Sarah Mayspring (sg_sarah) wrote in supergleerpg, @ 2011-12-26 17:56:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !type: narrative, -2011: december, former character: sarah mayspring, ~complete |
Narrative - post-festive shopping (with a tag along)
Who: Sarah & pals (aka, dead people)
When: Boxing Day, mid-afternoon
Where: Westerville Mall
What: Sarah is convinced to accompany her parents to the land of consumerism. She has a few tag alongs.
Warning: Potentially grotesque imagery, dead people talking, the mouth of a 'former' Puckerman.
Convinced was putting it lightly; she was cajoled, utterly perplexed at the idea, but none the less bribed and tricked into it all the same. It wasn't the whole spending time with her parents thing, not in the least. She'd been so apart from them for so long that it was odd being around them, yes, but she did so love them dearly -and Nana Charlotte did tell her time and again that she mustn't lose that connection.
It was the reason why she told Clive and Justine to stay at home, or play by themselves for the day. She didn't want that to be around while she attempted to enjoy her parents chosen religious festive season.
The mall, as Sarah had presumed it would be, was mobbed. She didn't rightly like that much around her, but it was something she would need to get used to; old and young, male and female, dead and alive. She stood by a soda machine, watching a young girl and her mother trailed after by a middle aged man. A few months ago nothing about that would be abnormal to her, nothing would make her stop and watch them. But then, a few months ago, she wouldn't have seen the man, following his child and wife, expression forlorn and half of his torso burned from his body. Absently, she had to wonder if she was becoming desensitised to the atrocities of the world.
"Sarah, dear, come on." Forcing a smile, Sarah followed her mother into Macy's with what should
have been excitement -sales started soon, didn't they. Girls liked sales, she should probably work on that. "We'll get you some new clothes when the summer season starts." Her mother smiled at her, fingers picking at Sarah's bright red hair. "Maybe find some things that won't clash?" She just nodded, her attention already elsewhere.
Did little boys usually play around in department stores? Maybe he was lost, maybe his mother was looking around for him, frantic with worry. It was the way he turned and looked at her, the way their eyes met and he seemed almost surprised that she met his gaze. That was not the gaze of a child, a boy no older than seven, maybe eight. She waved, a small smile on her face, and he almost waved back before he frowned and turned away, walking in the opposite direction.
"'m going to look around." She gets a nod from her mother, the woman distracted by fabrics and colours while Sarah slinks off after the boy. It's like a game of hide-and-seek, only no one else seems to see the boy. He's very good at weaving around people, even if she knows that he doesn't really need to bother; he'd just go right through them, wouldn't he, he'd just slip through them like the ghost he is.
She's glad to be light on her feet, chasing after him, through the ladies department, through the mens and the housewares, it's down a set of escalators into the toy department where they finally stop running. There's a small wooden fort set up near the back of the department, the boy ducking into it and Sarah following, cautious about climbing up the outside wall and over the top to get inside. The boy is just sitting there, staring up as Sarah climbs down and it takes her a moment to realise that he can see up her skirt.
"Great, pervy pre-pubescent poltergeists."
"I'm not a poltergeist." His arms cross over his chest, this ridiculously adorable frown on his face.
"What are you?"
"A kid, duh." He sounds and looks like a kid, just like they always do. It's weird, how they always look like kids, but they never sound like kids, except when they're the new ones, when they don't even know. "What're you?"
"A pixie." She grinned broadly, laughing a little as his scoff. "My name's Sarah." Folding her legs up to her chest, she tilted her head to watch him.
"Adam." It's clear that he doesn't trust her, not like she's not gotten used to that. Sometimes the dead get so used to being ignored, it's like they don't expect anyone to see them. "Are you magic then?"
"Something like that."
"No one's ever talked to me. Not really. Not since I got all cold." She lets her legs go a little, giving him a sympathetic smile. Clive wasn't like that, Clive and Justine died together, they stayed together, but some of them, the ones she'd met before, they all said the same. She was the first one they'd talked to in years. "Sometimes, my Ma will talk, and sometimes it's to me, but she never hears me when I answer. It's like, she's just talking to herself."
"That's how it tends to work."
"So, how come you can see me? How come we can talk?" He's got this suspicious look on his face, one that she can half recognise in passing. "What's so special about you?"
"Told you, I'm a pixie. I have powers." Wiggling her eyebrows, she knew it was silly to pretend, but sometimes it was all the fun there was, and sometimes, they needed that little bit of an explanation, rather then just a shrug and 'because' as her reason. "I can see people who aren't around anymore, and people who are. I can talk to you just like I can talk to anyone else." It was the best way though, just giving them something to believe, other than shrugging because she didn't know how she could do it either, she hadn't always been able to.
