A Trip To Town [Open]
Norman was confused. Actually, for once, Mother was also confused. And it wasn't very often that the two of them agreed on emotions and feelings. They were usually very opposite. Very contradicting. But on this one thing, they could agree. On this confusion they could agree.
They killed me! They killed me and they killed my dear boy! Filthy good-for-nothing bastards and those high society whores. They don't deserve to live, they don't. None of them. Ought to let the whole damn city just go to hell. Go to hell and burn! Burn for harming me and my son.
But they weren't dead. They were both alive. It was a very strange sensation. To be dead one moment and alive the next. Very confusing. And it had made Mother very aggravated. She'd started to become more vocal about her feelings. Sometimes Norman would be reading the newspaper (or one of those naughty books he bought in The City and hid from his Mother,) and Mother would just start screaming from upstairs. Screaming about how they were going to come back and kill her. Kill her and kill her Norman. And even though there were times when she thought her stupid half-witted son deserved a punishment worse than death (or death -- whichever came first,) she didn't like that someone else was taking that into their own hands. She was going to have control over her son. Her son and this house and this motel. No matter what The City thought. No matter what anybody thought. She'd burn everything to the ground if she had to. Whatever she had to do to survive. And to make sure the Bates Motel stayed in business. Norman, for his part, tried not to think about what had happened too much. It had frightened him at the time, but he'd pushed it out of his mind like a bad dream. Yeah, that's all it had been. Just a bad dream. Nothing big. He woke up and everything was back to normal. Normal Norman. Besides, he had a new focus.
Painting the motel.
It had taken Norman a long time to decide whether or not he should paint the motel. And once he had decided to paint it, it took him an even longer time to determine what color would be best. He took a little survey of some of the people who'd rented out his rooms, but most of them muttered that it didn't matter because the whole place would still look black and white anyway. That didn't deter Norman any, however. It just made him think about it more.
In the end he decided on yellow. A soft canary yellow. Nothing bright and boisterous. Just ... peaceful. Kind of like an Easter egg. Only not as obnoxious.
And that was why, for the first time since he'd met Hannibal at the taxidermy store, Norman went into The City. To wander along the streets and look for a nice (somewhat inexpensive) hardware store. To buy paint. To paint the motel. To bring in more customers. And to make Mother happy.