Repose

>> yoiure a b;loojy twatr!

Who: Pippin and Jeremiah Casanova
When: Friday evening/near dusk
Where: His property
What: Fancy meeting you here
Rating: Low
Status: Incomplete (players mutual agreement)

( Love, thieves, and fear, make ghosts. )

[None of these are especially easy for her to write.]

[Nel]
do you take pictures of dancers?

[Holly]
hi.

[Noah]
happy? things going ok?

[Derek]
[...] i would like to request a day off. [She doesn’t have a reason. She’s just ...testing.]

Who: Elijah and Aubrey
When: Recent
Where: Bill's garage
Warnings:Nada

There was a book under the counter. Elijah could picture it without seeing it. The cover was dull beige with a bird cradled in the centre, goldenrod yellow. It was fat with promise and hours and hours of sitting until his feet cooled and the blood pooled in his legs until stretching provoked the sensation known as 'pins and needles' and was the restoration of the circulation system. There was a book under the counter but in the absence of one of the birds (the girl who was in her thirties and less girl than woman, but who dressed in denim and who smelled strongly of cherry suckers and hair-products and Elijah lacked the vocabulary for such a woman despite all his reading) he was behind the counter instead of out back. This unnerved him. He evaded eye-contact with anyone in the vague proximity of the street in the hope that none would come into the garage and his hands were protected in thin gloves made for working with the parts outside.

That was the other reason he couldn't read: oil. Elijah was fastidious about cleanliness. He liked soap, and disinfectant and anything that would banish the suggestion of dirt, blood or viscera to a strongly-scented delusion. He smelled of mint, and a little of lemons and motor-oil, from the gloves. He couldn't read the book to while away the time waiting for people and he couldn't disappear into the back, which he wanted to do most because of the cash register. People were morons, present an easy opportunity and the thin veneer of civility flaked and cracked like cheap paint. Society was temporary, it didn't matter what political philosophers thought.

The radio was on. A station mostly music, less chattering radio heads. Elijah couldn't think in the face of too much talking, and he loathed the peppy sound of the presenter's voice, but he didn't talk frequently enough for it to hook underneath Elijah's skin and pull. There was someone walking toward the door. Elijah flinched, looked wildly in the direction of the breakroom in the hope that the other girl would materialize out of thin air and take this encounter out of the realm of likelihood, and gave himself up to the inevitability of contact.

It wasn't that Elijah didn't like people. He did. Behind glass, or at distance enough they couldn't touch him. He couldn't smell disease on the air, or the coughs and colds of winter, but he imagined what it might be like. He was a narrow man, in navy blue wool sweater turned over at the elbows over an undershirt that was faded gray, and his face was mistrust over a beard. Elijah's facial expression was flexible as rubber, and transparent as glass.

Who: Hannah & Jeremiah
What: A visit to an abandoned amusement park
Where: Jester's Court
When: Nowish
Warnings/Rating: TBD

The skeleton was a long-slumbering copy of another park that had been demolished. The Jester's Court, however, wasn't demolished, and it slumbered in decaying beauty on the far side of the Capital.

Hannah had heard stories and stories, mostly about the park coming to life after dark, and she'd always wanted to see it. Tonight, she kind of felt like doing something scary, something dangerous, something that wasn't just smiling and being agreeable. She was programmed to be likable, to go along with things, to make people happy, but that all didn't come as easily as it had once. Now, now she wanted to question, to fight, to pull herself up and draw her shoulders straight. She wanted to be something more than what was required of her. She wanted to belong to herself, to not be the property of any person or organization.

She wanted to not worry she could be turned off with just the flip of a switch. She wanted to be someone and not something, and she wanted to never, ever be reprogrammed.

She couldn't have the things she wanted, not really, but she could wander and explore, and, like she'd told Jeremiah, she could allow herself the leniency of living in the moment. So, tonight, now, moon high in a cloudless sky, she waited outside the entrance of the quiet park. It was chilly, but not bitingly so, and she was ready to explore. Hannah seldom wore pants, but she'd figured tonight she should make an exception, so, dressed comfortably, hair pulled into a swinging ponytail of copper and gleam, she waited. Tap, tap, tap went the tip of one pristine white sneaker on the ground. Tap, tap, tap.