Avoidance [Myk]

[Caspar (DELETED 4447)]

There comes a time in every man’s life—no matter how stubborn he is—that he has to give up and give in. Where he has to admit that he’s probably going a little bit insane, or that the world around him is actually something akin to Alice’s Wonderland: he has to accept it and move on. Caspar, in one way or another, is determined to move on. The weather is crisp and frigid; the coat that he wears constantly might be in dire need of a dry clean, and he reminds himself daily that he’ll need to find a place where he can get it cleaned properly. Doesn’t matter, really—he finds himself indoors more often than not. In the kitchen at Arbor Vitae he hardly has time to be cold. He moves a lot, running back and forth to prepare the meals. And what with all the ovens and stoves, the griller and the fryers, cold doesn’t get a say.

When not working, Caspar goes out and gets drunk. He stays out until sunrise, a lot of the time. And then he’ll go somewhere neat to get breakfast, and soak up the alcohol. He might then see a movie, or go sit in a park somewhere to read. He’s not too keen on going home anymore, as he’s decided that he lives in the hub of hell. Hell incarnate on Earth. He knows he ought to try to do something about it – sell the flat, and buy another one in a more sane part of town. For some reason, he hasn’t quite got around to it yet. He goes home only to sleep, and even then, his sleep is fitful. He’s turned into an insomniac. It’s not doing a lot for his psychological or emotional wellbeing.

The Harper Country Pub is small as far as pubs are concerned, but that doesn’t bother Caspar much. The place serves alcohol, and that’s all that he needs. It’s about 1am. It’s the middle of the week. The only other customer is an old guy who reeks of urine, seated at the far end of the bar counter, mumbling to himself. Every now and again the man’s mumbles become shouts. The bartender ignored the old man, as if his presence is to be expected. As if he’s here every night. Caspar watches him with vague recognition; not because the man himself is familiar, but because Caspar assumes that sooner or later, that’s probably where he’ll end up. Alone, insane, always drunk, sitting in the corner of a bar with only the voices in his head for company.

Not that Caspar has any voices in his. Not yet, anyway.

His poison of choice tonight is espresso martinis. The coffee keeps him awake, and buzzing. The vodka makes him happy, and forgetful of his woes. He keeps ordering them, one after the other, a book propped open—reading, until the words become too blurry and he can’t absorb what the book says. He shoves the book back into his backpack.

Normally he would change after work, but not tonight. He’s still wearing his checked chef pants, and the white chef shirt. The bartender wipes the counter in front of Caspar, just as he’s finished putting the book away.

“Oh good. You leaving mate? I was just about to tell you we were closing,” the guy says cheerily. Caspar grunts—he wasn’t leaving, but he supposes he should, now. He downs the last of the martini, not sure that he’s quite as drunk as he wants to be just yet. Doesn’t matter. He’ll just have to stumble along until he finds the next best place. He grabs the heavy duty winter coat from the chair beside him, pulling it up over his shoulders. He dons the backpack and saunters out of the pub. He pauses on the footpath, the steam billowing instantly from his mouth and nostrils. There’s not much else in this part of Gullsborough, he’s realized. There’s a lot of greenery. Parks. Licking his lips, Caspar turned around and went back into the pub. From the bartender he managed to buy a bottle of vodka.

It is cold, yes. He probably shouldn’t be drinking alone on a park bench in the middle of the night. But the alcohol has already impaired his judgment. So he thinks – why the hell not?

He finds a park bench and all but falls down into it. His long legs stretch out in front of him. He cracks open the bottle of vodka and takes a long, hard swig. The liquid burns on the way down, warming his throat and his insides. That’ll work.

[Myk]

He’s feeling dizzy, a bit of fatigue, a touch of anxiety, a spot of hurt, but he’s felt worse. He figures that the only things keeping him awake are his senses; the rooftop garden of the Ivory Tower makes them livid. The mute swans bleat like livestock, the dragonflies are playing Russian roulette on the surface of the koi pond and each small splash of colourful scales sounds like a breaking tide. The lotus blossoms and the lilies’ perfume make him nauseous, the azalea and wisteria are too bright against the shrubbery. He could just walk out of there but he’s got no place to go.

