Astoria Greengrass (irondaisy) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-08-10 13:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 18, meghan callahan, molly williams, | meg and molly |
Week 18 - Friday
Characters: Meg and Molly
Location: The Farmhouse Living room
Summery: Molly and Meg are making Christmas plans and talk of the past.
Rating: G
Everyone in their fledgling community brought a little of their past lives to the table: a mixing pot of skills, experiences, and talent... hopefully complimenting and gelling suitably for the further survival of not only their species, but a cultural way of life as well. Meghan liked to think that her contribution had a lot to do with the music culture she so loved, as well as the precious commodity of compassion for fellow human beings (and to prove that survival of the ‘fittest’ wasn’t universal).
She was also really crafty.
Meghan’s mother had been an amateur craftswoman as a hobby, who made various nicknacks to sell at craft fairs and farmer’s markets since as long as she could remember. Usually it was something reserved for people who had the use of their eyes, but Meg had been making things out of pipecleaners and dried palm leaves long enough to do it in her sleep.
By chance and the blind woman’s thorough searching of the farmhouse, she happened upon a small cubby closet in one of the bedrooms that contained two large basket fulls of yarn (lots of colors, she was told). She had a little leisure time after lunch, and had asked Molly if she wanted to help make some simple Christmas decorations. Obviously it wasn’t for her visual benefit, but she could hear the enthusiasm in the girl’s voice, and understood keenly well that this particular holiday season was especially important in all of their lives.
If Meg had anything to do with it, it would be better than the last December. While they all watched the world fall apart.
Meghan and Sarge lounged in the farmhouse living room: human in the armchair, canine slumped, fat and content with his lunch, on the hearth. Her fingertips lightly strummed over the strings of the well-loved (well worn) guitar situated across her lap, playing a slow rendition of Kansas’s Carry On My Wayward Son. She was waiting for Molly, who should be back any minute with a basket of as many small finger sized twigs she could carry.
Molly had been absolutely thrilled when Meg approached her with the idea of making Christmas decorations. It was odd and almost spectacular that the holiday would approach, even though the world had all but stopped turning. She wasn’t sure how the others would feel about the decorations, nor did she know how many of them had actually celebrated the holiday back when it actually mattered, but maybe this little bit of cheer was something that they all needed. Molly’s thoughts wander to the many Christmas’ she had celebrated in the passed. The nights that she stayed up and watched as her mother wrapped presents for her various cousins, uncles and aunts. She thought about Christmas carols and decorating the tree with her brother, and it brought a smile to her face. Sure, there was a pain in her chest, the feeling of being happy when she missed her family so much, but she didn’t dwell on it. She kept her thoughts on the happier times, the holidays and all the good memories that came with them.
It took Molly a little while to find a lot of twigs. She wasn’t satisfied until there was a gigantic pile, and even then as she made her way back to Meg, she stopped and gathered more when she saw them. She had never made decorations by hand, most holidays were spent in the holiday aisle at Walmart, looking for shiny colored bulbs and flashing lights. The closest she had ever come was in elementary school when they made Popsicle stick picture frames and cotton ball snow men.
The minute Molly entered the house, she heard the song that Meg had been playing, and instinctively hummed along to it. It wasn’t a song she knew particularly well, her dad had listened to it, and she had watched her brother play it on Rockband before, but she had never particularly gone out of her way to pay attention to those sort of things when she had the chance. It was just something that struck her as familiar as she entered the living room.
“I got a whole bunch of sticks.” Molly announced, rolling her eyes a little at the sound of the excitement in her own voice. She placed her bucket of gathered twigs next to the basket of yarn and took a seat on the floor in front of both containers, stretching just a bit to reach over and pet the large lounging dog.
Meg had caught the sound of the teenager entering the house, but played on anyway on cue of the girl’s voice in the melody. It made Meghan smile thoughtfully... and her playing only stopped when Molly announced her big haul. “Good!” She didn’t have her glasses on in the house, so the cloudy pair of blue-green eyes caught the afternoon light streaming in from the living room window as she laid the guitar to the side, and plucked a bundle of yarn to her lap in replacement.
