Sebastian "Bazzer" Vedder (winged_bazzer) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-02-23 14:32:00 |
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Current mood: | awake |
Growing up is hard to do
Who: Bazzer & Meredith
When: Day 8, morning
What: discussion of growing up and school
Where: in the tree
It was a MISERABLE day in Wonderland, Bazzer decided as he sat on a branch, legs wrapped around it to help keep him on through the windy gusts and then the rains. And he didn't care what anyone else called this place, it was Wonderland. Alice In freaking Wonderland, complete with Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat and Jabberwocky. Which one of them was Alice though remained to be seen. Maybe they all were and Lewis Carroll was just confused. Maybe Lewis Carroll had been here and that was where he got his ideas for Alice in Wonderland, though Bazzer knew that wasn't true. Still. It made SENSE.
He'd taken his glasses off when the wind started, stowing them inside his sweatshirt to keep them safe. How Ryan managed to live without sight was something he couldn't fathom and the longer Bazzer was here the more he didn't want to find out either. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" he quoted to himself, quite thoroughly annoyed with this day and his increasingly hungry stomach.
Meredith was freezing. It was as simple as that. The red tank top and Mickey Mouse bottoms she had worn to bed the other night had not be selected for rainy-day attire. The young girl was doing her best to ignore the cold, however it was nearly impossible to do. Yesterday she had been calm about her current situation, as there was a large group of people there and none of them seemed to have been that badly injured, or at least not that she knew of. She had been warned about the Laughers, informed about the Pesks and learned about the various plant life there and that had all been fine. A girl as curious as Meredith enjoyed knowing these things, as they all helped her form conclusions about what was going on. Unfortunately nobody had warned her about the rain and the cold and while Meredith was far more intelligent than most of the adults in her life, she was still a child and logic could only do so much to keep her from becoming frightened. People didn't die all that often from being eaten by wild animals, but people did die rather often from illnesses caused by the cold. Not only that, but being blown out a tree by the wind sounded rather painful and deadly as well.
She had spent most of the night clutching to her hot pink hammock for dear life and would still be doing that if she her stomach had growled with hunger and forced her to eat. After a small meal of berries she went and got her algebra book, which was soaking wet. The wet pages didn't bother her, nor did the fact that the ink had smeared in most places. Meredith had almost all of it memorized, even the numbers used in the examples. Memorizing things came easily to her. But still, it was the only book she had and therefore she was going to treasure it. Carefully she settled down on a branch with her book in her lap, just then hearing a man's voice from a branch not more than few inches away from the one she had sat on. Quickly her head snapped up and a tiny smile came across her lips as she looked at him. "Hi!" she said cheerfully, even though she was freezing cold and slightly frightened. "Do you happen to have a pen?" she added in the same cheerful voice, not giving him any time to respond to her initial greeting before asking this.
Bazzer's own book, tucked in the waistband of his pants, was similarly soaked through, but he wasn't so concerned with it right now. It was amazing really, when he had first come he had barely let it out of his sight so intent he was on keeping it safe. Less than a week in Wonderland though and he was more interested in food and such. He still wouldn't burn it though, not that they needed to now. Or could given the wetness.It was definitely too wet to burn anything. Looking up, he saw the blurry form of the little teenager and shook his head, "No," he replied, little droplets of water flying off the ends of his hair. The rain had stopped, but they were still stuck up the tree. "Why do you need one?" Bazzer asked curiously.
Meredith blinked a little, a mixture of confusion and her wet hair poking her in her eyes. "To make notes.." she said simply, as if this was the only reason in the world that she would need a pen. She held up her wet algebra book for him to see. "I can't find anybody with a pen," she added, giving a tiny sigh of hopelessness. "I have a math test on Friday," she told him, as if she expected to be home by then. "It's on the Pythagorean theorem," she continued, showing no signs of stopping with her talking anytime soon. "I have to get a hundred percent, because Susan Lyons got a ninety-eight percent last week when she took it in her class, and the math club only gives one scholarship. My father will be really angry if she gets it instead of me, because she cheats."
