[The bulk of the mood post brought to you mostly courtesy of the fact that the universe decides it wants to rain when I decide I want to plant my damn flowers.
Also - it's all good, Niko! Thanks for pushing us forward. Heh, I do wanna grab Shayla and Joey for a couple of brief scenes that we back-date to motel-hideout time and I'll try to get w/y'all for those.]
They're there a few days. In that cheap motel room in Nowheresville. Six people in a single motel room with one shower and two beds and one chair and one television (which Serafíne turns off, compulsively, whenever it is left one with no one watching it. She refuses to subject herself to the white noise of it; does not even think about it, makes no mention of the habit, and would not herself understand why. But listen: institutional memory, this) and one microfridge. Fridge and microwave bolted together.
They are not the only group of six in one motel room, especially not in a place as cheap and rundown as this, which advertises weekly rates and offers space not just to truckers and prostitutes and low-end salespeople on the road, but to migrants of all sorts. They do not go outside, but sometimes, at a certain hour of the day, they can hear children outside. A few of the rooms are flanked by cheap children's toys. Second-hand bigwheels and faded Lil Tykes slides, the plastic cracked and weathered by the sun.
Dan and Sera have been on the road before. In that fucking convenience store, they picked up cheap, calorie dense food that can sustain them. Starving artist stuff. Ramen and bread and peanut butter, booze and chips and hot pockets. Microwave popcorn, and some fruit. A sack of apples and a basket of strawberries. For the strawberries, Sera is grateful beyond words. But this stuff won't last long. Not with six mouths to feed, and by the time Sid is finished hiding out, their larder is getting attenuated.
The first night Sera sleeps, when she finally sleeps, in the fucking bathtub. It is still damp from Mara's shower, but she doesn't care. Wake me if someone wants a shower, she said, but if they try she sleeps like a stone. It requires work to wake her up, and if they're tentative, if it is Sid, for god's sake, who's trying, Dan will give her a hand, shake Sera physically awake. Sera swims to consciousness like a deep sea diver returning too fast from pressurized depths.
And she sleeps like the dead.
She's fine, Dan'll say, if asked. She's always been like this.
---
The only instrument in the van was an old acoustic guitar. So, Sera and Dan share that out between them when people are awake and in need of distraction. Sera's fine with the guitar, but Dan - he's really good. He sits propped up against the wall, eyes closed in concentration, feeling the music as it emerges from the vibrating strings. They play songs by Bob Dylan, Will Oldham, Joni Mitchell, PJ Harvey, The Pogues, and they sing them together in rough and easy harmony. They play Cool as Kim Deal by the Dandy Warhols, and that gets Sera on the subject of Kim and Kelley Deal and then she spends like an hour in this recursive loop, fixated on the bass line from the Breeders' Cannonball, trying to figure out why the fuck that thing is so awesome.
There's nothing to do but talk. Or sleep, or get fucked up. So Sera does all three.
She asks Mara where she's from and what she does, and my god if Sera finds out that Mara is a contortionist she wants to see that, right fucking now. She will be astonished and delighted and demand that Mara show her how to do that and then falls on her ass eleventy million times attempting to follow the Akashic's instructions and laughs it off every time.
She asks Jim what was his first trip and when and where and was it before? he opened his eyes. Needles him for more Ghandi quotes and Hunter S. Thompson quotes and any other quotes he wants to quote at her. She takes requests, for music, and claims to know everything everyone asks for but is not always correct, ends up humming mistaken lyrics into being.
She tells them that she and Dan came here by way of Raleigh-Durham and Brooklyn before that. She talks about North Carolina quite a bit, Brooklyn very little, and whatever came before Brooklyn not-at-all. Tells them stories about parties and festivals and bars and happenings she's been to and the people she's met there. About some amazing fucking guy who carves these fucking - animal totem statues out of wood logs with chainsaw. Just tell him what animal you want and he goes town. He sells them on the side of this random road way back in the hills.
Serafíne makes a spectacle of herself whenever distraction is necessary, but not of Sid. Never of Sid. The shy redhead is given space, to be or breathe or participate in the conversation when and where she will. She is not put on display. And someone always has an eye on Jake. Sera or Dan or Jim. The handoffs are natural and thoughtless. When Sera's there, she sits physically close to the kid, and is mostly quiet. Which is astonishing considering how much she can talk when she wants to talk.
About this show one night - or this chick who or - that fucking art professor - or that redneck bar or the time she was tripping and it was sunset and it was June and they were in western North Carolina sitting on this ridgetop and the hills were wreathed with mist and the sky was on fire, but fading, and then, and then - the fireflies started to come out, one by one by one, and it was like watching stars mating and galaxies being born and comets searing through the darkness, searching for home.
--
When Sid announces that she's ready to go, Sera glances toward Jim, her blue eyes flickering over his features. Gauging whether he thinks the coast is clear. Whether they've shielded themselves long enough. Truth is, she's ready to go, too. But Sera, she awaits Jim's word.
