Survival Of The Fittest

Penelope breathed in the fresh air of the park.

((Penelope Fitzgerald Pregame Start))

The wind danced across the beautiful scenery of the park, blowing Penelope's hair aside as she sat cross legged with her eyes closed on one of the park benches, meditating. She opened her eyes and took a sip from her bottle of tea. Things were quiet, serene. She loved Sumac Park for how nice it was to simply stay there and enjoy herself in the peace and quiet. It was certainly a joy for her to visit on the weekends, just so she could get out of her house and breathe in the fresh air of the park. Life was good, she was glad that she had the life she had. It was sunny and warm, as it usually is in Kingman, Arizona. She enjoyed the sunshine, even if she had to put on sun screen to avoid getting burnt due to her paleness.

Penelope bent over slightly and reached down for one of the flowering weeds that dotted the park. She picked it and admired how elegant it was. Most people would not say that they like these flowers, due to their status as weeds, but Penelope could find the beauty in most things. As far as she was concerned, life in general is beautiful. She placed the flower behind her ear and leaned back on the bench, closing her eyes. She took a deep breath and sighed in contentment. She sat there for a few minutes, and then tilted her head back up. She pulled her phone out of her purse, which had been sitting next to her, and checked the time. She would need to go home soon enough, and she needed to know how much more time she had, but she still had a fair amount of time from the looks of it, so she put her phone away and relaxed again.

Penelope closed her eyes and took in a big breath before returning to her meditation.

((Alessio Rigano continued from Dearest Creature in Creation))

Alessio walked through the park, clothed in a green, checkered dress shirt, with not only the highest button, but every button unbuttoned; it was good weather after all. He enjoyed to walk through the park with his ears being plugged by earphones that are connected with his MP3-player in his pocket.

The tune of Nagasaki by Reinhardt he obtained from the internet in a not-so-legal way ended and a new song of his playlist started to play. This time it was something from the Dire Straits.

So Alessio carried a shopping bag, where a chips bag was on top of it, looking out of it. Inside the bag, there was diverse stuff, milk for the Riganos, milk for the cats, meat, food, cheese and various other things. Mostly food, though.

The park was a nice place to go through after having shopped for his family. He used to jog in the park often when the weather was good. Oh, man. How many weeks has he not jogged? It must've been a while. Maybe months.

He then saw Penelope, a friend of him from the robotics club. She's fun to be around and is an excellent roboticist. Apparently she now enjoyed the sun by sitting on a bench and has a flower behind her ear, which was kinda unusual. Well, Al wouldn't find it that unusual, but fitting, considering that she wore turtle earrings.

Alessio had to smile.

"Hello, Penelope!"

(Adelaide Walker continued from Every day is great at your Junes)

Adelaide was taking deep breaths from her nose and exhaled out her mouth as she checked her watch for the time it took for her to do her run. Normally, she would be at the athletic center in Sumac, since her parents paid for membership passes for the family, but it had been such a nice day she had decided to go out and get some fresh air instead of her regular time spent on the treadmill. She was wearing her usual running outfit of shorts and a tank top with a sports bra underneath. Sometimes she could get away with only the sports bra, but when her grandmother had seen her walk out of the house, in her opinion, was tight fitting underwear, she had pulled a lose fitting red tank on over her bra.

Now Adelaide was regretting her decision, as the cloth top was soaked with sweat from her exertion. She needed to find a way to cool her body off. She walked over to a nearby drinking fountain, close to where two other people were, and started taking sips of the cold water. The liquid had an aftertaste to it, but she had not wanted to lug around a full canteen during her outdoor workout. No use complaining about it.

She side-eyed the two while she was taking sips. They looked like they knew each other, but wanted to get some idea of how they acted before attempting to engage them in conversation.

The girl's posture did peak her interest, however. Meditation. She had read about it before, but save for middle-aged people at the gym she had never seen people her age take up the exercise.

Penelope opened her eyes when she heard a familiar voice call her name. She turned her head toward the sound and gave Alessio a toothy grin when she saw his face. He was one of the friendliest people she knew and a good friend of hers. "Hey Alessio!" She shouted, over the wind. She took herself out of her mediation position and stood up, giving the closest thing she could muster to a cat smile before poking Alessio in the nose. She often did this to her close friends as a way to express her affection in a way that other people typically don't. She doesn't bother poking friends who have a problem with personal space, but as a person she is very touchy towards people she is close to.

