{{More distracting night drabbles! Some of which cut out at bad places.}}
=Gulls & Boys=
It is low tide at the beach, and the skies are streaked with thin clouds. Vincent has no time nor peace of mind to appreciate the air with the handycam aimed at Jack, Abe, and for some reason yet unsurprisingly Gandhi. The three in the shot were strung with suits comprised of food over their regular outfits. Respectably: Bread- predictable, raw bacon- ew, and fries- is he trying to get killed?
Vincent's boredom was brain-melting enough that he thought to order the cast around just a little nitpicky enough for laughs. If it wasn't a digital video camera, he'd have swapped the lenses too. Between being bored and barely contained frustration, a little humour was all he had to keep it together.
"Squeeze in, guys, you're getting out of shot!" Truthfully, the cast stood out and open on the shoreline and Vincent observed from the luxury of a dry log.
"Can't you er uh zoom out?"
The cast were pressed together, except those absent boneheads of birds. Their shrill alarming calls gave him earaches, and he'd have flat out refused to film this if Joan was available and the potential for schadenfreude didn't exist.
Vincent sniffed audibly and said, "it'll show more excitement! Gosh, do you not know anything about the fine art of-"
"Forget that," Abe called over the distance, "We're here to prove once and for all the safest edible suit to wear to the beach." He smacked his fist in his other hand, wincing at the pain. That had been the trio's idea only, Vincent meanwhile hoped to have a leg up in the annual film festival.
"Mayday! Mayday!" The shortest pretend-panicked, hopping on alternating feet, though Vincent knew it won't be pretend for much longer. Abe held his guts with a shiver. Recording started now.
Jack pointed overhead into the thin colony of shrieking letter M's coming to land. "Hark! It is the sound of judgement from above!" He proclaimed, lifting his other arm in reverence. The birds floated down like fog, dotting the expanse to pick up whatever was unlucky to be beached. One gull fought to eat an entire purple starfish while dodging other hungry colony members.
A big, healthy gull dropped on Gandhi's head, making him stumble and disturbing the bird to flutter to the sand. It peered with one eye at him as it walked closer. Then it hunched over, screaming three notes.
And the humans covered their ears, accidentally jabbing each other with elbows, and braced for the worst. Vincent hid a grin in his free hand despite the disturbance preoccupying the actors of his would-be thriller. One that maybe opened with a Yanni track.
The three had spaced themselves apart for clarity of results.
"Okay," Abe breathed, "we won't get hurt if we don't move," he trailed off. Then squeaked, "right?"
More gulls circled low, screaming, laughing, jumping and flopping awkwardly to tear off the bacon with no success due to Abe curling in on himself.
Vincent scoffed inwardly. What did Joan see in this guy?
Gandhi had more happy customers poking at him, making him laugh. Nearby, an errant crow snuck behind a gull and yanked its tail feathers, provoking it to turn and bite the smaller bird. Other gulls were agitated to flight, with a few stopping by Jack.
Abe gawked. "Oh, that's right, I didn't count on that variable." He shivered in the wingbeats. It was cold enough, thanks.
"Thaaat's right pally! Nothing beats whole grain white bread!" Jack threw back his head, laughing within the whirlwind of hungry birds. The taller lifted a finger to say something but stopped at what he saw next.
"Did it get drafty in here or- OHMYGOD!" Jack shrieked, his fingers running frantic through a crew-cut. He looked at the sand and found a seagull running off with his pompadour.
The shortest fell over, stifling his laughter, and Abe countered Jack's remark almost too smoothly. "Ha, you didn't count for that either!"
Jack lifted his sweater over his head, eyes widened and dark. Just as Vincent decided they've all suffered enough and he stopped recording, the birds began picking at Abe, who shrieked higher than Vincent had known.
"Who's winning?" Abe called.
That stopped Vincent's fidgeting. He honestly wouldn't know. The criteria was inconsistent. Gandhi's fries were decimated enough to designate him the loser in under the protection category, but he was uharmed for the greater portion of the experiment.
"Just give them the meat! The ambulance won't revive a skeleton if I have to call emergency!"
