Silver Millennium Soldier
-8- "Chan"
by
Mike Macdonald
(Age: 27)
copyright 03-05-2006
Age Rating: 18 to 127
Living in a house with two burned-out adults and one rowdy kid had the tendency to rattle the nerves and partly reduce productivity for creative thinkers. Whenever the television wasn’t filling the walls with boring movies and annoying news anchors, the radio was filling them with boring chatter and annoying singles. And the kid’s video games were generally on every moment he wasn’t at school or fast asleep.
Serena adored Sunday mornings. When she was little, it was for the cartoons and Mom’s hash browns. Nowadays it was for the tranquility of a house all to herself, like this particular day of Sammy’s dentist appointment. Even when everyone was home, they were cleaning house or reading books, so either way it was a small portion of her busy week where the walls were quiet.
Then the covers shuffled without her permission and ruined everything.
“Come on,” said the prissy voice. “We’ve got plenty of practice time.”
Serena groaned like a sick dinosaur.
“Do I have to do this so early? It’s Sunday…”
“You rolled over on me twice last night. We’re doing this now. Get up.”
“Gawd…”
Three minutes and a jelly donut later, the sleepy girl was in her backyard with the odd sense of disbelief in her own existence that often lingers in the head of one having just woken up. She barely remembered the locket on her chest, and hadn’t noticed at first that her brilliant new work uniform was flickering in and out of place with her pajamas as she muddled over the cat’s practice session. She managed to get a better hold of her thoughts; she was sure it wouldn’t take much to suddenly have a wildly buzzing laser Frisbee and a trashed house.
The game was target practice, and the place, the backyard. After taking an hour or more to get the hang of commanding the Tiara Disc’s movement, Luna then directed the teen’s attention to the three empty cans of Mountain Dew sitting like guests to a firing squad on the small plastic table Sailor Moon had set up earlier in the middle of the yard.
Moving the discus about in the air was tricky enough; Sailor Moon in essence had only a few hours to get the hang of using a whole new extension of her being. She’d been using her arms and legs and sense of coordination in general since she was an infant, so she’d had nearly two whole decades of practice with them. The Tiara Disc was a nightmare, at least in the beginning. She found herself ducking and wincing whenever it even twitched in her general direction. But, as Luna had predicted, the girl’s mind was sharp enough to grasp its use with little incident. Moon was soon able to knock the cans down like she was playing a carnival game, and twenty minutes after that she was hitting them one after the other in awkward but nonetheless accurate succession, and managed to catch the weapon on each return with her hands instead of her face or gut.
“Good!” the cat said, finally showing signs of enthusiasm. “Very good! Just need to polish up your steering. Now reset them.”
Moon sighed. Knocking over soda cans was one thing. Picking them up and setting them down again with a spinning Frisbee, however, was where she was having her biggest issues, and she was forced to do so with all the speed and terror of a clumsy waitress with a tray of wine glasses stacked upon one another. Fortunately, this, her thirty-oddth attempt (and her first without the aid of the cat), was successful and saw only a slightly crooked formation of cans.
“Excellent. Now I want you to knock all three over in one attack, but target each can individually.”
Moon took a deep breath. The discus soared out of her overhand swing, tilted vertically, and took out the middle can without so much as grazing the others. Five feet beyond, it arced and came back, knocking down the can on the right, then immediately arced again to strike the last one. It only nicked its side, however, nudging it an inch, and the disc missed completely on its return to Moon’s hands. The last can stood defiantly on the table, its logo mocking her efforts.
“You arc too soon,” the cat said. “You’ve got to distance it a ways first. Haven’t you used a flight simulator?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I know I can do better.”
“You’ll do better if you stop being such a sourpuss about your destiny.”
Sailor Moon repeated the D-word under her breath with a snort and threw her hands up.
“Can’t you just give the job to someone more willing? Like Sailor V? She kicks ass. Why aren’t you pestering her about this?”
“Sailor Venus is Sailor Venus, not Sailor Moon. She has accepted her duties, and so must you. Do you always whine and complain about inevitabilities? Sales tax? Eating three times a day? Your menstrual cycle?”
“I only complain about that once a month…”
Luna sighed. “Just concentrate harder. This isn’t a difficult mathematics assignment, it is several billion lives resting on your shoulders. Irresponsibility cannot dwell in this house.”