"Boop!" She said, as she poked Alessio's nose and continued poking him a few more times after that. "How have things been going, friend? I was just trying to relax here in the park for a moment, I do it pretty regularly if you didn't already know!" She sat back down as she listened to Alessio as he talked, and glanced over what was going on around her. She noticed Adelaide Walker not too far from them drinking out out of the water fountain. She was looking at them in between sips as they conversed. Adelaide was not the type of girl that she talked to very often, but Penelope at least knew her name. She brought her index finger up. "Just a sec, Alessio."

Penelope waved her arm in the air and shouted over to Adelaide. "Hey! Adelaide! Fancy seeing you here! 'Sup?"

Alessio's nose was being poked, which would've been weird if somebody he didn't knew would do it, but when Penelope did it while saying 'boop', it was pretty funny for Al. He considered to poke back, but he decided against it, because he had no hands left. One hand turned the volume down, so he could actually understand her. The other carried the bag. But then he put the bag on the ground, so he wouldn't need to carry it around the whole conversation.

"Ah, that is cool. I didn't know that you were doing this. Uh, You're doing yoga, right? I was shopping. Uhm-"

Well, he barely knew what else to say, so the interruption she did wasn't bad. Penelope greeted Adelaide whom he didn't notice was here as well. She was also a student in their grade, but besides that he didn't know her closely. She was apparently jogging, given that she was drinking from a fountain and also given that she was dressed like she would do something athletic right now.

With a quiet "hey", he also waved with his free hand to her.

Adelaide finished her last sip from the fountain and responded to the greetings with a wave of her hand. "Hello, Penelope, Alessio."

Adelaide quickly used the front of her tank top to wipe off the perspiration on her upper lip. The two of them appeared nice enough, though neither of them were people she  normally interacted with. The nose "boop" was pretty odd to see. She did not know it was an gesture that people actually did in real life. Oh well, it appeared good natured.

"Nice day out, isn't it?" Adelaide commented, stretching out her arms from side to side as she talked, before focusing on Penelope. "I noticed you were doing some sort of meditation."

Penelope leaned back on the park bench as Adelaide mentioned her meditation.

"Oh yeah, that? She said, casually. "I like coming out to areas like this and relaxing with it sometimes." Penelope picked up her bottle of tea and sipped at it. "Thinking about things and life in general, trying to attain nirvana." She turned a bit to get a more direct look at Adelaide. "It's all good for the mind and soul."

Penelope had always based her meditation techniques off of Buddhist meditation. Buddhism had always been the most interesting religion to Penelope, she loved the tenets of it and the practices, such as meditation. Buddhist style meditation was enjoyable to partake in and she always felt better about herself and life after doing so.

Penelope sipped her tea again. "Is there anything interesting you find about it in particular?"

Alessio never meditated, but how Penelope described it, it was a really cool thing to do. It's something good for the soul and, well, it seemed very relaxing. Maybe he should try it out sometimes. But honestly, he probably wouldn't.

Isn't it the same thing as sleeping during the night? Or, well, as you're asleep and can barely control your thoughts while sleeping, the minutes before sleeping? These were moments where he thought about things and life in general as well.

Then he looked at Adelaide, curious about how she'd respond.

Nirvana, huh? She had been reading a few books on Japanese culture that talked about Buddhism along with other religious practices and ceremonies still done in Japan. Adelaide thought Penelope was simply relaxing, but apparently she was trying to "commune with nature." She was not sure about if the other girl thought what she was doing was a religious experience, but all of Adelaide's knowledge on the subject was through theory instead of practice.

"Interesting. You might have to do away with the tea though if you want your body to be cleansed?" Adelaide replied, but there was a teasing edge to her tone. Most of the bottled teas that were popular had artificial syrups and heavy amounts of sugar. Not the kind of thing that could give you a detox unless you searched hard enough. "Nonetheless, props to you for taking time to be at ease."

Maybe it was a little hypocritical, judging a drink by its contents over taste, but she had grown up accustomed to foods that did not hide unhealthy ingredients behind scientific names. If she made a cake, she knew how much sugar, fat, and salt she put into it. Bottled teas were much more tricky. She turned back to Alessio, who stood awkwardly off to the side with, she now noticed, bags in his hands. "You doing chores?"

Adelaide had never had to walk back home with groceries in tow, since it was either her dad or her grandma Marie that would shop for food. She only tagged along if she needed some of her own ingredients.

Penelope smiled at Adelaide's comment on her tea.

