TM-Challenge: Relaxation
What is your favorite thing to do to relax?
Buffy ought to feel at home in Los Angeles. It is her home, or it was, for fifteen years. But that was an innocent city -- lawns with sprinklers, family drives to the pier, to Disneyland, up Sunset. Buffy and Dawn in the back of the car, kicking the seat, chanting for her father to drive around the block again, so they could pass under the palm trees, so Buffy could prove to Dawn that was really Tom Cruise walking his dog in the park. Her mother saying "Keep it down, just be quiet, quiet girls or we'll never do this again". . .
They never did it at all, of course. Dawn was never really there, and her father never really cared and her mother. . .
It doesn't matter. Buffy can't even find the Los Angeles she remembers. One morning, restless after a night's patrol, she goes looking. Old Hemery High School is gone -- nothing as dramatic as what she did to the gym. Just routine upgrades, and scheduled demolition. The old school stood in prime real estate; in its place are a couple McMansions.
She takes the busline to the road she thinks she lived in, except there's a Bed Bath and Beyond where the house should have been. The intersection has a new name. She thinks that she might have the crossstreet wrong, but she walks down past a Target and a Michael's Craft Shop, a Panera bread company, and approximately twelve Starbucks. She's on her tenth block and her third skinny latte, when the area finally starts to look residential. So maybe she had the number wrong and the cross-street, and in fact, the first house she sees looks like the one she remembers. But so does the second -- slightly different, but the same -- so does the third, and so on. She's about to give up, reaching for the cell phone to call Dawn and ask, when she's seized by a sinking feeling. Maybe it's not the number that's wrong; maybe it's not the landscape that has changed. Maybe the house was never there. Maybe nothing is the way she remembers it. She stops abruptly and gets sick in someone's very nice cactus garden. She takes off before someone calls the cops.
Another hour on the bus and she's slumping back through the kitchen of the youth home. Anne, scraping the last unsalvageable bits of breakfast into the garbage, begins a cheerful greeting that changes into "Buffy, you look awful!"
"Spent the morning looking for my childhood," she mumbles, around a hard bit of bagel. "Don't ever try that. Depressing."
Anne shakes her head. "You're telling me?" Buffy immediately feels guilty, because she doesn't know anything about Anne's background, except that she was a runaway desperate enough to become a vampire groupie and, very nearly, an underworld slave.
"I'm sorry," Buffy says. "Look, instead of trudging around feeling sorry for myself, I should be. . .Is there anything I can do today to help you out?"
"Actually," Anne shook her head. "I'm planning to take it easy. Once I've got this mess cleared up, and I've done a little shopping --"
"Shopping," Buffy repeats, then hugs her. "Anne, you're a genius."
Everything might have changed in the Los Angeles she knew, but Century City is still standing. Buffy still has one of the Immortal's credit cards. She has vowed only to use it for special occasions, but at the moment, it feels really special. They have to admit that they can't see much use for $300 Ray-Ban sunglasses or Coach luggage, in current circumstances. But a practical pair of slaying shoes for Buffy, and some Crate & Barrel kitchen accessories for Anne go a long way to lightening the morning's mood.
"And really, the thing is?" Buffy slurps up the last bit of mango "Does it really matter whether we exist, or if anything we remember actually happened?"
"Reality is overrated." She lifts her plastic cup and they click them together. Then she straightens and nudges Buffy. "Don't look now, but there, over by Ben and Jerry's. Isn't that John Stamos?"
Buffy ought to feel at home in Los Angeles. It is her home, or it was, for fifteen years. But that was an innocent city -- lawns with sprinklers, family drives to the pier, to Disneyland, up Sunset. Buffy and Dawn in the back of the car, kicking the seat, chanting for her father to drive around the block again, so they could pass under the palm trees, so Buffy could prove to Dawn that was really Tom Cruise walking his dog in the park. Her mother saying "Keep it down, just be quiet, quiet girls or we'll never do this again". . .
They never did it at all, of course. Dawn was never really there, and her father never really cared and her mother. . .
It doesn't matter. Buffy can't even find the Los Angeles she remembers. One morning, restless after a night's patrol, she goes looking. Old Hemery High School is gone -- nothing as dramatic as what she did to the gym. Just routine upgrades, and scheduled demolition. The old school stood in prime real estate; in its place are a couple McMansions.
She takes the busline to the road she thinks she lived in, except there's a Bed Bath and Beyond where the house should have been. The intersection has a new name. She thinks that she might have the crossstreet wrong, but she walks down past a Target and a Michael's Craft Shop, a Panera bread company, and approximately twelve Starbucks. She's on her tenth block and her third skinny latte, when the area finally starts to look residential. So maybe she had the number wrong and the cross-street, and in fact, the first house she sees looks like the one she remembers. But so does the second -- slightly different, but the same -- so does the third, and so on. She's about to give up, reaching for the cell phone to call Dawn and ask, when she's seized by a sinking feeling. Maybe it's not the number that's wrong; maybe it's not the landscape that has changed. Maybe the house was never there. Maybe nothing is the way she remembers it. She stops abruptly and gets sick in someone's very nice cactus garden. She takes off before someone calls the cops.
Another hour on the bus and she's slumping back through the kitchen of the youth home. Anne, scraping the last unsalvageable bits of breakfast into the garbage, begins a cheerful greeting that changes into "Buffy, you look awful!"
"Spent the morning looking for my childhood," she mumbles, around a hard bit of bagel. "Don't ever try that. Depressing."
Anne shakes her head. "You're telling me?" Buffy immediately feels guilty, because she doesn't know anything about Anne's background, except that she was a runaway desperate enough to become a vampire groupie and, very nearly, an underworld slave.
"I'm sorry," Buffy says. "Look, instead of trudging around feeling sorry for myself, I should be. . .Is there anything I can do today to help you out?"
"Actually," Anne shook her head. "I'm planning to take it easy. Once I've got this mess cleared up, and I've done a little shopping --"
"Shopping," Buffy repeats, then hugs her. "Anne, you're a genius."
Everything might have changed in the Los Angeles she knew, but Century City is still standing. Buffy still has one of the Immortal's credit cards. She has vowed only to use it for special occasions, but at the moment, it feels really special. They have to admit that they can't see much use for $300 Ray-Ban sunglasses or Coach luggage, in current circumstances. But a practical pair of slaying shoes for Buffy, and some Crate & Barrel kitchen accessories for Anne go a long way to lightening the morning's mood.
"And really, the thing is?" Buffy slurps up the last bit of mango "Does it really matter whether we exist, or if anything we remember actually happened?"
"Reality is overrated." She lifts her plastic cup and they click them together. Then she straightens and nudges Buffy. "Don't look now, but there, over by Ben and Jerry's. Isn't that John Stamos?"