(no subject)
Ellen has a plain white plastic bag. Inside her plastic bag are several fat rectangles which by process of elimination are likely to be books. It dangles from the crook of her elbow as she pads along the sidewalk. Her exploration is very idle, her head turning this way or that as she walks without any particular aim. It is almost touristly, really, although the neat and business-like mien of her mode of dress suggests otherwise, as does indeed the very stiff correctness to which she holds her posture. The dark-smoked lenses of her sunglasses conceal the blue-grey eyes from view, with a movie star's glamour to further obscure the angles and planes of her face.
"C'mon C'mon C'mon" Tim angrily whispers to himself as he stands on the sidewalk near Ellen, though it would be hard to pinpoint his location, as he isn't exactly visible at the moment. A couple of loud, metallic thuds echo his frustrated voice. The mailbox he was leaning against has partially vanished, its four legs the only thing left thats visible, appearing as if the unit itself were cleaved from them. He is trying to restore it before someone walks into it. It is sound that draws Ellen from whatever cloud it is that she presently walks upon. Her head cants, and then she pauses: her whole body pauses, with the stillness of a forest animal poised for flight. She stares blankly through smoked glass at the partially visible mailbox. "Hello," she says, apparently to the mailbox, with a certain placid solemnity that seems entirely out of place. "Do you eat metal?"
Tim is caught off guard by the tone in Ellen's voice. The sudden distraction in his concentration on the mail-box was all that was needed to restore it, trying to hard to turn it back that he was actually keeping it. It slowly reforms from the legs up, becoming visible as if it grew from the ground. "No, no, don't think I've started eating metal." Tim's voice answers softly, and cautiously.
"Ah," Ellen says. She draws her hands behind her back to clasp her hands neatly together, her plastic bag bumping against her hip in the process. "If you did, I was only going to suggest that federal property is not a good place to nourish yourself. There is less conspicuous metal to go missing."
"Uhm, yeah..." Tim begins, his voice still cautious, but less soft. He looks around to see if he's taken notice by anyone, but the lunch crowed seems too busy to get to their munchies. "Like what kind of metals, a steel yard?" he answers, the womans attitude pricking his curiosity.
"Perhaps," Ellen says mildly, canting her head slightly to one side. "A junk yard. Spare change, even, although if you have enough appetite for a mailbox, I imagine a handful of quarters and nickels would not make much of a meal."
"Guess your right there." Tim agrees, a bit too wrapped up in the possibility of eating metal. "But I guess getting a bunch of pennies would be cheap enough..." With his thoughts now on the pros and cons of metal eating & Ellen's curious mannerisms, his shoes fade back into visibility.
Ellen frowns contemplatively down at Tim's shoes. Hello, shoes. "You can buy them from banks," she says. "You can get fifty dollars worth in a bag. If you have fifty dollars. That would be a great deal of pennies."
Tim leans again against the mail box, pulling his right foot up against it, toe towards the ground. He lets out an amused chuckle and admits. "This could get very complicated. Definitely glad I don't have to eat pennies."
"Yes." Ellen tips her head slightly to the side it was not previously tipped towards. "It would. Do you mean to be unseen?"
"Huh." Tim says, his voice less relaxed now, and slightly surprised. "Um... no. Not really." He offers in an explanation as he gets off the mailbox and turns to face her more properly, shoes turning and landing together. "Just been stuck like this for about an hour now."
"Control of your powers is a matter of self-control," Ellen intones matter-of-factly, blithely ignoring the fact that there are people walking by who could hear, or indeed, notice the disembodied shoes she is presently conversing with. "Its achievement is largely personal, but however you choose to do it, it comes down to discipline. When I was a young girl I found that my awareness was best controlled through meditative breathing exercises and intense concentration."
"Oh." Tim simply replies, his little brain putting a couple of things together that was puzzling him about her. A girl talking to herself, easy enough to ignore in NYC, but disembodied shoes are not a dime a dozen, and eventually a pair of pedestrians do notices as they walk by on the street, their frantic whispers tip Tim off that something isn't right as they pick up the pace to distance themselves from the shoe weirdness. Tim looks down and sees them. "Thanks, I should uh, should probably get going."
"I as well," Ellen answers. Her good deed for the day done, she inclines her head in the vague direction of the reappeared mailbox, and walks on.
Ellen is friendly and helpful. No, really!