He did as instructed, and ran for his car, eyes wide and arms protectively holding his head.
Jack regained his pride chasing the wig-napper, only to lose it again as his proud pompadour had become a disheveled rat's nest. Gandhi collected his composure and offered to help the disgraced jock into the car.
Vincent was the last one inside, behind the shotgun, beside a shivering Kennedy. Abe had feathers poking out of his hair.
=Distance=
Cleo was, in her mind, a perfect clone of her historical half. A woman of beauty and influence, mysterious, while within reach. Just consult any movie about her. Pride ran in her genes and equally her personality, that it was all so effortless for her to simply be. Except, when her foundation ran short and she calls Abe to grab some of a heinously expensive brand with convoluted colour matrixes.
This would make the umpteenth time Abe drove anywhere at the expense of his body and mind, but he gets his fix from Cleo every time. When his sight sets on Cleo's happiness, very few things shake him back to reality.
Gandhi joined Joan at lunch that same day to clue her in. It explained Abe's absence from trig, and the devil wearing a paper bag on her face pretending it's hurting her when going all natural would be a disaster.
"She thinks she can do whatever she wants because she's royalty." Joan states dryly.
"Word on the street is some of us may not be real clones." Gandhi's arms spread as a wave above his head.
Joan ignores that. It wasn't untrue as evidenced by Mr. Sheepman's existence. She knows some figures were patchworks more than replicas, but she'd not use genes as an angle of attack. Formulating a plan to teach Cleo humility by contrast between her and her clone mother's qualities of character was more important. Maybe humility was a stretch? Bottom line, she must dissuade Cleo from possibly killing Abe.
And then make another futile reach to impart common sense to the lanky doofus.
Gandhi practically gulped down his lunch and reassured her he had his portion of revenge planned, but made no mention of specifics. Joan knew that had meant he'll ad-lib something reckless, and ineffective at best.
When lunch period ended, Joan couldn't concentrate.
Abe wasn't seen in the halls, and neither was he heard among the shuffling students outside classrooms during sessions. What hope she had remaining was held by a fraying thread, and it made her sick to her stomach. Her face rested on the desk with her free hand clasping her scalp.
Mr. Sheepman's lecture went ignored up until, "Miss of Arc, do you need to see the nurse?"
She probably looked green, too. As much as she valued honesty, she was indeed sick, just not from bacterial infection. So she confirmed yes.
The woolly clone handed her a card, and she walked out as he started up the lecture. Joan wouldn't be seeing that batty nurse whose advice was "just drink water" for everything. There was a payphone down near what was called "the abyss" that needed her business.
-0-0-
"His parents are clueless on his whereabouts? Man, he's just flaked us off." Gandhi pouted and crossed his arms.
"Feet off the table, now," the goth barked, "thank you. Abe's foster parents put out an APB, so as long as the cops are out searching for his hopefully-not-dead butt, Cleo's under fire. This pains me to ask-"
"Of course we will!" The words were followed by a snort, but not a derisive one. Nostradamus adjusted his fez eagerly.
"- you to ignore her. Shut her down." Joan slammed her hands on the table, "I've checked out some books to arm myself with knowledge of Egypt under Cleopatra's rule."
All eyes blink puzzled at her out of sync, except for Gandhi fidgeting with a paper -actualky napkin- crane. He utters a "what" before noticing the abrupt silence wasn't aimed at him.
"Is it necesary to go that far? I mean that zorra shows teeth at the lightest insult. You live with her, you'll fight cage-matches every day!"
Great, she thinks. Because her fury needs to burn out if the worst comes.
=Life of Who?=
There was a boy with a beaky nose which hung over his lips, and eyes framed by glasses. Kids had stopped and stared at him, whispering how he never talked. He picked dandelions near the curb to look them over with a vacant stare. If his dedication was anything, his mind was anything but.
Jars were his means to keep them for a while, each had their own labels. The one that grew into a frighteningly neon yellow was shown to his dad's robot, as dad was away that day. Butlertron delighted in the radiant mutation.
