1. Longer section this time than the last one I put up. At least it feels longer to me. I've been kinda struggling with the aftermath of this whole CN/JG spat, and it's taken me a long time to work out the kinks in how it should be resolved. I think I've gotten something that doesn't suck big, huge goat... er... ahem... but we'll have to see, I guess.
2. In the meantime, more of Colleen being silly and making really weird pop culture references in her internal monologue. Kinda like a Family Guy episode... only my writing's nowhere near as good.
3. And, I leave you all with a "pressing question" at the end. Have fun.
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Quarantine Day Twenty
November 26, 2005
It was the sun finally peeking out from behind a mass of dark, gray clouds that woke me up the next morning. Just my luck that I’d end up choosing the exact spot on the floor that the single, solitary ray of light coming through the skylight above decided to hit. I opened one eye first, then squinted the other one open. I’d never been much of a morning person, and normally I’d have had a few choice words for whoever was running the almighty weather machine these days, but the fact that the sunlight had done a pretty decent job of keeping me toasty warm while I slept tempered my mood a bit. There was, after all, a lot to be said for not succumbing to hypothermia while unconscious.
I was sorting through the gear in my new pack, looking for something to stop my stomach from rumbling, when I heard some familiar-sounding footsteps behind me. I turned around, slowly.
“Morning. Wanna hit me again?” He was standing there, wearing that same… “I have a pH of exactly 7” expression. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to make a joke, or if he seriously expected me to try and pop him again, but if I had to guess, it sounded like the latter. I felt a little insulted by that. He was right – I did want to hit him, again – but I still resented the implication all the same.
I went back to struggling with the recalcitrant plastic packaging wrapped around my MRE. The damn thing continued to resist my ineffectual pawing. It sat there, in my hands, a bare two millimeters or so of synthetic petroleum-based material, keeping me from vital nutrition, and mocking me with scornful disdain. But I managed to keep my voice cool, all the same. “Thinking about it,” I told Jeff.
He shrugged. “Well, go ahead. Get it out of your system.” Again with the completely deadpan delivery. As if he -seriously- wouldn’t have minded if I just took a swing at him with a baseball bat…
Not that I honestly believed he would be so nonchalant if I were actually trying to brain him with two and a half pounds of machined aluminum. I glared at him. It looked to me like he was having fun, baiting me with that whole “No, really, I’ll let you get in a few more free hits… oh wait… psych!” stuff, and I wasn’t in the mood for jokes, mind games, or whatever you wanted to call it. I flicked a stern gaze in his direction, then tried once more to tear the plastic open. “Maybe later,” I said, trying to slip my pinky into one of the heat-sealed seams.
He offered up another casual shrug. “Suit yourself.”
I decided to cut to the chase. “What do you want?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to check on you.” He frowned, apparently noticing how my newest archenemy continued to thwart me again and again despite the sheer unfettered brilliance of my schemes.
C’mon, open up! I’m hungry!
Arggh! Damn it… oooooohhh, I’ll get you, Gadget!
…
Ahem.
“Here. Gimme that.” He held out his hand, reaching for the MRE, but I slapped his wrist away. I didn’t need his help. I could manage just fine without it, thank you very much.
Instead, I leveled a patronizing sneer at him. “Your concern for my welfare is touching, Corporal… but I can handle a little scrap of obstinate plastic on my own, thanks. I’ve outsmarted far worthier opponents.”
“Yeah, you’re a regular Stephen Hawking,” I heard him mutter. He reached into his pocket, quickly fished something out and handed it to me. “At least use this.”
In his hand was a genuine Swiss Army Knife – dark red casing, white cross painted along the sides. It was one of the deluxe models: several blades of varying sizes, screwdriver attachments, a bottle opener, corkscrew, a pair of scissors (still sharp, of course,) a wire-cutter, needle-nose pliers… the works. I’d… given it to him as a Christmas gift back when we were in college, and I was… well, I was actually kinda surprised he still had it. He pressed the gadget into the palm of my hand and closed my fingers around it. For a second, I was tempted to just fling it right back at him… but…
But I didn’t.
“Hang on to it,” he said. “You need it more than I do, and I’ll find some way to manage. I was a Boy Scout, after all…”
I scoffed at that and shot him a contemptuous look. “So? I was a Girl Scout.”
Ok. Fine. I’ll admit it: I was being just a touch petulant at that point. Maybe a tad. A little bit. You go have quiet-shut-up-time now.
He pulled a Vulcan – one of his eyebrows rising higher than the other, and his expression went a few miles south of skeptical. Hmph. Jerk. “Uh, Nix... you were a scout for like two months… and… well… you basically joined for the cookies…”
“Shut up.”
I saw him restrain the urge to laugh. Instead, he turned and tossed a glance out through one of the still heavily barricaded doors leading out of the mall. “Well, anyway… rain let up some,” he began hesitantly. “Break in the weather’s probably not going to last long enough for us to get too far away from here, but I thought you might want to run a quick patrol with me.” He shrugged.
“Oh, really… and what would compel me to do such a thing?” I asked, not even bothering to hide my distaste for the idea.
“We’ve been cooped up in here for days. Figured I wasn’t the only one going a little stir-crazy. Thought you might want to get some air, get some exercise, maybe even help out the locals at the same time. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind a few less rotters trying to make meals out of them.”
“And if I decide to just put a round in the back of your head and leave you behind as a zombie snack?”
“You could do that,” he admitted with perfect calm.
“You gonna give me a reason why I shouldn’t?”
For the first time in this entire conversation, I managed to get a reaction out of him that wasn’t steadfastly neutral. He sighed and shook his head. “No, Colleen. I’m not. In the end, you’re gonna do what you want to do.” I searched his tone for some hint that he was annoyed, being sarcastic, or that he was just trying to get my goat some. I couldn’t find any, and it confused me. “Look, if you want to sit here by yourself, that’s fine, too. I just thought you might want a change of scenery for a bit… get out, stretch the legs some… and like I said, we’d be helping out the locals. What do you say?”