His face sinks into his palms. He’s sitting close to Elizabeth in the Zen tea house, but just barely. He asked her a question not too long ago, but she needs more information. He shrugs his shoulders like he doesn’t have the will to speak. It’s odd for him to be quiet. He doesn’t give it much thought and saunters over to the elevator to head outside. It was all so heavy and now, in the crisp night air, it isn’t anymore. He could have gone another route, taken the Fade Portal to the other side of town, but he doesn’t know how the Fade Portal works. He’s suspicious, but when so many of his kind regard these things with nonchalance, he doesn’t become infested with the desire to study it. Besides, there are many other things he has set his sights on and even his mind, no matter how capricious and multi-faceted, can only handle so much at once.

But he’s not thinking too much at all tonight. His eyes narrow as if the street lights and the cold air are painful and he plots his course like a Bloodhound to any curious scent. He’s blending in well, he can pass for normal let alone human – he’s so out of his funk. His hair, bleached to the colour of bones, trails down to his stomach; it’s gotten so long that its weight anchors it to his body. His hair becomes an accessory to his clothes, which are dark and accented with metal. Aged denim clings to his legs like a second layer of skin and disappears beneath shin-high combat boots textured with brass buckles, eyelets and stud hooks. Completing the militant look is a plain shirt and a double breasted trench coat, both buttoned and belted for a snug fit. He wears leather gloves because he likes the crunch of it when he clenches his hands, but gripping things is difficult.

There’s a smell of something on the air – he likes it but can’t identify it. It’s warm, musky, earthy, smoky, and as inviting and comforting as soup on a winter’s day. He tracks it to Gullsborough station and loses it in a gust as the train departs. Litter, brought to life by all the activity, performs a short dance before settling back into the gutters. Feeling equally inspired, Myk steps back from the platform, realising that he doesn’t usually come this far to the east. On ordinary nights he treads a footpath to the sewers, then enters the catacombs and mausoleum in search for things to slay, but it’s gotten boring. He’s never had much interest in fighting anyway; it always seems a silly way to settle an argument; though he imagines that’s such a cowardly thought. He is guilty of this kind of armchair philosophy, but he doesn’t yet know if that’s a problem.

Before he gets into the trouble of over-thinking, he catches sight of something interesting. He approaches it quietly, removing his gloves and stuffing them into his pockets before he grasps it. To others, it’s just a square bit of paper, nothing unusual except its bright orange colour. It’s a leaflet promoting a band playing somewhere in Harper Rock, but none of that scribble is important to him. What’s important to him is what he can make of it, which in this case just happens to be an aeroplane. There weren’t too many people about and even fewer would be in the open fields just a little further east, so that’s where he heads. His paper plane sours majestically, touching down with a soft thump after each collection and projection, but it suddenly gets out of control. Myk watches the orange craft skim the air for a good two minutes before a zephyr steers it off course. It veers east, nose slanting and wings curtailing to help it pick up speed before it dive-bombs into the lap of some man lounging on a park bench. Myk just stops behind him and stares awkwardly.

[Caspar (DELETED 4447)]

Silence is a rarity for Caspar. He lets his mind wander as he sits there, staring ahead into the darkness. The whiteness of the snow blends into the shadows created by the tree; the trees themselves are like ghostly figures in the darkness, as if they don’t really know whether they belong in the middle of this man-made city. Beyond, somewhere, Caspar knows that it’s not all darkness. He knows that there’s a city. And it’s not completely silent, anyway; there’s still the sound of the traffic, as little as it might at this edge of town. There’s still the sound of the breeze, the twigs of the trees clattering and clicking—the trees are cold, too, and they have no fur to keep them warm.