"A² + B² = C²," Bazzer recited automatically, not that it would help her. She probably knew that already and if she was looking to make a perfect score on her test then she was most likely much better at math than he was. It wasn't that he couldn't to it, he had to for his job quite a bit for preservation of older books and things, but he had a calculator and tables and charts. In real life, people didn't need to memorize the equations, they could look them up as needed. "Though you might need to ask for a makeup test. Don't know if you'll be able to take that test on Friday. Reason of being lost on some other world is probably a good excuse," that is, if they weren't all locked up for mass psychosis. It was a risk to returning.
Meredith look slightly terrified at his works. "A makeup test?" she repeated in disbelief. "I can't make it up, do you know how that would look on my college applications?" Apparently in Meredith's world college's not only knew, but cared when you had to makeup a test. Striving for academic perfection did make her a little paranoid when it came to her schoolwork. "It's bad enough that I'm missing class by being here. It's probably going to ruin my changes of ever getting into Princeton," she explained, obvious frustration in her voice. "I bet it's Susan Lyons' fault we're here, she always is trying to do better than me, ever since I beat her in the second grade spelling bee. It's not my fault that she couldn't spell dinosaur, she should have studied more. My father makes me study for five hours everyday so I never spell anything wrong."
That sounded a bit...extreme...and Bazzer was one of those people that liked to read and learn. His parents hadn't really stressed learning for him though, they'd been too concerned with his mental health. He'd avoided them by reading and had ended up doing quite well in school despite it all. "Meredith, right?" he asked, he hadn't really been formally introduced to her, though it was such a small group still, despite their growing numbers, that he knew her name. "How old are you?"
"Yes, Meredith," she said with a nod of her blond head. "I'm fifteen and a half," she said, doing her best to make herself sound older. Not only did she not want to be viewed as a kid by all of the adults there, but he was kind of cute and a teenaged girl like Meredith had no problem stretching her age to make herself seem more mature and attractive. "What's your name?" she asked, since most people there hadn't been very good at introducing themselves. She had to get Cross' name from Helena, even though Cross had been the one to find her and she had told him her name. She had also introduced him to Pegasus. Now that she thought about it, she decided that Cross was a bit rude and not as nice as she and Helena might have thought.
"I'm Bazzer. Sebastian, but everyone calls me Bazzer," talking to a reddish blob was getting old so he reached into his shirt and pulled his glasses on then pulled them off to rub at them with a corner of his shirt and putting them back on. Oh, much better. Still a little smeary and speckled, but better than they had been anyways. He'd take what he could get. "As for Princeton...laudable goal. I went to Berkey for my undergrad. Not ivy league, but not so bad. I liked it. Anyways, I learned a couple things about college there. College's don't want you to be perfect. They want you to be passionate about learning and what you are studying. They want well rounded kids - not the smartest or whatever. Making good grades is good, absolutely, but they don't mean much if you give yourself an ulcer before you ever get to college. Or if you are so burned out in college that you have to drop out. And I saw that in school. I was NOT the smartest or the best student there, I spent most of highschool doing pretty shitty actually," he wasn't at all concerned with his language. She had most likely heard worse and had probably used worse as well, "but I was much more prepared for college and all the distractions and whatnot. The responsibility."
Meredith made a mental note of his name and nickname as he pulled out his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. She then listened as he went on about colleges and what they were looking for. She was passionate about learning, but most of her passion came from the desire to please her parents and set an example for her younger sister. "I'm well rounded and I get good grades," she said finally, in a more informative tone than bragging. "My parents make me volunteer at a summer camp every year, they say that it'll look good on my applications." She gave a tiny shrug, clearly not all that into volunteering. It wasn't so much the fact that she had to volunteer, but more the fact that between studying and volunteering she had no social life and that did take a toll on a teenager. Her friends were limited at school, as she was usually teased and called a nerd by the other girls. "I don't think I'll ever get burnt out, I like learning new things. My mother says that my intelligence is the only thing I have going for me." By the tone of her voice and the smile on her face, it was obvious that Meredith took her mother's words as a compliment and not an insult to her personality and appearance.
