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Tweak says, "its/ it's! Know the difference"

Joanie Wicker | The Wicked Witch of the West (wickedwicker) wrote in bellumlogs,
@ 2010-04-02 11:19:00

Entry tags:

dorothy, wicked witch

Who: Madison and Joanie
What: Introducing oil and water
Where: The Mailboxes
When: Late afternoon
Warnings: Uncalled-for bitchiness and probably some language.

There were some points in a person's life when introspection is probably the worst possible thing to do, as doing so would lead to madness. It was about halfway through tattooing a dolphin on a giggly sorority girl's right buttcheek that Joanie disregarded the Rule of Introspection. Three hours later, she was still stuck in a fog thicker than pancake syrup. She vaguely remembered walking back to Bellum, the New York sidewalk stretching into an impossible road that twisted through the Land of Broken Dreams and Eternity as a Tramp Stamp Dispenser. It was at this point that Joanie began to truly fear what she had come to accept for granted. Yes, being a tattoo and piercing artist was challenging, fun work. But did she really want this badly enough to weather five cute animal tattooes on inappropriate body parts for every one meaningful piece?

Her brain's answer to that question was "number unavailable, please try again later."

Pushing a hand through her dark hair that was knotty and kinky from spending all day thrown up in a messy bun, Joanie opened the door into Bellum's lobby and shuffled inside. Her clunky Goth-chic boots thundered through the lobby as she made her way to the mailboxes. Maybe there would be some nice mail waiting for her. Joanie wasn't entirely sure what constituted nice mail - not junk was a start, not bills was an even better one - but she knew that it wasn't going to be there. No, snail mail had been so drastically undermined by e-mail that now it was used solely for the transport of horrible things that even spambots were too kind to send.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Joanie's common sense told her to just go up to her apartment and turn on the TV until her thoughts stopped being so vocal. But the stubborn, less considerate part of her brain urged her towards the mailboxes. Surely she wasn't being an idiot by staying out in public when she was in a more volatile mood than an active volcano. No, there was no down side to this.

She leaned against the wall of mailboxes, her shoulder rammed into #803. Gaze intent on her own, Joanie stuffed a hand into the black bag hanging from her shoulder. Calling it a purse might have been a bit insulting to actual purses. It was more like a messenger bag with all the corners cut off, being little more than a satchel with a long strap that let it rest against her hip. There were no compartments, leaving everything jumbled together in a giant mess. "Goddamnit," she muttered to herself as she flipped open the flap in order to rummage properly. The bag jiggled against her side tauntingly as she rooted around inside it, trying in vain to find her mailbox key. What the hell apartment building didn't have combination locks for their mailboxes, anyway? A shitty one, clearly. "Where the fuck is it?" And suddenly, Joanie's common sense realized why it should have taken up drinking.

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metrogingham
2010-04-04 03:44 am UTC (link)

Ever since that incident that one night where she wasn't quite right, and not quite herself, Madison had been out of sorts in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on. It wasn't a bad thing but it wasn't a good thing either. Or at least whatever it was, she had a feeling it was something always latent within her that forcibly expanded out upon itself when everyone else in the building had the same issue. Madison was unsure. What she did know was that it meant something important. All of them were important, and it scared her as well excited her.

For right now, she held tightly on her day-to-day activities, finding joy in even the smallest of things. The day before it was easily finishing her project for English class. Yesterday it was getting a free apple for the twelve she bought. Today, it was hoping for the newest mag for Urban Outfitters. She already saved up and bought the money for a Diana+ camera for that old timey look she always loved in the photos her parents had taken in the years when she was born. She needed a new adjuster and more film reels, and so far UO's been the only place to make it a quick one pit stop instead of forcing her to make a longer trekking for all the accessories she'd like to add to make the photos even better. She hoped.

In the midst of getting the mail from her box, she noticed another girl muttering and swearing to herself over...who knows. "Hey, you need help looking for something?" Madison offered. Even in New York she refused to let go of the ideals of being cordial.

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wickedwicker
2010-04-04 04:13 am UTC (link)

Clearly, the powers that be didn't want Joanie to see whatever horrible mail - or horrible nothingness - was waiting for her in her mailbox. However, she wasn't the sort of person to give up just because it was the most sensical thing to do. No, Joanie was going to find that damn key if it killed her.

She began to fold in on herself as she rummaged through her bag, momentarily afraid that it was going to swallow her whole. Just as she felt her nose brush the side of the satchel, a strange voice yanked her out of the obsessive whirlwind that had consumed her. Stiffening, she looked up, gaze resting on a perfectly nice-looking girl that seemed quite friendly.

What a bitch.

Scowling, Joanie waved a hand dismissively. "Unless you know where my mailbox key has gone, no." She knew she should have just attached it to her room key, but no, that would have been the smart thing to do.

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metrogingham
2010-04-04 05:44 am UTC (link)

Despite the 'cheery' retort in response to her greeting, Madison had no intention of leaving just yet. Toddling over to the mailboxes, Madison smiled benignly at the other girl and easily found her mail key in her pocket, in the process of getting her mail while she continued to talk.

"I don't know, but when I have trouble finding something, it's always in the last place I look." Junk, junk, magazine, bills, junk. Normal. That's what she clung to for now. She would have left at this point, but even after the blog posts and whatnot, Madison felt it would be nice to get some real confirmation that she wasn't crazy and that it was all real would be nice. "Hey, you didn't have weird stuff happen to you that one night did you?"

