Anemophily

[Cicada]

/Beryl Mahelona continued from Random Reality/

The girl in red and black at the far end from the table- name possible to remember, she must have been in one of Mrs. Zhang's classes (the one with math, but they were all the one with math, after a while the equations all became similarly whimsical like idioms in a familiar language, when you really thought about them too literally they made an entertaining amount of no sense) but possibility was merely in theory and not in practice- had her headphones turned up just enough that Beryl's train of thought ran along the tracks to the beat of someone else's drums. Though she supposed that happened often enough anyways.

The screen of her phone was zoomed in on a bit of text and a bit of graph, and she hummed silently, reading at slightly the wrong speed or perhaps it was merely experimenting with the pace of another's thoughts. She already had the opportunity to speak with some of her professors- maybe they'd be professors, or maybe Arizona would not be her future home, she'd have to consult the stars for the specifics though that was information she could afford to wait on. Sitting on ideas for a while was cozy, they made for a great cushion.

She could really digest ideas if she had time- it was like eating in a rush versus eating serenely. Beryl took note of Professor Bronstein's writings, the specific way she phrased certain ideas, how sentences brusquely lined up, one after the other, ad infinitum, slowly mutating like life itself did over generations. Words on the page became images in the realm Beryl called her own thoughts.

Thus, comprehensively, Beryl would understand the ferment of mutualism's feedback into genetic heritage as the slow boil of a kettle being carefully tended to by a mysteriously matronly figure, the convergent evolution of two species similar in niche, how it seemed to read like a fairy tale of Beryl's youth, warmly familiar, wholesome, as she continued to slowly scroll the screen of her phone with one finger, the tale only grew richer in detail until she could taste the mother's soup and it seemed all the more nutritious for its substance...

[Catche Jagger]

((Thomas Buckley continued from The Old Ways))

Thomas had not had a great day. He’d barely slept the night before and found himself drowsing off in class. He needed a spot to clear his head, a place to think.

Where better than the library?

Entering, Thomas’s mind remained in a haze, abuzz with a number of thoughts and worries, only some of which would actually be relevant to his current position.

There’s damn stories about folks dying in Korea through lack of activity and sleep, and you’re not the most active guy, Thomas. Am I just going to have a heart attack right here in the library? Damn what a way to go. Might as well be the way, seeing how classes are going...

Not particularly aware of his surroundings in the moment, Thomas took a seat at a random table, tossing his backpack to the side, and then tapping his hands on the hard surface before rubbing his eyes, as though he might somehow dismiss the fog that hampered all of his senses.

“When the hell is this day going to end…?” he sighed, slumping a bit in his chair.

Finally, he took a look around him, only to find that he’d sat himself right next to some girl without even asking.

“Oh, uh sorry… Is this…?” He began to elaborate, before quickly cutting himself off

Looking at her, Thomas couldn’t quite call to mind the girl’s name, though he was certain he’d seen her around somewhere before, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on her name. Honestly, she probably knew his name and he was just a forgetful asshole.

Clear the cobwebs. Focus.

“Um, yeah… Is this okay? Me sitting here and stuff? I don’t want to mess up your groove or anything.” Thomas explained, trying to maintain a cool and collected demeanor.

[Cicada]

Back to the abstract, as it always was, for all the world was merely abstract concepts given eyes with which to observe their own Platonic form. `Here we review the evolutionary ecology of nectar robbing from both the plant and animal perspective. Effects of robbing on female and male components of plant reproduction range from negative-`

Beryl startled, in that usual way where her face didn't particularly change. She briefly evaluated her five senses in a serpentine order- shift of arm, tongue, leg, proprioception, so on. Where was she, anyways? It seemed odd to her that she wasn't elsewhere, steeped in a slightly stale tea's worth of soup left out overnight, once fresh, now merely in a mode of repetition. The voice she'd been reading along with in her own head now came out of her lips- it was in an odd place, being outside the bounds of her own skull.

"Oh. Um, I don't know if it is."

That seemed like the most appropriate answer to the question as posed. Given little to work with it was best to make no assumptions, though she rarely had the ability to make those anyways.

The brown of his eyes, the sculpt of his nose... He looked familiar. In that queer way where there might have been an associated memory but it was perhaps unmemorable, a ghostly sensation of a past event that might once have been relevant but had at some point quietly escaped her orbit, drifting further away, now merely distant on the horizon of the infinite space above their lonely planet. There, but not meaningfully so.

That said, Beryl rarely cared for the meaning of things in particular. So long as they existed that alone was enough to enjoy with all her unrestrained spirit.

"I'd love for you to sit here!" Beryl was hushed, of course, they were in a library. She was even careful while moving her seat, so as not to scrape the floor so hard that it would scream. A dull mote of irritation at most- and at least, because the chairs in the library were as old as time could be traced back through the recordings of history. She moved her seat such that she could face him better, this nameless him, who she was already attached to in that way that pollen endlessly tumbling on the wind could sometimes find purchase.

