an abortive attempt at editing
Kellerin's topside life ended when a guy knocked her sprawling on a white cement walkway.
Everybody was rushing to their 10.30 classes, and Kellerin was rushing, too. She sprinted up the steps between Barton and Nighthall, crossed the grass-bare corner between steps and sidewalk, and wove into the intersection of single-minded people-traffic along the cement way. And promptly got broadsided by someone in too much of a hurry.
The guy fell hard. Kellerin stumbled a few steps and caught herself, Comm book flapping to the ground but no other damage, but the guy went down magnificently, skidding a few feet on his palms and knees, with a shoulder-and-chin emergency brake. Kellerin knelt halfway down to help the guy, and then stopped a sec to actually look at him. The hell was he wearing, a costume? Or something? Costumey-looking, anyway linen shirt with broad embroidered hems, brown linen pants and soft shoes made of... rope? His back was heaving, he was breathing so hard, and Kellerin frowned and grabbed his shoulder.
"Hey," she asked. "You okay?"
He knelt up, raised his hands - palms scraped raw and red, and Kellerin went in her pocket for a tissue, and stopped as the guy grabbed her arm and pulled himself up.
"Girl, help me," he wheezed, and looked real quick around him. Brownred skin, brownblack curly hair, dark eyes that barely even registered Kellerin, but kept looking back from where he'd come. His breath was fast and desperate.
Kellerin looked that way too, but there was nothing. Just the bobbing heads of people going to class. "Help what? What d'you need?"
"I need to hide!" He looked straight at her this time, and in complete panic. Sweat was on his temples, and he was shaking. His hands had let go and he was wiping the blood off on his pants, wincing. "A place no one would look<, girl, please just tell me -" and stopped, glancing left again, and this time Kellerin saw: someone else was running.
Back of her brain was still trying to figure it out - costume? A theater guy? Some random cosplay? Some weirdo? He didn’t look like a creep, though, and his face was just pure panic, and that decided her. "Okay, okay, that way," she pointed left, "through the arch, under Barton, up the ramp. There's a place you can get up the railing -"
He wasn't even listening anymore, starting to back away from her, turning, running.
"- you can get on the roof from there!"
He was gone.
Two other guys ran past, one of them glancing back at her. Green vest, red shirt, a sword? Then they were gone too, and everything was normal again.
Kellerin stared after them for a few seconds, then bent down, and grabbed her Comm book off the ground. She went the way the three runners had gone, jogging, but they were well and truly gone. Not even a disturbance in the stream of people - which was, by the way, thinning. Class, Kellerin remembered, but she kept on til she got to the handicapped ramp and its tall rails where you could climb to a between-buildings roof. No one. Brick buildings and students hurrying to their 10.30 class.
Kellerin stopped.
So, what was she supposed to have done? Actually, to clarify: what the hell just happened?
The guy had looked completely panicked. She'd had to help. That was obvious. What were they chasing him for, though? And the clothes they were all in...?
No. The actual question was: why was she still staring? There was hardly anyone out and walking anymore. She had class. What if it was just - someone filming a chase scene? For some amateur production. That made sense, Kellerin thought as she turned around. Except there were no cameras. Or maybe psych students doing an experiment, one of those good-samaritan projects to see what people would say. That made sense too. Except for the clothes.
Anyway, she realized, sliding into her seat ten minutes later, she'd done right, right? First decision was impulsive, but she'd helped, right? And wasn't that the important thing? "Kellerin, I'd like your presentation today, not tomorrow, if you don't mind."
"Sorry," Kellerin said, and pulled her notes out of her textbook. She stood, and went over her flashcards, and pushed away what just happened. That panicked face, scuffed blood still on the arm of her jacket.
What the hell was that all about, anyway?
She went back after class, but there was still nothing unusual by the ramp or the roof. Maybe he'd gone another way. Kellerin wondered about that. The drizzle was thick in the air by this time, muting the brick buildings and washing out the first of the yellow leaves. Puddles were already growing. It was ugly weather, and she hoped he'd found a place. The roof wouldn't make sense in the rain, anyway.
Kellerin went back to her dorm.
Maybe it'd be online. She could look. It wasn't as though there was anything really interesting going on in Kellerin's life right now. She slid her student card down the lock of the outer door and trudged up two flights of stairs, unlocked another door into the second-floor hallway. It was cheerfully painted, with glittering roses stuck on the walls, holiday cut-outs hanging from the ceiling, and framed inspirational posters in the bathrooms. Kellerin was one of three people on the floor who was not a member of the floor's sorority, which could get awkward at floor meetings, which was why she usually skipped them.