“I figure if we make enough ornaments, it’ll give Alice an excuse to let us have a tree.”
Molly let out a laugh as she reached into the basket and picked out a ball of purple yarn and a handful of sticks. “Maybe.” She said, a slight shrug of her shoulders, “I mean, who could possibly be against having a Christmas tree?” Molly knew that they had a lot of other things that they had to focus on, and there were always more pressing matters, but what could be the harm in a Christmas tree?
“So, erm, how exactly are we supposed to be doing this.” She said examining the supplies before her.
“Well, start with two sticks...” Indeed, Meg reached in the direction she heard Molly set the bundle down in front of her chair, and nabbed two twigs. “Hold them together so they make a perfect ‘X’...” She displayed the concept in the air above her lap, vacant eyes ‘watching’ straight ahead as she did. “Take the start of your yarn and tie them together in the middle, so they stay in that shape.”
Molly watched carefully at Meg as she worked, following suit when she listened to the instructions. It was an easy enough idea to pick up on and after listening to the instructions, she followed Megs example. She took two twigs that were even enough in length, holding them together in an X before using her purple string to tie them in place.
“Oh! You know, I think I’ve seen these before. You like keep going around them and it makes a diamond type pattern over the X right?”
“Yup. It’s called a ‘God’s Eye’. I learned from my mom... and Girl Scouts, but don’t tell anyone that.” Meg grinned as she tied one end of her yarn length to a bit of twig, then started weaving it around the four tines.
Molly’s presence had been a source of natural comfort for the older woman since she came into their little group--delirious with fever and knocking on death’s door. She had even confused the girl with Katie once or twice before she got better: their voices were very similar. Molly was probably more of a driving force for Meg’s initial shakey survival in those first few weeks than she probably knew.
Molly nodded a bit, before realizing it didn’t matter because Meg couldn’t see it. She watched the woman weaving the yarn before she did the same. “You were in Girl Scouts?” She asked, for a moment biting back questions that she knew would be inappropriate to ask. She didn’t know how Meg got things done as well as she did, she couldn’t even imagine it.
“I never was, but I cant help but wish I was now. Seems like that kinda stuff would have been useful to know, camping out and starting fires. But no worries, you’re secret is safe with me.” Molly giggled a little bit.
“Believe it or not, they didn’t let me near the matches.” The older woman chuckled ruefully in the direction of Molly’s voice. “I don’t know why. I’m perfectly capable of destroying things just like the rest of them did.” Her smile leaned into a dimple, and she kept weaving.
“People are weird.” was all Molly could think of to say about that matter. She felt bad though, because she was certain that had life turned out differently she would have been one of the people who were against Meg playing with matches, even now she was amazed by some of the things that Meg did, things that would have been normal for any other person. “They thought they were keeping you safe though, I guess.” She said as she weaved.
“That’s usually the case.” Meg explained mildly while tying off the first piece of yarn. She grabbed the scissors carefully placed on the arm of the chair she was sitting in, and snipped the end. The blind woman had stopped trying to explain to people that her sense of reality is different than theirs. She understood that when they fussed over her and her general safety, they only did so because it was difficult for them to imagine functioning without a sense they relied so heavily on... while Meg had never had it to rely on in the first place. Now, if something happened to her ears--that was another case entirely. That sort of scenario was a constant source of worry for her.
But as it was, most comments rolled off of Meg’s back, and she generally did what she wanted regardless of what people thought she couldn’t do. She was, however, keenly aware of how dependent she was on people for certain things... but that subject rarely came up with her.
“How’s things with the stuff Bridge is teaching you guys?”
“I don’t know.” Molly said slowly, as she reached up and took the scissors, cutting her yarn before being careful to place them back in the place she got them from. “It’s not like the school I remember, thats for sure. But she makes sure that we take a look at all the important things. It helps that she’s a super nice lady. She’s really easy to talk to. She’s kind of like you.”