"I don't have a groove to mess up much, anyways." As she said that the other girl at the table got up and left, and their table was now all the more silent save for all the noise of the student ecosystem around and about. "I feel like we know each other," and Beryl adjusted her glasses by palming one lens up until the frame almost smashed through her eyeball. "Have we met?" An idly curious pout. "Hm. In a past life, perhaps."

[Catche Jagger]

Oh, cool. She was cool with it. Cool.

“Have we met? Hm. In a past life, perhaps.”

Okay, so she didn’t know his name and he wasn’t just being a complete asshole forgetting hers.

Wait, was she, like, hitting on him? Nah, she didn’t even know his name, right? That’d be really freakin weird.

It’d also be a pretty weird way of hitting on someone. So, like, good call.

Still, he could not get a beat on the girl.Though sitting, it was clear that she was pretty tall, to a degree that one was unlikely to forget, perhaps even approaching Thomas’s own height.

And she also seemed kinda cute, so there was that.

Immediately assessing romantic intention and focusing on her appearance? Doesn’t indicate a very healthy attitude towards women, does it? Also you’re probably staring.

And that seemed like a good point to get out of his own head.

“Or maybe we share a class or something. Are you, say, involved with the drama department or anime club?” He asked, following the girl’s lead with keeping things hushed. That was the sort of thing Thomas might otherwise be prone to forget.

“Oh, I’m Thomas… Buckley, by the way. Thomas Buckley.” He quickly added, before giving a slight shrug and extending his hand, offering her to shake.

[Cicada]

She wasn't particularly sure what she was trying to accomplish- par for the course. Whatever it was she was trying to do, it was probably somewhat strange and gratuitous. That sounded about right- though of course, things that sounded right didn't necessarily have to be right. It was an important distinction to be made, the numbers were very much capable of lying, just like the words and the images and all the rest of the things called reality.

He was staring a bit, she mused. Trying to read her soul? Color swatch her aura? Guess her cup size? Possibilities abound, she would have been equally as likely to do any of those things and more (much more!) if she'd been in his shoes. Ooh, being in his shoes. It was one thing to dance with someone else, that one thing being fun, but who knew what avenues of expression opened up when you danced as someone else?

"I was never that good at theater, supposedly.. my demeanor was too distinctive. Whatever that might imply. Which is a lot." A sure nod, gentle, sort of pointed at nothing in particular before she remembered she had to look at people she talked to. A band of simple charcoal black around her pointer finger. `oh hi there what's up please look at me`. Who had said that before? She couldn't remember.

"I was in anime club for... some year... freshman. Or the others. One of them. More than one."

She shrugged, nodding back at Thomas to take over the conversation.

"What do you think? You might remember better than me. Oh, and." Important addendum saved for some point where her lazy drawl of a breath was almost totally already used up. "My name is Beryl." She reached for his hand. A curious thumb lightly brushed over his open palm. Interesting shape of his life line. Clean, smooth. Vitality, in so few words.

[Catche Jagger]

Thomas was sad to hear someone turned away from theater for a stupid reason.

“Well, whoever said that is stupid. Not every actor is a freakin chameleon. Like, um… like look at Arnold Schwarzenegger or a bunch of other ‘big stars’ you hear about. It’s not about just being a skilled impressionist. That’s, like, wicked reductive.”

As was often the case when Thomas spoke about something that he felt deeply about, he’d started speaking quickly and his voice had gotten louder without his realizing.

It wasn’t until he’d noticed a sideways glance from the across the room librarian that Thomas managed to catch himself.

Really showing of those killer social skills today.

“It’s… Acting, any kind of performance, is about making a connection with the audience. It doesn’t have to be real to feel real. Or whatever.” Thomas explained, returning to a more controlled pattern of speech and being sure to tack that last statement on at the end.

“Well, anyway, anime club’s a possibility I guess then? I mean, what kinda stuff do you do around here? I mean, like, at school?” He continued.

This topic didn’t seem too pressing, but he was kind of intrigued by this girl. She was weird, but like, interesting weird.

Are you being a bit too invasive with the questions? Don’t ask, that’ll only make it worse.

[Cicada]

Beryl nodded. "It might be reductive? Might also be an objective evaluation." Theater. Did she legitimately have an interest in trying again? Was she asking herself an actual question or a merely rhetorical one?

Question marks abound- the one constant she could make some sense of was that the drama club was home to familiar faces. Somewhere she'd be tonally returning to, rather than stumbling upon. Zen was there! Tristan also, and he'd probably told her before to rejoin the drama club at some point. Lucas was there, Nia... the situation was actually somewhat complex for her, now that she thought about it. The sort of complexity she couldn't easily resolve with a whiteboard and pen. Three people she'd had some kind of past or present relationship with... possibly a fourth to come present circumstances considered... maybe.