Some days, Jack came over- intruded more like- to play American football on his lawn. The cleats tore it up and threatened to muddy anyone who walked by. Jack almost jumped out of his skin when an adult at the door proved that, no, the house wasn't abandoned, and it was his principal's residence. Before he could shout at the kid, he budged and momentarily lost balance His miniature copy zoomed by him, holding something in outstretched arms.
A comic the lookalike had drawn. It depicted an athlete with a hockey stick shooting lasers at demons.
It was a saturday, dad relented, allowing the two boys to play. Just not on his lawn, or the backyard.
Later that night, he flicked the peas from dinner up onto the ceiling. With Jack, it became a game of who could stick more when dad wasn't looking. It ended with a pea to dad's glasses, and he growled a threat of expulsion (from his house) as Jack folded over in a laughing fit. The boy with the vacant stare now looked alive with stars in his eyes, even if he didn't smile or laugh along with Jack.
Weeks into this new happiness, he's introduced to a few others. A girl with brown hair in a loose braid and eyes that had seen everything too soon. A skinny boy who could pass for a horse if he wanted to. A girl who wasn't fitting neatly into the status quo for her underbite.
Jack, and soon they, would relay conversations with him between others as translators of a sort.
One day, they were aware they didn't have his name. They called him a myriad of friendly adjective nouns between "quiet kid" and "tiny scuds."
But when he opened his mouth to say, all that came out was a huff warped by motions of teeth and tongue. He didn't understand how anyone made the sounds they did, or why they're different. They had names and their respective sounds. His was the scratching of pencils against paper. He was okay while they were united.
Until he was nine years, old and disappeared.
Only his dad knew he was sent to another school outside the district, as he'd been responsible for the change. Responsible for the hurt his son never wanted to feel again. In the car, dad issued his reasons for the exchange as to keep his home life separate from his work, and spare him of future embarrassment. He said it in the same voice as when he mentioned mom, who moved off far away to become a dental assistant.
Later he had learned dad was responsible for his friends' existence, and they were ultimately meant to serve a purpose he wasn't clued in enough to know what it was, it sounded like they had a grander one than his.
Butlertron comforted him with what the robot knew. If he was loved, he was missed. New people would be waiting to see him too.
What wonders awaited in this new school that smelled of hotdog water and feet, were sugar-dusted dog turds.
He went home every day with words in his head attacking him with a slow but sure ache like needles inserting in the delicate skin on his arm. Butlertron was wrong, and the boy wrote as much. That he was falling to pieces, unloved.
Butlertron apologized at length, with numerous clarifications on the ins and outs of life as a child. Not everyone will love you, those who cared for you first won't be the last, and sometimes people don't have a reason for cruelty because they just are like that sometimes.
The boy's brows still were stern, and only when the dull pain of holding a face creep in did he realize how he looked. He hid in his bedroom, still holding that angry face, but manually. He felt wrong inside, utter disbelief, and wished to stoke the feelings back. Anger feels big, and he wasn't. That night, he left his homework blank on the desk beside neatly aligned pencils, only looking back on it once and then shuts his eyes.
Dad found the papers detailing the harrassment he endured at school, he saw that morning. They were clutched tightly in a gloved hand, while the other supported his face.
"You don't trust me?" Those were dad's first words, hushed and clipped. Then, harshly, "I can threaten them with my dual purpose flamethrower vacuum and cow the parents of your aggressors like any rational adult!"
There. That should've eased the tension, but its accusatory tone drowned out any concern dad has for his son's best interests, real or otherwise. Breakfast wasn't special, except for being cold and gross.
School progressed just as usual, except the going home part. That was replaced with dad dragging him by a hand clamped on the boy's shoulder around to the teacher who gave him the most hell. The boy couldn't protest aggressively or else he'd have an earful of being sent to foster homes where all the other kids have criminal records, so he preferred to go limp.
Unrealistic as it was,he just wanted dad and everyone else to stop. No locking figurative horns, no arguing for a case where your wellbeing was the ball and you're wrong regardless what you'd say.
No dragging down the empty halls echoing footsteps far louder than they should. No more of dad's face twisting in anger where anger didn't do justice for the intensity and scope of emotions, and whoever he set upon to scream at.
The dreaded number 302 approached faster than he could brace himself.