ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Overthinking

Vignette - Overthinking
Dramatis Personae Jax	2015-11-06 '
Location <NYC> Candyland - Harbor Commons - Lower East Side
The stairs lead up into a landing hall, bright as well with a set of bay windows and a wide cushion-strewn ledge beneath them at its far end. To the right of the landing the first doorway opens into the bathroom, warmly coloured in yellows and reds and sandy tiles; its large bathtub-shower also holds a mosaic on one wall, strange fire-creatures and manticores echoed in the small fiery faeries sprinkled at sporadic intervals around the rest of the room. Past the bathroom on the right-hand side is a smaller door into a linen closet before the actual door into Spencer's bedroom. Spencer's sturdy furniture set has been designed with rambunctious children in mind, most of its structure climbable with a loft-bed connected by a short tunnel to an also-lofted reading nook with a sliding door to turn it into its own private cave; the desk and dresser sit beneath the bed and there is a shelving unit beneath the platform that serves also as steps up into it. A slide down off the bed falls down into large squishy beanbag and the whole of the structure has been designed and painted reminiscent of a spaceship, a theme echoed in the way the closet doors have been painted to look like the TARDIS. On the left-hand side the first door leads into the master bedroom, bright-lit not just from its huge windows and skylight but from a rather exorbitant overabundance of lamps. It's colourful in here, the hand-crafted wood furniture (king bed against the left-hand wall, pair of small nightstands to either side of it, a pair of dressers flanking the closet on the right, a large desk with a multitude of drawers and shelves along the back) cheerfully painted, the walls home to plentiful artwork, brightly coloured glass figurines scattered around the shelves and stained-glass suncatchers hanging in the windows. One set of windows leads out onto a balcony, stretching out to share with the guest bedroom adjacent; it's set up for /lounging/, a large hammock at one side, a pair of hanging net chairs flanking the table on the other. Next to the master bedroom is the smaller guest bedroom, sunny-yellow and furnished with queen bed, dresser, a small desk of its own; doors here lead out into the balcony as well. At the end of the hallway shortly before the window nook, a hatch in the ceiling drops down a rope-ladder that leads up into the tiny attic-space; not so much a proper /floor/ as it is a sloped-ceiling nook of space beneath the roof, it nevertheless has its own circular window and skylights and rather than left unfinished it's been furnished with beanbag and folded futon-mattress and a tiny low table with drawers tucked beneath it. By the time Jax gets home, it's long past dark. The light he carries within him has extinguished itself long ago, now struggling, hungrily, to draw in whatever sips and trickles he can from streetlamps, from the dim smog-obscured wash of moonlight around him, from lights seeping out of homes through windows shuttered against the night outside. The colour has washed out of him along with his energy; his hair is still in peacock-tones, but his nails are just a chipped black, his makeup gone to leave his face in an unhealthy pallor. It doesn't stop a smile from brightening his face, warm and quick, when he slips through his front door, stoops to shed his boots and brace himself against the incoming enthusiastic puppy-kisses Obie has to dispense. A stop in the kitchen, after this, to load up on dinner long since overdue. A stop in Spencer's room, to check up on him. And then he retreats, to the small attic nook with food and his laptop and a large mug of tea. Once he's opened up the computer, he lingers over the tea a long time before he starts to write his email. Hey Things here have been kind of a mess. The zombie plague Today was surreal like you have no idea. The guy I met makes me start to wonder if there's more time shenanigans You should hear Shane's latest composition, it's We miss you. The kids are sick and I'm terrified I'm really glad you're safely away from everything is falling apart everything has always been falling apart i am tired of pretending I hope things there are better than The world is about to end again I don't know how I'm going to do this without you I really hope you're having a good please come home How have you been doing down in i love you please can we After so many false starts, begun and then deleted, the words on the screen are starting to blur. He finally tries again. Simpler, now. Happy birthday. Thinking of you. Types Micah's email in before he can rethink this brief message, and hits send.