Blinking, he wiped his glasses again then looked at her again. She was wet, makeup free and clad in Mickey Mouse pajamas and looked like she was 15. "If I say something will you a). not hit me and b). not think I'm a pervy old man?" he asked, then continued without waiting for answer, "You're a cute girl. You'll grow into a pretty woman. Your mother is blind. And a bitch," he felt qualified to say that given his own parents, "Mine weren't much better though. I was told to learn a trade, like automotive repair or plumbing. I'm a librarian. I work preserving old documents. Sometimes...sometimes parents aren't right. You need to decide what is right for you, it's your life. And at 15 and a half," he managed not to laugh at that six month addition to her age. He remembered 15 and while he expected his experiences at that age were much different from hers, he did recall thinking he was so grown and wanting desperately to be treated like an adult though it was easy now, more than 10 years later, why adults still thought they were children at that age. It wasn't an easy age, "you're beginning to be mature enough for those decisions. What do you want Meredith? Don't worry about what your parents think or your teachers or anyone. Just what do you want to do?"
Meredith listened carefully, looking a little curious when he started talking. She didn't think she was cute, or that she would ever be pretty. Nobody had ever taken a physical interest in her before, which wasn't really all that great for her confidence. She didn't say anything when he called her mother a bitch, even though she did disagree. However she had learned to accept other people's opinions and was often thankful for the fresh view on whatever subject it pertained to. However when he asked her want she wanted to do, she just blinked a few times. Nobody had ever really asked her that before, and her slightly surprised reaction probably made this obvious. "I think I want to be a veterinarian," she said after a moment of deep thought. "Or.. or maybe a doctor. My mother says that doctor's get more praise than veterinarians," she added, before giving a tiny shrug. She hadn't give much thought to what she wanted to do with her future, most of her decisions were made for her and she had learn to just accept that.
"You should talk to Thorne then. He might have some sort of insight," Bazzer told her. No sense in her missing things that might be useful just because they were here, "When I was 15, I wanted...well, I wanted to turn 18 mostly. I didn't give much thought to what I was going to do after that. That you have any idea is better than most kids," okay, so that was completely made up. He had no idea what normal kids her age were into or supposed to be doing really, "I think no matter what, you have to make yourself happy. If you can't make yourself happy, how can you make anyone else happy?"
Meredith was starting to find that the people there came from all walks of life, which made it even harder for her to come to a conclusion as to what they were all doing there. "Is Thorne a veterinarian or a doctor?" she asked, assuming that if he thought she should talk to him about what she wanted to be when she grew up, then he must fall into one of these categories. "I'm happy studying and getting good grades," she told him honestly. "My father says that I should be proud of my dedication to my schoolwork. He says that studying is a very productive hobby to have, unlike playing a sport or things like that."
"Thorne's a doctor," Bazzer had a silly grin on his face when he mentioned the other man. They hadn't been sleeping together, but near each other each night, and were frequently together in the daytime. It wasn't perhaps obvious that they were...more than just friendly, but they weren't really hiding it either. It was hard to grope a person, at least for Bazzer, in front of 20 others in a tree. "I'm not saying you shouldn't study and get good grades," he hastily tried to reassure her, "but other hobbies are good too! Reading for pleasure sparks the imagination and creativity, sports teach coordination, teamwork and group strategy, music helps improve math and coodination and imagination...they aren't all inherently bad. What's bad is when you do one thing to the exclusion of the rest," wow. Bazzer defended sports. They must be in Wonderland now. He had never been even remotely interested in sports, though he hadn't ever hated them either.