Now you're getting it! She said, if only mentally. After Adelaide asked about Alessio's groceries, Penelope decided to jump in, always eager to insert herself into things and answer for people, whether they liked it or not. Without giving Alessio the chance to talk, she responded to Adelaide. "Uh, yeah! Alessio here was out doing some shopping for like..."

Penelope reached into Alessio's grocery bags and pulled out them various objects that were in them, listing them off as she went. "Things like milk... cheese... mostly food in here... oh, and meat." She put the meat back before turning her head up towards Alessio.

"Alessio, didn't I tell you that it's healthier to be a vegetarian?" she asked, while having her normal mischievous grin plastered on her face. She poked him a few times in the cheek. "Just teasing, I understand vegetarianism isn't for everyone."

Most people wouldn't be able to get away with shenanigans like this, but when it came to Penelope and her friends, a certain understanding was usually met, especially regarding her lack of a sense for personal space.

Penelope craned up slightly and wrapped her arms around Alessio's neckline. "Sorry if I took the wind out of your sails there."

She leaned her head back and turned it towards Adelaide once more. "Did that answer your question?"

Adelaide and Penelope seemed to get along well. Cleansing the body of tea and meat.

After he received a question, it answered by Penelope. There was nothing else, he could add. Not that it bothered Alessio. He was actually kinda thankful for Penelope. That way he didn't need to speak so much. He nodded at Adelaide while quickly saying "yeah, shopping" to confirm that Penelope was indeed telling the truth.

Penelope's showing off of the bought goods didn't really bother Alessio. Neither did the vegetarianism of her. He himself wouldn't stop eating meat, because his parents did eat meat as well. And his cats needed meat as well, so it was important for his family. And it was very delicious as well, so there's that.

He smiled at Penelope.

"Well, my cats wouldn't approve of eating healthier stuff, haha."

He wondered how they'd react to feed them without meat at all. That'd make them sad, probably.

Adelaide felt slightly uncomfortable at the open displays of affection going on between Penelope and Alessio. The latter did not seem to mind the invasion of personal space, though. Maybe they were a couple? She guessed it was possible. She averted her eyes when Penelope wrapped her arms around Alesso's neck, trying not to... she didn't even know. She just didn't like watching people being all lovey-dovey in front of her. It was a mix of discomfort at seeing something intimate in a public setting, or maybe even envious of it. It all melded together for her. She looked back when she realized the pair were not about to make out in front of her.

"It does. I'm afraid I also haven't cut out all meat products from my diet yet, though." Adelaide replied to Penelope enquiry. Most of the meat was fish or chicken, but she could not deny herself freshly sliced and grilled bacon on Saturday mornings that Marie was able to cook even better than Adelaide's father, who was the actual chef.

"You have cats?" she asked, unable to keep the inflection of excitement out of her tone that came up whenever felines were brought up into conversation. Marie was allergic to cats, so even after she had moved to Kingman her parents refused her in getting a cat of her own. She had resorted to friends homes or feeding strays to get in her cat fix. It was a problem, she knew, but another temptation like meat she was unable to deny.

She never claimed to be Siddhartha Gautama.

"What breed are they?"

((Permission to skip granted by VoltTurtle))

"Yeah, I got a cyprus cat, an american bobtail and two domestic short-haired cats."

That was a sentence that Alessio could remember. If he wasn't planning to become a vetenerian, he probably wouldn't have cared about the breeds, because a cat is a cat. But he was planning to, so he recalled this sentence.

"You have cats, too?"

"No, sadly." Adelaide replied. "Marie's- my grandmother is allergic, and she lives with me, so we can't have any cats in the house."

"But I've heard of those breeds," All of them were relatively common cats in the United States, but four cats! Alessio was a lucky man. "What are their names?"

Penelope stood back a bit as the two of them talked, her eyes darting between them.

She had noticed when she wrapped her arms around Alessio that Adelaide got noticeably uncomfortable. That was troubling her. Did she not like physical contact between people? Physical contact was the best way to show affection in Penelope's books. Did she think that the two of them were dating? They weren't. Penelope sat there silently for several seconds as they bantered back and forth. Then, after Adelaide asked Alessio about his cat's names, she had to interrupt.

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey, Adelaide. I saw you getting uncomfortable just a few seconds ago. Do you not like physical affection and/or do you think that the two of us are dating? Because physical affection is great. And also we're not dating. I just like hugs." She said, very awkwardly, as she leaned in between the two of them.

She recognized how she was putting Adelaide on the spot and how embarrassing the situation was. However, she was far too curious and couldn't let misinformation stand or potentially be spread around. "Well?"