Five (Short) Things Your Character Does In The City
I.
Chell watches people.
She doesn’t realize how creepy it might seem to other people; she’s too caught up in being fascinated by the world around her. Everything is so new, so different, and she wants to see it all. She walks around the city, bundled up in her thrift-store coat against the cold with her duffel bag slung over her shoulder, unabashedly staring at others as she passes by. She sits on the benches in malls, parks, shopping centers -- wherever -- just looking at the people. At night she curls up on her couch and scrolls through the entries on her communicator, and although she doesn’t always answer, you can bet she’s keeping up with everyone, connecting numbers with names and voices and faces. And why wouldn’t she? The Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center was empty. Everyone there had died before Chell woke up. Other human beings are a novelty that isn’t going to wear off anytime soon.
II.
Every so often Chell takes the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device out of the bag over her shoulder and practices. Flips, flings, redirections -- every trick she learned in the Center, and a few she’s made up on her own. It’s a little awkward at times -- people stare as she flies between portals; sometimes she overshoots and accidentally winds up in traffic; and screwing up landings, skidding across concrete, and leaving a trail of blood and skin in your wake is never fun -- but nothing compares to the thrill of falling at terminal velocity straight at the ground and then flinging up and out, flying over the city.
III.
The library is her favorite haunt. There’s so much there, a whole world for her to explore through the words. She checks out books about everything -- children’s stories, biology, cooking, wars, fiction, nonfiction, atlases, programming, magazines, biographies -- anything she can find. Sometimes she just walks through with her eyes
closed, pulling them off the shelves at random. Chell’s embarrassed by how much she’s lost, and she wants to regain it all.
IV.
Ever since her lesson with Bakura at the supermarket, Chell has been practicing cooking. It’s always simple things with only a few ingredients, but she is so proud of what she makes. It’s a little slice of normal in an abnormal life. She dug up a rather simple fruitcake recipe in one of the cookbooks she picked up from the library, and she’s planning on making some for everyone she knows for Christmas. She’ll be worried and nervous about what everyone thinks about it, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
V.
Chell visits clothing stores as often as she can. One day she is going to find a pair of pants and some shoes she can actually wear with her Advanced Knee Replacement prostheses, goddammit.
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