Meredith looked slightly puzzled by the strange smile on the Bazzer's face when he told her about the other man being a doctor. She didn't see anything about this that could be found amusing enough to make somebody smile, but she soon forgot about it all as he went on about hobbies. "I played soccer when I was younger," she said simply, "but then I stopped because I broke my wrist and when it got better my parents didn't think I should play anymore, because they didn't want my arm to be in a cast again since it made it hard to write." In Meredith's house studying came first and then eating and then more studying. There was no time for fun, but Meredith and her younger sister didn't mind. They had grown up that way for as long as they could remember and so they were use to it. "I read sometimes, too. My father buys my sister and I books in other languages. I was reading the Hunchback of Notre Dame in Latin, but then one of the seniors at my school asked if she could borrow it. A couple weeks later I found it in one of the toilet's at the school, she must've dropped it." She gave a tiny shrug, as if this was no big deal. Sometimes, no matter how smart she was, Meredith was blind to the fact that people bullied and took advantage of her.
"I played baseball for a couple years. Until it was apparent that I not only had no talent for it, but I'd broken two pairs of glasses in one season. Then my parents decided that wasn't really reasonable," he shrugged, it hadn't really mattered to him. Baseball had been fun, but he hadn't been seriously into it like some kids. "That was fine. So why a doctor or veterinarian? Or what kind specifically? There are lots," both of doctors and vets. Bazzer had acquired a myriad of useless and semi-useless knowledge over the years. Sometimes, it was useful. More often than not, it wasn't.
"I want to be an ophthalmologist if I become a veterinarian, or a neurosurgeon if I become a doctor," Meredith said as she scratched at a bug bite on her arm. She wasn't sure if it was old or new, but it didn't really matter. There wasn't anything to be done about it, seeing as they all had bigger things to worry about than an itch. "I want to be an ophthalmologist because sight is really important for a domesticated animal to be able to relate to their owners, since we don't talk the same way, but we generally see the same things." It all made sense to her, even if she couldn't put it in words. It wasn't rare that the things Meredith said only made sense to her. "Or a neurosurgeon because I like to know how things work and our brain is like the motherboard of our bodies, there are hundreds of little pieces to it and yet, in order for the computer to work properly all the pieces have to work flawlessly."
At first, Bazzer thought he had misheard her when she said she wanted to be an veterinary ophthalmologist, that was a fairly specialized sort of eye doctor and to do that for animals seemed strange. He didn't know if there was a veterinary specialization for that or not, but was willing to take her word on it, wasn't like he could look it up. "Do you mean ophthalmologist or optometrist?" he replied, people mistook the two quite frequently. He'd been going to the optometrist for years and had visited and ophthalmologist about surgically correcting his vision with lasers, but he hadn't qualified for it. A veterinary optometrist made more sense to him, "And why not a human ophthalmologist?" he questioned, "Not that a neurosurgeon is anything to sneeze at, but you could be a veterinary neurosurgeon too. So...I guess I don't understand why your area of interest changes with species?"
"An ophthalmologist," Meredith repeated. She then gave another tiny shrug. She didn't have any real reason for the choices she had made, she had simply though they sounded interesting and that was good enough reason for her. She doubted she would ever be a vet or a doctor anyway, her father expected her to be a lawyer like him and her mother expected her to be a stay-at-home mom like her, so no matter what Meredith decided she'd be disappointing somebody. "When I was younger I wanted to be a ballerina, but the costumes look so tight that I'm sure they must be uncomfortable." She gave a small smile as she moved a little on the branch. She had always wondered what it was like to hang upside-down from a tree and now seemed like a good time to try. Thoughtfully she titled her head to one side, falling silent as she debated the best way not to fall.
Ballet and ballerinas and dancing was not something Bazzer was too familiar with so he just sort of nodded. "When I was little I wanted to be a fireman. I liked the trucks. Then my mom took me to the fire station for a tour and was scared by the sirens. Didn't want to be a fireman after that," oh, the things that kids did. That was one of his first memories as a child and one of the better ones. That had been a much happier time in his life. "But I still like fire trucks. They're pretty awesome."
