006. ( video. )

[magnitudes]

( Ah, it’s a heartwarming holiday scene, viewers. Sarissa, lounging on a couch, somehow inexplicably still with severe tank top tanlines despite a) it being winter and b) her wearing a tank top, which surely should theoretically make the tanlines less apparent. Not today, apparently. It reads “Sorry for the thing I said when I was hungry,” but perhaps “Sorry for what I’m about to say now I’m drunk” would be more fitting. She’s got a neon curly straw sticking out of a bottle of bourbon, and a cocktail umbrella tucked behind her ear, and appears to be wearing tropical board shorts. It’s just that kind of day. Or night. Whatever.

Sitting next to her is Pablo, who is wearing a striped cardigan, black shorts, and fiddling with his bangs and a straightening iron until he notices that Sarissa is recording. He frees his hair and sets the iron aside, picking up instead his own drink of choice (non-alcoholic; it's a capri-sun pouch) so he can more easily listen. )

Okay, but like. Okay, no, sorry, but if you think about any of the stuff that all of us across all our bloody worlds have gotta have in common, it’s art, yeah? Like— creativity. Art and poems and music, the expression of everything that makes us who we are given some kinda solid shape. Whether its colours or melodies or whatever form we gotta grab and twist about, it’s expressions of the world and how we understand it, right? It’s a way to know that we’re not going out of our bloody minds, because there’s thing element that we can understand and connect with, and it links us to other people. It’s why people got all fired up about the Spice Girls, a while back.

( That isn’t actually what happened, Sarissa, but sure. Go with that. ) And Pablo here, he’s an artist. Makes the world make sense with colours. Everything is colours and— and texture. It’s stories all layered up and up, kind of like people. We’re all hundreds of thousands of stories all layered together and then laid out.

What? Oh, uh...

( Pablo seems to not know what to say about that, given his silence, though if he feels put on the spot it doesn't show on his face. He starts to shake his head, but then instead opts to say: )

Right. Well you know, I don't know if it even has to exactly make sense, if like... we can still look at it and feel something, because either somehow we do understand it, on the level of like... uh... ( He gestures circularly over his head, glancing in Sarissa's direction for a moment but then upward. How to say it? ) You know, intuitively, even if we don't know why, or what anything really means. Or we don't understand but try to, or-- sometimes people don't want to. It all depends. But, uh-- yeah, it's still a little bit of everything and everyone we've ever known, too. Like stories.

( He stops talking and looks back over at Sarissa. )

Or a jigsaw puzzle. Or, uh— there’s this art, in Japan? Kint— ah, shit. Kintsuko...roi? It’s um, it’s like the to do with change and journeys and things gathering more meaning. I guess. I mean technically it’s about repairing broken stuff with gold lacquer, but it’s like an extra layer? Like a new addition to the story. Somethings not less perfect for being broken, and it doesn’t lose something. It gains it? I don’t know, make that a metaphor, if you wanna. People and art fit together. ( She grins, a bit ridiculously. ) And if they don’t, we can glue ‘em together with gold lacquer. It could get very Klimpt. Or Kahlo.

( Sarissa frowns, then, as she delicately sips her bourbon. ) Does anyone else do that? Like finding ways to express the way they understand things more tangibly? Like an enigma machine for your thoughts?

Comments

[magnitudes]

( At a good moment Sarissa might be able to articulate the degree of what she said, or go into specifics. Right now though she's sort of too beside herself and breathing too ragged to make the words stumble out, and she just kind of sniffs and breaths in a shaky breath as she lets the banana be taken and returned. Maybe its for the best, because it means instead of being distracted piecing together all the words to reply to Pablo and how to make it make sense what she did, without explaining Beth and Paul and giving away Sarah's secrets. Her brain still feels like cotton thats been soaked in water and then stretched out as far as it can go, mind you, but at least she isn't like that and trying to make sense of things. )

I don't deserve it. And I can't earn it. I spend too much time setting shit up in flames. Arson is arson. Destructive and wrong. Dangerous. After a point... repeat offenders should just get what's coming to 'em. No more chances.

( It's not her best metaphor, granted, but she has the banana and she should eat it - that's what her self comforting leads her to much of the time, food and contact - but she swallows thickly and just keeps it in her hand, untouched. Considering his offer again, she asks, )

Would coffee be okay?

[aojona]

[ While Sarissa's quiet Pablo stays quiet too, considering maybe that he said a whole lot that probably only made a fraction of sense compared to how it sounded in his head -- that's often the case, or what's in his head doesn't translate to what works with someone else's in the first place.

Pablo presses his lips together thinly, looking down at his hands and reminding himself to focus first on listening. When Sarissa speaks again, he looks over at her; shakes his head just slightly without necessarily meaning to. ]

Mistakes and crimes aren't the same thing. And sometimes even crimes can be forgiven -- so anything short of that, a lot of times people will understand. But, uh... whether or not you want them to, it's their choice to forgive you or not, you know? I get that it's hard, though... I've been there too, sorta.

[ Very carefully he stands, as best he can without jostling her too much. ]

Claro, Sarissa. How do you take it? And is it just... [ He points one way, then the other, turning in a confused semi-circle before pointing a bit more confidently in one direction. ] Um, this way? No-- this way... You'll be okay by yourself for a second, right?

[magnitudes]

( She nods, although she's not sure she believes it. Doesn't mean she won't absorb it, take the thought and keep turning it over and over in her head, until she can make sense of it better. Maybe Sarah would be okay with her. Maybe she could make it up, somehow. One idea catches in her head, but she shuffles it away for later, looking back to Pablo with a little more focus. )

Um. Black, right now. Normally milk but— ( That's not the point right now. ) Black, two sugars. There might be some hazelnut syrup in the cupboard.

( Normally she is a fan of embarrassingly elaborate coffees and hot chocolates, but right now the nativity fast means she is limited in what she can have. As elaborate as she can manage without consuming any dairy would have to do.

After a moment, as finds the way, ) I'll be okay. Thank you.

[aojona]

[ It's hard, existing alongside other people is always hard, and there's no exact way to figure it all out. Not for Pablo, at least; people are a giant mystery to him most of the time, even if he can rationalize things more easily if he's not personally involved in the situation.

Then again, when he is, his solution is always just to either forgive, or... well. When it's him that's the problem, he's yet to find a real solution that works, beyond desperately trying whatever he can think of.

Anyway, Pablo is no cook or even "decent" in the kitchen, but black coffee is easy enough to manage even if he also usually makes it with milk. It's a few minutes before he comes back out with a cup in his hand, holding it out for her before he sits back down. ]

Uh-- just, you know... trust that she loves you. Maybe focus on that while you drink this. [ A pause. ] Do you need me to hold it for you?