2020-06-23 The Birthday Present
The Birthday Present
Location: Winters Retreat
Date and Time: June 23, 2020 7:15 pm
Summary: A birthday present leads to an alien encounter of the heart.
Mood Music: Grouper - "Alien Observer"
With a wave of Hello Kitty, Luu watches as Jinny's Datsun takes off from Winters Retreat, having dropped her off after a long and relaxing weekend at Joshua Tree. Loaded down with bags, Luu makes her way up the front steps, struggling with the key for a moment before bumping the door open with her hip. Stepping into her home, she once more remembers how empty it can seem without all the activity it usually sees; and thinking back to her conversations with Minerva, she remembers that people that collect weird things tend to die alone.
There's an impulse to just shrug off the bags and drop them right there in the doorway, but Luu resists. Closing the door behind her, she begins to slowly move through the place, her home, but sometimes it doesn't quite feel like that. In her excitement to buy the Laurel Canyon Mummy House, there were certain things she hadn't really considered. When she used to live in an apartment and would return home from a weekend, she'd be greeted by her own scent, sometimes mingled with that of a lover living with her; but they never lasted long. Here, the space seems too big for her to really leave her mark on. If she struggled to, perhaps she could recognize some of herself in it. Really, though it just smells like a thousand estate sales, mixed with the scents of a million catwalks, but all fading under the age of the place.
With a sigh, Luu puts a hand to the banister, pausing with her foot on the first step. Her eyes half close in a meditative fashion as she thinks back to this weekend. The constellation of Capricorn just barely there, conversations by the dark water with the other ladies, the dream of the cookie heist what ever it meant, and of course Johan's advice. Was she really being foolish about this whole thing? When she came to an understanding with Jinny, it seemed to make sense, a tough decision, but an adult decision. The words of Johan made her doubt this choice, but what could she do about it? It wasn't just her choice. It was a choice they had made together. It would be a pretty shitty thing to just tell Jinny that she changed her mind and expect her to go along with it. She know it must be hard for Jinny as well, and to tell her these things would just make it harder. Besides, even if she had changed her mind as well, she had made clear during the camping trip that she was a fan of love triangles. Triangle. It's the one way it never seems to work. That third heart brought in always causes hers to break.
Giving another sigh, Luu begins a slow trudge up the steps, slightly more enthusiasm than one might muster for a death march. Making her way through the second door and into her room, Luu drops the bags. Her eyes falls on her empty bed, causing her to shake her head.
Stripping off her clothes, leaving them along with her bags, and planning to take care of them tomorrow, Luu heads to the shower.
Returning refreshed, but still alone, Luu moves over to her bed and takes a seat. As she moves to pull the covers over herself, her eyes fall on the bags at the door and she remembers a comfort.
Standing up, Luu heads over to her bedroom door, unzipping her camping bag and retrieving the stuffed alien gifted to her by Jinny for her birthday. Holding it in front of her in both hands, she looks it over and manages a small smile. With alien in hand, Luu returns to her bed, hoping maybe it won't be so lonely with this extraterrestrial companion. The Alien might really be from Los Angeles, but then so is Jinny. With a little sigh, Luu pulls the covers over herself, cuddling the stuffed Alien close to her chest. Her mind simultaneously moves to celebrate her memories of this weekend and push them from her mind.
This is all harder than she expected.
The trip back from the Winter's Retreat was relatively uneventful, all things considered. Living out in nature for several days had given Jinny the feel of being slightly crispy and overheated, frazzled, and ready for a hot shower. Bathing in the swimming hole, a bar of cheap Irish Spring and a stick of deodorant took care of most of the issues, but nothing could beat a long, hot shower. Traffic going into the city wasn't too terrible, thankfully, the pair making good time. When Luu wasn't acting as impromptu DJ with the laptop and the wireless connection from Jinny's phone, they conversed about simple topics ranging from Politics to Religion to the direction the Chantry could take when they got it started, once they found a node to power the place. Safe topics. Nothing that could really entangle the pair any more than good friends might. And when Luu was dropped off at her home, Jinny paused and looked back to make sure the other woman made it safely inside her palatial home before making the lonely journey back to her apartment.
Usually driving was a relaxation. A way to release tension with the slight movement of her right foot and sheer acceleration. A neverending festival of speed where the shackles of the world fell away as lights blurred with speed, where money could be made, and where honor between racers was a very real thing. Tonight, though? The roads seemed almost deserted, an oddity for Los Angeles, with the few cars on the road scurrying away like goldfish in a pond where a stone had been thrown. The Datsun drove easily, as it always did, effortlessly maintaining the speed limit as she drove into the alley behind her home, into the garage where the car was covered, cooled, and locked behind a heavy sliding door once its contents were disgorged on the back step. It all seemed so rote. So lonely.
As Jinny unloaded the car and carried her things upstairs, making a quick look through to make sure nothing was left beneath a seat to be forgotten or, worse, to start smelling as a beef jerky stick did a few years after she got the car. Her phone sat nearby, charging from the socket on the wall. Many times she stopped, considering what, if anything she would say. She could say to the woman on the other end of the phone. Her house was small, mean, and lonely, the four walls seeming even closer than usual, the smells of paint and smoke from the camp fire mingling to form a melange that eventually her senses were blind to. Her things were left by the door to be dealt with in the morning, her laundry pitched over in front of the washer to be dealt with after a shower, a good night of sleep and a little alone time to hopefully forget about Luu, at least for a little while.