"I think most little girls want to be dancers and most little boys want to be firemen, or policemen.. and then there's the small handful that want to be dump-truck drivers," Meredith said, still climbing around slightly on the branch. For the most part it just looked like she couldn't get comfortable, but in reality Meredith was still trying to think of all the crazy things she could do now that her parents weren't here. Her mother and father had always been too protective of her to let her climb trees, which had always made her upset. But now that she was being forced to climb a tree for survival it didn't seem so fun anymore. With a loud sigh she settled back down like she had before. "It's so boring here," she said suddenly. "Somebody needs to find some form of entertainment, I think it will help keep everyone sane."
"Assuming we were even sane to begin with," he could make a good case for half the people here not being too high on the sanity list and he included himself on it. Oh, he wasn't insane per se, though Bazzer had his doubts on that too, and he wasn't dangerous, but he was pretty sure 'not sane' was a good likelihood. Not that he was going to say that to a 15 year old girl. And what was that phrase ? 'If you thought you were sane you probably weren't?' Well, he didn't think he entirely was so did that mean he was actually sane? It was a conundrum. "What do you suggest we do for entertainment then?" he asked. They were lacking in the traditional forms, ie: tv and internet.
"I think most people here are sane," Meredith said, even though she hadn't been there very long. There were a few people she had made mental notes about avoiding, just for the fact that they didn't appear all that mentally stable. There had been an angry man from Texas carrying a stuttering young woman up past her hammock the night before and so she had added both of them to her list. Along with the moody cop and the man who had arrived there looking like he had gotten in a fight and lost. But other than that, they all seemed sane. "People had fun all the time before there were so many luxuries in life," she said, before giving a tiny shrug. "Maybe some of the old people here will have some ideas," she added. Anybody above 30 was old in Meredith's opinion, so there wouldn't be much of a problem for her to find an 'old' person.
Laying back on his tree branch, Bazzer looked up at Meredith above him, "What if I told you that there is someone here who was once committed to a psychiatric ward for several years? What would you think of that person? And no, I won't tell you who. Or if I'm making it up or not," he wasn't making it up, but he was curious to fnid out her reaction. The only person who knew here was Thorne and that was partially because he was a doctor. He might not be a psychiatrist, but he needed to know if he was going to treat Bazzer for something...or if he needed a reality check. "Also, define 'old' for me please. I want to know if I qualify or not."
"I think it would depend on why that person isn't committed anymore," Meredith said with a small shrug. "If they escaped, or where even still committed before arriving here, then that might be a problem that would have to be dealt with. However, I wouldn't think any less of somebody if they were in a hospital, seeking help for whatever problem they might have. I mean, if somebody knows about and understands what's wrong with them, I think that's better than a person suffering from something who isn't in a hospital when they should be. Don't you agree?"
"Sort of," it was easy to say things like that in the hypothetical. He had seen it backfire too often though in reality, "I think that sometimes, doctors make mistakes and are too quick to diagnose someone with a disease. They're convinced sometimes that a pill can solve virtually everything and try to medicate everything away. It's a crutch. Thorne though, is a naturopath. Means he tries to heal with herbs and naturally if possible. Avoiding drugs. It's interesting," Bazzer didn't quite answer her question if he agreed or not, "Some people, yeah. Some people are really sick and need help."
"I think it's better to heal things naturally if it is possible, but if it isn't guaranteed to work when there's a pill that has positive results, I think I would prefer the pill. I'm not saying that experimenting is bad, especially when it's done by a person educated enough to handle it. However when it comes to my health I'd rather the guarantee and not the trial, even if there are mild side-effects to it." She paused a moment, before giving a tiny shrug. "But that's just my own personal choice, if people think or do differently I'm not going to judge, especially since we were healing things naturally loooong before we were healing things with other medications and chemicals."
Shifting on his branch, Bazzer nodded. It didn't seem like it was going to rain again and he needed to take care of his personal needs. "Excuse me," he said, standing and heading towards the tree trunk carefully, debating if it was safe to go down into the water or if he should just pee off the side of the tree. It wasn't an obvious answer and he couldn't see anyone else having done anything either way. Making a face, he slipped down the tree to a lower branch, then undid his pants to just pee off the tree. It would have to do for the moment.