Also - it's all good, Niko! Thanks for pushing us forward. Heh, I do wanna grab Shayla and Joey for a couple of brief scenes that we back-date to motel-hideout time and I'll try to get w/y'all for those.]
They're there a few days. In that cheap motel room in Nowheresville. Six people in a single motel room with one shower and two beds and one chair and one television (which Serafíne turns off, compulsively, whenever it is left one with no one watching it. She refuses to subject herself to the white noise of it; does not even think about it, makes no mention of the habit, and would not herself understand why. But listen: institutional memory, this) and one microfridge. Fridge and microwave bolted together.
They are not the only group of six in one motel room, especially not in a place as cheap and rundown as this, which advertises weekly rates and offers space not just to truckers and prostitutes and low-end salespeople on the road, but to migrants of all sorts. They do not go outside, but sometimes, at a certain hour of the day, they can hear children outside. A few of the rooms are flanked by cheap children's toys. Second-hand bigwheels and faded Lil Tykes slides, the plastic cracked and weathered by the sun.
Dan and Sera have been on the road before. In that fucking convenience store, they picked up cheap, calorie dense food that can sustain them. Starving artist stuff. Ramen and bread and peanut butter, booze and chips and hot pockets. Microwave popcorn, and some fruit. A sack of apples and a basket of strawberries. For the strawberries, Sera is grateful beyond words. But this stuff won't last long. Not with six mouths to feed, and by the time Sid is finished hiding out, their larder is getting attenuated.
The first night Sera sleeps, when she finally sleeps, in the fucking bathtub. It is still damp from Mara's shower, but she doesn't care. Wake me if someone wants a shower, she said, but if they try she sleeps like a stone. It requires work to wake her up, and if they're tentative, if it is Sid, for god's sake, who's trying, Dan will give her a hand, shake Sera physically awake. Sera swims to consciousness like a deep sea diver returning too fast from pressurized depths.
And she sleeps like the dead.
She's fine, Dan'll say, if asked. She's always been like this.
---
The only instrument in the van was an old acoustic guitar. So, Sera and Dan share that out between them when people are awake and in need of distraction. Sera's fine with the guitar, but Dan - he's really good. He sits propped up against the wall, eyes closed in concentration, feeling the music as it emerges from the vibrating strings. They play songs by Bob Dylan, Will Oldham, Joni Mitchell, PJ Harvey, The Pogues, and they sing them together in rough and easy harmony. They play Cool as Kim Deal by the Dandy Warhols, and that gets Sera on the subject of Kim and Kelley Deal and then she spends like an hour in this recursive loop, fixated on the bass line from the Breeders' Cannonball, trying to figure out why the fuck that thing is so awesome.
There's nothing to do but talk. Or sleep, or get fucked up. So Sera does all three.
She asks Mara where she's from and what she does, and my god if Sera finds out that Mara is a contortionist she wants to see that, right fucking now. She will be astonished and delighted and demand that Mara show her how to do that and then falls on her ass eleventy million times attempting to follow the Akashic's instructions and laughs it off every time.
She asks Jim what was his first trip and when and where and was it before? he opened his eyes. Needles him for more Ghandi quotes and Hunter S. Thompson quotes and any other quotes he wants to quote at her. She takes requests, for music, and claims to know everything everyone asks for but is not always correct, ends up humming mistaken lyrics into being.
She tells them that she and Dan came here by way of Raleigh-Durham and Brooklyn before that. She talks about North Carolina quite a bit, Brooklyn very little, and whatever came before Brooklyn not-at-all. Tells them stories about parties and festivals and bars and happenings she's been to and the people she's met there. About some amazing fucking guy who carves these fucking - animal totem statues out of wood logs with chainsaw. Just tell him what animal you want and he goes town. He sells them on the side of this random road way back in the hills.
Serafíne makes a spectacle of herself whenever distraction is necessary, but not of Sid. Never of Sid. The shy redhead is given space, to be or breathe or participate in the conversation when and where she will. She is not put on display. And someone always has an eye on Jake. Sera or Dan or Jim. The handoffs are natural and thoughtless. When Sera's there, she sits physically close to the kid, and is mostly quiet. Which is astonishing considering how much she can talk when she wants to talk.
About this show one night - or this chick who or - that fucking art professor - or that redneck bar or the time she was tripping and it was sunset and it was June and they were in western North Carolina sitting on this ridgetop and the hills were wreathed with mist and the sky was on fire, but fading, and then, and then - the fireflies started to come out, one by one by one, and it was like watching stars mating and galaxies being born and comets searing through the darkness, searching for home.
--
When Sid announces that she's ready to go, Sera glances toward Jim, her blue eyes flickering over his features. Gauging whether he thinks the coast is clear. Whether they've shielded themselves long enough. Truth is, she's ready to go, too. But Sera, she awaits Jim's word.
But my heart is wild and my bones are steel
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.
- Phosphorescent, Song for Zula
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.
- Phosphorescent, Song for Zula