headphones between ear and shoulder; fingers on the vinyl. The music feeds on itself; echoing ouroboros of sound following its own tail. A crescendo, the beat grows faster, faster, and ...break, cut, gone, a moment of silence, the tide ebbed--
--only to return in a tsunami, a beat skipped, a thumb released from the audio cut: the floor explodes.
Viktor shoves a little through the crowd, and makes his way to /an/ exit. He gasps for air and is then promptly pushed out as a dancer jumps or gets wild. Crashing into the door, he makes his way out.
OOC> Alexandre must crash. Neat stuff. Bye!
Alexandre goes home.
Alexandre has left.
OOC> Hiro says "I hate to do this guys, but I really gotta crash. I had to get up hella early for a class."
OOC> Penny kinda has stuff in the morning, too. We'll do this next time NOT on a school night.
OOC> Taliesin says "Night Hiro."
OOC> Taliesin says "Night Penny."
OOC> Abel says "Night Guys"
Abel waeves his way through the crowd toward where Daisy and Penny are nearly crashed.
Niko smiles and if he catches the eyes of the hosts, nods softly before slipping ou tthe door himself
OOC> Hiro says "Hope you guys enjoyed the show. Next time, we'll actually throw a proper party ;)"
OOC> Abel says "great party"
OOC> Niko says "Very different :)"
OOC> Hiro says "Funerals are boring. -_^"
Hiro escapes OOC.
Hiro has left.
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