Always a matter of the maybes.

"I don't have the best acting range.. I think. Oh!" This part excited her, though Beryl's version of lighting up was merely a slightly drowsier expression. "I could do silent roles." Now her imagination was going. Ninjas and stagehands and her passing out on stage in the middle of a production. The usual array of possibilities.

"'It doesn’t have to be real to feel real'. That's very true and I like that statement a lot, Thomas. Thomas. Tommy. Tom." She tested out how all the words felt on the tongue.

"I'm in... a band." What was the name again? Before Human? Alex, Roxy, there were people in that band. Marcy, she was in it too. Was she herself in that band? Probably. She might have played the xylophone or something, that sounded very Beryl-ish.

"Besides that I kind of just exist. I might not be real," she giggled quietly, impassively observing Thomas through eyes that seemed to blink in a specific rhythm, as if done on purpose. "But I feel real."

[Catche Jagger]

“Thomas or Tom works.” He explained before thinking it over for a moment, before shrugging once more “Or, you know, whatever.”

Then she brought up being in a band. Not the band, but a band, a distinction that made her seem a slight bit cooler. But then came another note that drew his attention more urgently.

“I might not be real. But I feel real.”

Now that was a sentiment that he’d keenly had to think over himself when he’d felt a bit low in the past. Gotta keep your philosophical shit in perspective. Having an existential crisis never helped anybody. Probably.

“Well, you seem pretty real to me, too.” He said, earnestly smiling for the first time all day.

You made her laugh. Or maybe she made herself laugh.

Thomas felt a bit hot in his face.

Calm down, chief.

“So, um band.” He began again, clearing his throat, “I guess that makes you a performer too, regardless. So, what do you guys play? Like, genres and stuff.”

He was deeply regretting not sleeping better last night. Beryl made for interesting company, but he was growing increasingly frustrated with his seeming need to keep mentally returning to that tangentially related topic again and again.

He just hoped he wasn’t being a pest.

[Cicada]

"Tommy gun," Beryl politely extended a finger and a thumb his way, polite as it was possible to pretend to shoot someone with a click of the 'trigger'. "You should give me a nickname too. I like nicknames." She had a lot floating around her, sometimes to where she couldn't remember which ones were supposed to refer to her or not. It was odd times when Beryl heard a 'sleepyhead' in the halls and didn't remember to glance over until she belatedly realized that, yes, 'Sleepyhead' was actually her.

She continued to laugh. A little bit, not a lot, but it did continue to suffuse Beryl's aura with lovelier pastel colors that were lighter and more fragrant- in so far as a metaphysical concept could have a smell? It had been a bit of a question mark these past few weeks. She had possibly two boyfriends but all of a sudden maybe not. There had been violence upon this earth, and violent words said, and violence in it's trademark turbulence seemed to linger.

Difficult, it was very difficult, but she was made of sterner stuff than breaking down and she would allow these ugly moments to pass, what with all the beauty in the world abound.

"Seeming isn't the same as being, but it's maybe all that really counts. It's like- oh, yes...! It's exactly like, you know." And this conversation must have been going on for a while- Beryl wasn't exactly a quick speaker, she tended to be relaxed and languid as if all her friends would still be there the day she blinked and it was ten years later- but it hadn't felt like much time had passed at all. Just proving her point. "Like acting roles in a play, even. You can project whatever you want to be, and really be it, if just for a little bit."

"... Maybe I should rejoin drama," she concluded. "We could talk more, certainly." That was a matter of information of the future. Possibilities. Their other thread of conversation was more of the present, of information probably certain, only sometimes in Beryl's mind it was about as hard to keep what had already happened any more coherent than what was yet to. "Our band... Behind Human? We play very dark music. Our lyricist has a very macabre sensibility. You might like to hear, though I won't make you."

[Catche Jagger]

Thomas let out a chuckle at the Tommy Gun name. It was stupid and silly, but the good kind of stupid, he supposed.

“Well, I‘m not exactly sure what goes best with Beryl, but I’ll be sure to keep you posted on my nickname process.” He was surprised at how well this random meeting had gone for him. Either he was getting better at this shit or Beryl was aggressively patient/didn’t care.

“I think you should, it’s a pretty good program, good people and stuff.” He paused for a moment, feeling he should add a bit onto that. “Like, you seem like good people, so you’d probably fit in.”

And about the band, the way Beryl described it, their music didn’t sound like it would appeal to Thomas much. However, is he looked at her, he felt like it’d be shitty to talk up acting all big and not at least give her band the benefit of the doubt.

“Um, yeah. I think it’d be cool to give you guys a listen. He replied, trying to give a reassuring smile.