The alien, in Luu's arms, is a little heavier than one might think, and smells of Downy and Time and a little girl that held it too, too tightly. An image comes, unbidden, of Jinny sitting at the table in her apartment, the little alien sitting on the table, head tilted to the side as the red-headed woman working carefully with a length of gray thread, patching a small hole beneath the arm that had been there ever since she had it as a little girl. Every now and again Jinny stopped her sewing, her art on the footpads of the alien, to sit back in her chair, to stare at the ceiling and very visibly try to keep herself from crying, clenching her eyes closed, breathing deeply through her nose and out through her mouth before straightening and continuing again. A notepad laid on the desk next to her, several missives written and scribbled out, obliterated by the black pen she was using to write something in dainty words, trying to get it to sound right. And finally, a little note is curled into a small tube and put into the hole inside Lloyd, tied with a lock of her hair, and sewn shut. "That's that, then." She whispers to herself. "Take care of her, Lloyd." She shifts the head, smoothing down the nap with both hands, pulling it to her chest to hug tightly. "Keep her warm, since I can't." Jinny whispers to Lloyd, hiding her face in the cloth, weeping audibly....
It's a big world out there. One that grew in previously unimaginable ways the day that Luu finally opened her eyes. In those years she's seen much, and done more. She's tamed reality to her will, spoken the language of Angels, and found mysteries older than history itself. Nothing is impossible to her, yesterday's dreams become tomorrow's reality; and often it doesn't even take that long. For most people this would be more than enough, more than they will ever see, and more than they could ever handle. These lessons nourish her soul, expand her mind, and guide her to body. They have made her who she is, and she herself will make her who she will be.
And yet, all this knowledge, all these possibilities, they do not seem to be enough for Luu. Keeping to these known secrets is a limitation. Even though she knows better, she wanders through the popular fictions of those that most of the world would simply see as the misguided. The seekers who have not Awakened to the world, yet still dream of it's mysteries. The paranormal ideas that sometimes threaten to make her laugh out loud at their ridiculousness. Knowing what she does, why does she find herself obsessing over the misunderstandings and tall tales of our postmodern era? Bigfoot, chupacabras, and so many more, but chief among them, her beloved Grays.
We all want to believe that there's something more to this life, even those that know there truly is. That somewhere out there, no matter how impossible or how slim the chances, is another world. Yet another world. Inhabited by those different than us and yet oddly familiar. An abduction makes it sound wrong, and that's why Luu prefers to think of it as an unexpected welcoming. A meeting with someone else that might bring new understanding. An unexpected visitor into her life, bringing peace ... and love.
With Lloyd in her arms, Luu rests in bed, snuggling the stuffed alien close against her body. A simulacra of her true desires. Maybe some day she'll find the experience for which she's been searching. A being of another reality, come to join her in hers, and invite her to its. She finds comfort in the plush extraterrestrial, even if she knows it's not the real thing, it still makes her think of it. It still smells like Jinny. Breathing in, she's transported to another world. It feels like home, which is probably why she misses it so much.
Returning to Earth, a tear rolls down Luu's cheek, and she's really not sure if she's sad or not. The imprint left on Lloyd seems to reveal that maybe Jinny is experiencing and feeling the same things. Maybe even at this moment, she's home in her bed, slightly more alone than Luu is. Sitting up in her bed, Luu holds that alien on her knees, considering it for a moment with tender affection. A message sent by way of alien autopsy, a woman after her own broken heart. And yet, seeing the way that message was stitched inside of Lloyd, Luu wonders if perhaps Jinny might stitch her heart up in the same way. Triangle. The day she begins to view her Will as a limitation, is the day that she might as well just close her eyes. Turning over the alien, Luu runs her finger over the thread of Jinny's hair, and then carefully performs the necessary surgical procedure. With note in hand, Lloyd on the pillow next to her, and butterflies in her stomach, Luu reads the note that has been left for her.
The note is inside a small tube, like one might find powdered paint in, repurposed to hold the words. The handwriting is precise, delicate, little looping letters that show she took a lot of time writing it.
Luu,
You are exactly, precisely, perfectly, what I waited for. It took so long to find you, and yet you came exactly when I needed you, and I didn't even know it. I'm forever thankful for the night we met on the street. It was the beginning of us and we didn't even know it.
You have a place in my heart no one else ever could. What's funny is, I don't have the slightest clue what it is about you, but your soul is so familiar. It's as if we danced and laughed and drank in a prior life. I want to do it all over again in this one. Hopefully we can one day.
That's the day I dream of. We can walk around in the house in just our underwear and stay in bed if we want. We can shower together every morning, make cute dinners, and watch bad movies. Then, at the end of the day we can fall asleep in each other's arms, knowing we'll still be next to each other when we wake up in the morning.
The truth?
I like you, Luu.
A lot.
You make me happy.
You make me laugh.
You're smart.
You're different.
You're a little crazy,
and stylish, and devoted, and wonderful,
and your smile alone can make my day.
I can fake a smile.
I can pretend to be happy.
I can do a lot of things.
Somehow, I have to pretend that I don't love you with all my heart.
Being your friend will have to be enough.
-Jinny