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wickedwicker
2010-04-04 06:13 am UTC (link)

That little nugget of knowledge and a quarter would get her a gumball. Scowling at the redhead, Joanie continued to fish in her purse. "Well, that makes sense, because once I find what I'm looking for I stop looking." God, didn't people think anymore? Honestly, it's like they just opened up their mouths and let whatever inane bullshit popped into their heads just spew out all over the floor. And somehow, Joanie was always there to watch the mess when it happened. How did she get to be so lucky?

The question made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Jaw clenching, she gripped a wayward pencil until she could feel the wood start to crack. Didn't these people have anything better to talk about? After a long, slow sigh of frustration, Joanie nodded shortly. "Yeah, actually. I did." She glanced up briefly to look at the girl, though her gaze darted away before they could make eye contact. She sincerely hoped this wasn't about to turn into an attempt at "girl talk" about feelings - she wasn't sure she had any at the moment.

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metrogingham
2010-04-05 07:17 am UTC (link)

"Well...yeah," Madison quietly added, deciding it would be better if she didn't try to keep attempting to reassure and make the girl anymore angry than she already seemed to be. Shifting where she stood, she held tightly to her little bits of mail.

Chewing on her lower lip, Madison decided to at least continue with the fairytale angle. "I was alone most of the time, I almost don't believe it really happened, you know? Worrying that I'm crazy. But, it's kinda nice to know it wasn't just me in my own little crazy world of checkered skirts and scarecrows, right?" She gave a half shrug, more to reassure herself than anyone else. If she had been a little more people smart, she'd realize she should have left her alone about ten minutes before she walked into the door. Self preservation, she wasn't terribly concerned for...or took the time to deeply think about before getting into difficult situations.

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wickedwicker
2010-04-05 05:51 pm UTC (link)

Just as Joanie felt her fingers brush something small and metal, the redhead began to make her stomach turn. And this wasn't the normal "you sicken me with your stupid" stomach turning, either. This was the slow, creeping horror that something else was going on without her knowledge, and that it very well might start taking over her life. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at the girl, her expression a mixture of loathing and fear.

"My only sister is dead" whispered in her mind, a quiet reminder of the word vomit that had gushed from her lips on that crazy night. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to forget how her guts had wrenched when she thought that. Joanie had no sisters. She was a peach-colored, bad Wiccan only child that muttered curses secure in the knowledge that nothing would come of them. And yet there she stood, remembering clearly the clover hue of her skin and that dead sister she never knew, whispering magic words to turn hats into frogs.

The answer was sitting on her tongue, too toxic for her to swallow. But this girl, this ridiculously pretty and polite and horrible girl was standing there, shoving that answer down her throat. Checkered dresses and scarecrows weren't particularly common, and neither was being green and magical. It had to be a coincidence.

There were no coincidences in Bellum.

With a sneer, Joanie closed her hand around the key she had finally found, unable to feel any sense of victory as she shoved it into the lock of her mailbox. "You're the only one I know of to get an inanimate object friend," she said coldly as she jiggled the key in the lock, clicking it open. "So a piece of advice. Next time you want to take a trip, put on Dark Side of the Moon instead."

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metrogingham
2010-04-06 05:40 am UTC (link)

The way the girl looked at her made Madison's blood run a little cold and she took a step back. Granted, Madison knew how to take care of herself, but that didn't mean she was going to run straight into any signs of danger just because she thought she could handle it.

Another step away was taken as the girl began talking, appearing to be menacing and incensed that Madison would dare try to be anything other than silent. "I'm...sorry," she started carefully. "Whatever I did to offend you, I didn't mean anything by it, was just making conversation." Perhaps none too brightly and hoping the girl wasn't as mean as she appeared to be, Madison stayed where she was and didn't move.

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wickedwicker
2010-04-06 03:11 pm UTC (link)

The key twisted in the lock, popping it open with a soft crack. Joanie held the lock tightly in her palm for a moment as if considering this before twisting and sliding the padlock away from her mailbox. Somewhere on a distant planet, that girl was still talking. And not only talking. Apologizing.

She took a deep breath, counting to ten. One. She reached into the mailbox and pulled out an envelope. Two. She closed the mailbox and locked it up, sliding the key into her sack. Three. The envelope was from the bank, probably asking for more money. Four. She stuffed the envelope in her sack. Ten. Fuck it.

Leaning against the mailboxes, she turned on the girl, a mixture of anger and disbelief on her face. "What the hell are you apologizing for?" she said brashly, pointing at her. "Don't apologize to me." Her free hand gripped one of the boxes' padlocks, seemingly using it as an anchor in this reality. "You had a weird night, good for you, the rest of the building had a weird night, and I'll bet half of us wished we had the fucking luxury to just get a god-awful ugly dress!"

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metrogingham
2010-04-07 01:45 am UTC (link)

Well, so much for being polite.

At this point it looked like the girl was ready to deck her for...who knows at this point, existing. Eyes widening, Madison backed away even further, clutching her mail tightly as some sort of pathetic defense maneuver. She would have attempted to correct her on the inanimate object part actually being a person, but whatever happened to the girl that night was far worse than what Madison encountered.

It made her feel sorry for the girl, knowing whatever happened affected her to the point she was unwilling to talk about it with anyone, much less a stranger. However at this point while she may have felt pity, there was no way in hell she was going to express it now. Fight or Flight kicked in instead. "Okay then, I'm just gonna," Madison pointed in an opposite direction of the girl, "go, sorry for bothering you." And with that awkward statement, she hurriedly walked away back to her apartment. She needed a grilled cheese sandwich, that would calm her down.

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