Maybe she didn’t actually want to share it. Maybe you’re being a bit pushy now, buddy. Or maybe you’re just going to come off condescending.

Thomas took a in a deep breath through his nostrils and then blew it out between his lips, hoping that his anxieties might leave with it, but knowing that they would not.

[Cicada]

Beryl breathed in, mindfully. With each lungful of air a few more of her molecules were exchanged out, returned to nature as nature loaned more. An equitable payment, with no expected interest or depreciation. As she breathed, she slowly became someone new, yet probably still exactly the same.

And she laughed, softly. He'd laughed, she'd laugh. The past mirrored into the present.

"Am I good people..." A question without a question mark. Uncertainty without the expected answer, likewise! She didn't mind not knowing. People told her she was good people. That seemed like enough, insofar as it was enjoyable, which was perhaps the only meaningful thing to be derived. "I do know good people in there, though. Do you know Tristan?"

... Did she? But that was a question she didn't want to ask- no, she had to stop asking that

She nodded, smiled back. "Only if you insist... As it goes. I could invite you over, some time."

A lengthy pause, long enough that she might have been done, then just as Tom might have replied:

"To see the band. Between Human. We play at my house."

[Catche Jagger]

Beryl seemed to become deeply thoughtful on these matters which seemed to Thomas to be rather casual. Though he really could not be one to complain about that, could he?

Maybe she’s just tired.

“Yeah, I know Tristan. He’s a pretty cool guy.” Thomas replied without hesitation and he didn’t have much else to say beyond that. He considered Tristan a friend, after all.

Then she possibly mentioned inviting him over.

Crap, is that a “Hey pal, maybe should chill at my place?” sort of invitation or a “Hey, wanna come over?” kind of invitation?

Probably the former, all things considered. Don’t be weird.

Just as Thomas was about to reply, Beryl suddenly clarified that it was an offer to see the band in action.

“Um, yeah. I think I’d like that.” Thomas answered after a moment.

It also occurred to him in that moment that he’d now forgotten exactly why he’d come to the library, having gotten caught up in conversation. He hoped it wasn’t something important.

Um… pretty sure you just needed to clear your head.

Oh yeah! Well, this had done a pretty good job of that then. Thomas found that he was suddenly rather pleased with himself, grinning widely.

[Cicada]

"Yes. Tristan certainly counts as good people." Hm. Well, the question could be pitched purely in the abstract. Did he count? Does he count? Would he, will he, had he forever and always? Beryl lingered, the next word that would begin her next sentence contingent on her next pause which seemed to dawdle, ease out of her with ample time spared to enjoying the moment as it passed one-millionth of a frame per second.

She wondered what his motive was, Tommy Gun's.

"Then here's my number, real quick." She rarely answered her phone in a manner timely or at all, but there was a first time for anything and everything, including a first time for giving her digits to Tom. That was a virgin moment then spoiled, as Beryl scrawled loopy all over a scrap of paper with a pen whose color caused the eyes to bleed, handed the paper over.

She wondered what he was thinking, and why he'd come here.

"Did you... hm. Have a reason to be here? I feel like we're both being distracted right now. In a good way!"

[Catche Jagger]

“Oh yeah, cool. Thanks.” Thomas replied, taking the scrap of paper and looking it over.

She’d given him her number. Cool. Real cool.

Don’t freak out and make this more than it is. You don’t even know that Beryl’s into guys to begin with. Besides, even if she were the slightest bit into you, would you actually do anything? Or would you just sit on your hands because you don’t know how this crap operates?

Yeah…

Thomas found his mind drifting away suddenly. Off past school, past Chattanooga, past anything he’d known. His mind drifted so far that it looped back onto itself, gazing into the empty, cavernous space it left behind.

That was, until Beryl’s question dragged him back into focus.

“Well, I was just… I think I was just looking to clear my head.” Thomas let out a nervous laugh.

He couldn’t help but feel a bit flustered by the question, since he’d just zoned out mid-conversation and knew that his answer was a bit less than satisfying.

“Um, what about you?”

[Cicada]

A silent moment passed. Less quiet in Beryl's own mind, but her own mind didn't particularly exist in any frame of reference contrasted against reality? It was sort of a haven, a safe space, only many not-so safe things probably happened in there too. When she wasn't paying enough attention, or was paying too much.

She waited for him calmly, her eyes drifting into scanning the room and focusing on nothing in particular. Familiar sight, but only just so.

"I was looking to busy mine," Beryl responded, examining her phone intently. She'd been doing something or another with this, at some point in the last few minutes.

"There's a lot to do, but sometimes I can't quite figure out what specifically..." She nodded at him with a coy shrug. "But I should always be trying to figure that out. If that makes sense."

She began to stand. One leg in front of the other... which leg...