She slid her card a third time, at the door with a nameplate that proclaimed !NATASHA!. Kellerin's own nameplate was decorating a rung on the ladder to her bunk. Inside, rain drummed on the windowscreen, and the lights were off.
There was no way of knowing whether Natasha was actually in or not. Her bunk - the bottom one - was walled around in pink bedsheets like a canopy, fixed to the mattress-slats of Kellerin's bunk. She had some sort of a reading-light on under there, but the room was silent. Kellerin kicked the door shut behind her and dropped her Comm book on the pile by her desk. She pulled her jean jacket off and hung it on her bedpost, then went to the window and cracked it. She scraped her sneakers from her feet and left them by the ladder, then plopped down in front of her laptop and turned it on.
The school's website gave her nothing. Charlotte Laine College was operating as usual, thank you for asking, and here were the current delays and cancellations due to inclement weather. But nothing about any drama production, no psych experiments, no work-in-progress by some art student with an odd sense of humor. Then it was something else, but Kellerin had no idea what. Didn't look like a question that she'd get an answer to anytime soon, so she checked her emails and Facebook.
Nothing exciting there, either. She put up a status of what had happened (so, on my way to class a guy in Victorian casualwear barges into me. wth, CLC!), but two hours of internet-wasted time later, the only one who'd left any comment on her wall was her Nathan (dont yu know todays victorian day god kell whats wrongwith you), so Kellerin dropped by his wall and left him an I love you too, big bro. He was a good guy, as brothers went. Right now he and Kellerin had the same profile picture up. No comments on Kellerin's side, but on Nathan's copy one of his idiot friends had left dude, I didnt know you had a brother!!lol Nathan's response? no. get out.
It had to be admitted: it was not the best picture of Kellerin. There was no such thing, actually, as a best picture of Kellerin since there was in fact no such thing as a good picture of Kellerin. Dishwater-blond hair, dishwater-grey eyes, face scraggly with former acne that'd finally cleared up two years ago. On Nathan the strong chin and hooded eyes looked good: put him in a black coat and fedora and he looked badass. On Kellerin, it just looked like she was trying out for a particularly skeevy drag show. She'd stopped trying for 'pretty' at about 13, when it became inescapably clear that even 'plain' was never going to happen.
So now, whenever she and Nathan were in the same state, they went to the gym together, and swimming, and rock-climbing. Kellerin's parents were avid about nature, if not about anything else, so whenever they all got together hiking was on the top of the agenda. Of course, out here in Corn Country College there was nothing but flat. Only one of many tiny things
that Kellerin felt she had no right to complain about, but were driving her nuts.
No mountains. No swimming pool. No Nathan, no family. No major. No minor. No idea what the hell she wanted out of life. No idea how to get it. No time, since the school wanted her to declare immediately, and get on with taking classes to Further Her Academic Goals. No one worth talking to, since thethe last of her friends here had graduated last Spring and moved out of Corn Country. No food worth eating: this place was a wonderland of Arby'ses and Ruby Tuesdays.
No classes that were even remotely interesting, but it was the cheapest college in her state. Specialized in Medical Technology, which Kellerin figured, sure, why not? there's always jobs in tech. She wasn't good enough at her sports to make a living off them, didn't know nature enough to be a ranger or anything like that, and the only other thing she was even decent at was drawing. Nothing fancy there, either: life-drawing, landscapes, anything but people. Pencils, graphite. Charcoal.
The world did not need another amateur rock-climber or starving sketch-artist.
Or something. Kellerin shook her head away from thinking and shut the laptop. Grabbed her iPod and pulled herself up into her bunk without the ladder; lay down and plugged her earbuds in and pulled the pillow over her head and shut her eyes.
She only woke up when someone knocked hard on her door.
The room was still grey, and it was still raining. Natasha's Secret Bedsheet Hideout Light was out, which meant she must've appeared and disappeared while Kellerin was dozing. That definitely wasn't Natasha knocking, though, since she usually had her key, and was anyway too delicate to make such a thumping. Her knocks went something more like 'click, click, ahem.'
Kellerin dragged on her iPod cord and popped the earbuds out, shoving them both under her pillow. The knocking happened again and she vaulted off her bunk, bending her knees as she hit floor, then straightened up, shimmied between the desks, and went to open the door.
And then pico tried editing.
I don't know. it's such a virginia book. It's a shock to be even working on this here, because I look up from it around at my apartment and I'm like
"..................fuck."
I swear, I promise, I know there's a reason I'm in China. I swear I know I want to be here; I promise I don't and won't regret it.
but goddamn I miss this book, and it's like this place isn't the place for it, and every time i try it, China rushes back in and covers me.