Molly finished up her craft and put it to the side as she selected a new color of yarn to start a new one.
Meg couldn’t help but smile brightly at that, even though it was aimed down at her second God’s Eye. “She’ll need all the help she can get once Thing Number One and Thing Number Two arrive. She may go Pregosaurus on us before she pops, though... just be warned.” Sarge, in the meantime, lumbered up from his nap on the hearth and wandered toward Molly, greeting her with a massive headed nuzzle against the shoulder and arm.
“Pregosaurus?” Molly practically spit, a roar of laughter spilling out of her mouth. “I’ve never really... dealt with pregnant women or newborns either. I was the youngest in my family, and all of my cousins still lived in California after we moved to Maine. But I would help her.” She said firmly. She smiled a bit as the dog came over and she temporarily abandoned her craft to wrap her arm around the large dogs neck and pet him.
“I’m really glad we managed to come across a doctor though, I couldn’t imagine how to have babies without someone who knew how. You know? Though I’m not sure I’d want to have children at all in a world like this.” She said honestly, even though kids weren’t something she really thought about at this point in her life. “It’s just too dangerous.”
This was a slightly sore subject with Meghan, but she had always been one to let heavy worries lie, and tried not to let them fester and rot her soul like she’d witnessed in many other people, even before the virus. She had never told Molly about her previous miscarriages (only that she had never had kids), mainly for the fact that it was too much to lay on the girl. It was also pretty hard to explain something like that to a fifteen year old.
Instead, she just kept the sightless gaze aimed in the girl’s direction, fingertips still looping yarn around the set of twigs. A small, but close lipped smile was on her face. “We’ve been doing it for centuries, in harder times with less stuff.” The smile got just a little bigger, fighting the natural pessimistic streak that had settled in her core since everything crumbled around them. She only fought back those generally dark natured predictions when in the presence of the kids in the group (and Bridget), but most especially Molly.
She changed the subject slightly. “Did I ever tell you my mom’s name was Molly?”
“Nope.” She said slowly, looping the new string against a set of new twigs rather quickly. “What was your mom like? I didn’t really know mine, she passed when I was really young. But dad always told me bunches about her. My brother too. I’m kind of glad that she didn’t have to worry about any of this.” Molly said slowly. She rambled, she did that a lot and it wasn’t always for the better.
“Mom was a bit of a wild-card...” Meg grinned warmly with the thought, though there was always a slight bitter-sweetness to conversations that centered around past loved ones. That went for everyone, of course, which is why Meghan tried to vocalize more on the positive. “She liked homemade presents a lot more than anything you could buy... and thought the whole world worked that way.” There was so much more about her mother that she could go on about, but focusing on one thing was a little easier. That way, the emotional floodgates were less likely to open.
“My mom was an artist.” Molly said slowly, a little proud that she at least shared her artistic ability with her mother, “My parents owned restaurant off Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, right off of Venice beach. My mom painted Mermaids and sea shells and stuff all over the walls. She even let me draw a fish and she didn’t even say anything when it was horrible.” She said with a giggle. Molly once again reached for the scissors and cut off the end of the yarn on her decoration. She found herself lost in thought for a moment, remembering her brother and father, even her most recent memories of them felt so long ago. So much had happened.
“We have a new family now though and we’re pretty lucky for that.” She said softly, thinking out loud and finding herself feeling a little better at the little realization.
The teenager’s words were sweet in nature, and also betrayed her youth, and especially the sense of innocent optimism. They put tactile memories in the forefront of Meg’s mind--namely that of her own family, gone. Bittersweet, was the taste in her mouth, even though there was a genuine, but sad smile there. Appreciative and longing at the same time.
She nodded quietly: a learned response by feeling so many others do so in affirmative agreement, so that it was as much second nature to her as it was everyone else. “You’re right, there.” She believed that whole-heartedly, and one thing was certain--as she weaved yarn around two crossed sticks with a girl half her age-- Meg would die before she let Molly suffer the world like everyone around her.