Caspar is used to a loud kitchen. Shouted questions and crass jokes, the clanging of cutlery and of metal pans, the whoosh of flame from the oven, the industrial whir of dishwashers and stoves, the occasional shatter of glass. It’s never silent in a restaurant kitchen. This, sitting here in the coldness of the park is bliss in comparison. Of course he knows that he could find silence at home. There’s something about the walls of Corvidae flats, as if they’re the only new thing amongst decrepit ruin. The walls are thick. The glass on the windows is thick. All the sounds from outside are blocked. The silence in the apartment isn’t bliss, however. It’s a silence that is far too loud in its muffled consistency. It’s a silence that he can’t stand. He prefers the silence of nature, because it’s not really silent. As contradictory as that might seem.

He flexes his fingers in their gloves. The gloves aren’t very thick. Thick gloves are tedious. They hinder movement. You have to remove them every time you need to pay for something; every time you need to do something that requires deftness. Thin gloves aren’t exactly conducive to warmth, however, and Caspar is forced to constantly move them, to bury them in the depths of his coat, to allow his own body warmth to help him to survive. He takes another long swig of the vodka. When he breathes out, the breath billows, hot and steamy, briefly alive in front of his face before disappearing.

He jumps as something slides onto his lap. He expects some kind of creature, maybe, though his head has become far too fuzzy to immediately realise it’s probably too cold for creatures. It takes him a few seconds to realise that it’s not a creature, but a piece of paper. He picks it up to examine it. It’s a paper plane. With a frown, Caspar slowly picked it apart, unfolding it. Why is he expecting there to be a note inside? As if this is some kind of conspiracy movie. There’s nothing but an advert for some band, however. Does someone really desperately want him to attend?

It’s that odd feeling of being watched that causes Caspar to stop. His slow movements come to a wary halt as he glances left, and then right; he only sees the guy out of the corner of his eye, standing behind him. Slow and clumsy, Caspar jumps up from his seat. The bottle of vodka falls over; the alcohol slowly spills from the lip. Caspar doesn’t notice, because he’s too busy swearing.

”What the ****?! Are you some kind of creep? What do you want?!” he asks, the smoke now a frantic staccato haze as it jumps from his lungs.

[Myk]

The man’s body shifts, the movements both sluggish and acute. He examines the note, looks around, notices Myk, gets up, drops his bottle, starts shouting. Instinctively, Myk backs up. His pewter eyes glance over the man’s body. They’re almost the same height, but his boots have a bit of a heel to them, giving him maybe an inch or two of rise. He examines the man’s shoulders, chest and arms, estimating the potential of muscle, the potential of threat, but his eyes stop at the orange paper. Faint lines form in his brow, but he’s not really listening to what the man is saying because he’s concerned about his paper plane – or rather, what used to be.

“That was mine,” he says. It’s almost a sulk, but his low, rasping voice coats it in a hiss.

[Caspar (DELETED 4447)]

Caspar decides in that very moment that the man—the kid?—is in fact a creep. A weirdo who likes stalking around in the middle of the night with paper airplanes that he’s very, very possessive of. Caspar is completely and utterly dismissive of any danger that the kid might pose—he always acts without thinking. He screws up the piece of paper and, as soon as it’s in a nice tight little ball, lobs it over the kid’s shoulder.

”Go and get it, then,” he says, turning back to his entertainment for the evening—the bottle of vodka, that is, by now, half empty. Again, Caspar swears, very loudly, uncouth, not addressing the kid even if he’s still around, but mainly talking to thin air—to whatever demon of bad luck that seems to be following him around like a bad smell.

”******* hell. And they were closing. Won’t find anywhere else to…” he shakes his head as he retrieves the bottle of vodka, takes another swig, and heavily falls back down onto the bench seat, causing small mounds of snow to drift to the ground. The bottle will be finished, soon. And Caspar will have to go for another walk to keep himself occupied until the sun comes up, and he can go get some breakfast.