"So, you're like, still all alive and stuff, but I'm dead and you can talk to me?" She nodded her head. "Can you like, make other people see me?" This time she just shook her head. "Well that's shit. What's the point in talking to you? You don't even know me." He's clearly unimpressed, his small fist lashing out at the side of the fort but going right through it instead of punching it. "I haven't even been able to punch anything in seven damn years. Do you know how lame that is?"
Sarah just shakes her head, because she's able to do these things, she's not stuck as some non-corporeal being. She half misses the days where she couldn't see these beings, where she was 'normal' to the point of not even realising that the possibility of the dead still walking around with them. But then she sees things like this, young ones who have clearly been wandering for so long, with no contact at all. She half wishes she'd always been able to do it.
"Well, you can tell me stuff, and then I'll know things. Start small." Making friends was difficult for her, it always had been. With her speech disorder flaring up, it turned into torture from time to time. But with the dead, it just seemed so much easier.
"My sister's name is Sarah." That was small. Sarah wasn't an uncommon noame, it was widely popular, but she nodded slightly.
"I'm an only child. I never got to play with anyone growing up."
"I had a brother too. Sarah was only little when I went away. She cried all the fucking time." Sarah's still not used to hearing curse words from small children, regardless of how old they'd be.
"How did you die?" That's another thing. That question; it's important, to some degree, but Sarah hasn't managed to get her head around asking it. How weird is it to ask someone -someone who looks like a little person, or a normal person, how they died? It's not so bad when it's clear as day; gun shot victims, suicides, murders, the gruesome ones where she can see before they speak how they died. Like Miss Clara back at the private school, with her gaping throat where it was slit, like John who she sees down the street sometimes, with his missing top half of his head, like the times she's seen the road accident victims, like when Hector had grabbed for her, lower half of his jaw missing, nails clawed off, wrists rubbed through to the bone. She hated those times where she was half afraid to sleep.
But Adam, like Justine and Clive, looked perfectly normal, a little pale, a little green around the edges, like most ghosts. Sometimes it was just a natural death, like Nana Charlotte, like Mrs. Greene, like Heather. Sometimes life just expired.
But Adam was just a small child, he was tiny and young and evidently wasn't shot or stabbed or run over. She could always tell. He just shrugs his shoulders.
"Got sick." He's quiet, possibly thinking or just upset, Sarah understands that sometimes it's hard to remember things, it's hard on their emotions and on the memories. Mrs. Greene forgets a lot of things now. She doesn't really know too much about her life back when she lived it. Maybe Adam is starting to forget too. "Ma didn't let me play much. And Dad wasn't always around. Then I just, stopped getting better."
Madame Fairweather's school was full of kids like that, ones who got sick back in the Victorian days, the ones that suffered from the plague, ones that didn't make it through a winter. Sometimes, children got sick, and they never got better.
"That's not very fair." It wasn't, not to anyone. "But, well, we can play?" She saw him glance at her, slightly intrigued, but he didn't seem overly keen to be too eager. "You know, if you wanted. I don't really get to play a lot. It'd be nice, you know, if you wanted to stick around sometimes."
"Well," Adam watched her, giving her the once over even after he'd had a peek up her skirt, "I guess you're not too weird." Her eyebrow cocked up at that, "I guess I could maybe, you know, so that you don't go gettin' lonely or nothing."
"Right, wouldn't want that." He glared at her insinuation, although Sarah just smiled a little. "I'm around, I'm sure you'll find me, Adam." She stood up, minding her head on a beam and ducking under the small bridge to slink out rather than climb and give him another eye full. "Just don't come creeping, I get an awful fright when you do."
Adam just looked at her, watching her leave. Sarah just gave a glance back, waving over her shoulder and giving a little wave. Once again, Adam almost waved back before stopping and frowning at her, trying to pretend he wasn't watching her, that he wasn't bothered. Sarah wasn't convinced by the act, but she understood it. Young boys the world over, that was what it was. By what Adam had said, he would've been fourteen, that was fitting for his attitude, possibly some things he'd learned from following the living, which was likely considering his age.
She thought about it the whole time she was looking for her parents again. She had a good idea that she'd see Adam again; since he'd expressed loneliness, it was likely just a matter of time. Even if he just looked for someone to talk to, Sarah knew she'd be looking out for him, the same way she did Clive and Justine -her parents neighbours dead teenagers.
"Sarah, there you are." She smiled at her father, taking his hand as he offered it and letting him pull her into a one armed hug. "Come on, we've got to get out of here before your mother buys more pots for the kitchen." She managed a laugh at her Dad's joking, trailing along with him to find her mother staring at the non-stick pot collection and pulling her away and back home.