Sailor Moon laughed sourly as she began to reset the cans again. “What is it with you and always talking like you’re itching for a major Broadway role? Artemis didn’t talk like that. He was actually kind of a snide asshole.”
“Artemis is not the subject of this conversation. Your-”
“What, sensitive subject there? He dump you or something?”
The cat gave her a meaner glare than she was prepared for on that remark. She saw a glint of her fangs itching to come out and play in the sun.
“Just focus.”
“Right. Sorry.”
The last can teetered as she set it down sloppily, and when it finally fell it took the other two with it. Moon hung her head. That left can was really out to get her.
“Can that count?” she said.
The cat didn’t even look at her. “No. Again.”
Her next, more professional attempt was successful. It sounded as though she may have hurt her furry sidekick’s feelings, and she was beginning to feel a twinge of guilt for her own sassy mouth as she reared back with the discus in hand.
“You needn’t fill your head with silly fantasies of well-dressed gents.”
Luna’s comment disrupted the girl’s focus and wedged the Tiara Disc in her own fence thirty feet behind the cans.
“That is not why I’m having trouble focusing.”
The cat donned her Cheshire grin once again as Sailor Moon commanded the discus to wrench itself free and return to her hand.
“…Who is he?” she asked.
“A gallant knight from the Silver Millennium,” the cat replied. “Always knew how to make an entrance. I’m surprised he even appeared.”
“What, he’s not part of your little game plan?”
“No. Never really knew what he was all about. He generally would just show up at the Queen’s parties and woo all the pretty girls.”
Sailor Moon closed her eyes a moment, hoping to catch a glimpse of an extravagant ballroom and the dashing gentleman sweeping across the floor with some young maiden, preferably her. She saw nothing, although she did feel a faint sense of nostalgia, as though the memory had been repressed. Curious.
“He was known to aid the Silver Millennium Soldiers from time to time,” the cat continued. “We may see more of him yet.”
“I hope so,” Moon said under her breath as she returned to her ready stance and focused on that mischievous left can.
Glancing back at the cat, she found another huge grin waiting for her.
“You didn’t hear that.”
“Of course not,” the cat said. “Let’s try again.”
Sailor Moon reared back again. That can was going down.
“I think he fancies you.”
An instant later, the disc was in the fence again.
“Shut up!”
*********************
The ambience of an arcade has a therapeutic effect on the young and the youthful. It calls to a part of the id that loves to be entertained by something that can be tinkered with, yet has a life of its own. A part that wants to be transported to another world as more than a mere observer. Television is blasphemy in any land of light guns and car-shaped booths.
At any given day of the week, the ratio of Shelly’s Game Fort’s patrons was five boys to every one girl, and if you were to take a poll most of those girls were probably there for the tall, blonde, twenty-three-year-old assistant manager. The elder Babbit child could be found there for this reason on every other visit.
“Hey, Serena!” he shouted as he spotted her approach. “Haven’t seen ya all week!”
His two friends whom he’d been chatting with suddenly clammed up and tried to look as gentlemanlike as possible in that they didn’t stare at all the wrong places on the pretty pigtailed girl. Except when she scanned the room for anyone she recognized.
“Hey, Andrew,” Serena said with a sweet smile. “How’s the coin-op business today?”
“Got some new machines,” Andrew pointed to the back of the noisy room, “so things’ve been real crazy the last couple days. Latest DDR and Beatmania machines, and the boss opened a pinball ward this week.”
“Pinball? Who plays pinball anymore?”
“Lots of old-school gamers. The place is packed full of ‘em. Shelly’s patron demographic is mostly college students born in the early eighties. We did it ‘cos of all the requests, actually. It might just double our business.”
“That’s cool. Good to know you’ll be around for a while.”
A bouncy head of red hair caught Serena’s attention; it was bobbing amidst the other patrons, trying to see over everyone’s heads, and when its huge green eyes locked with Serena’s shortly before submerging, it surfaced once more with a silly wave, then disappeared again until it popped out from between two very large young men watching a Dance Dance Revolution tournament three feet away.
“Hey, Homegirl!” Molly sang. “I’m starving. Wanna get something to eat?”
“Yeah. I haven’t had much to eat today,” Serena said, then addressed Andrew with a shrug. “I’d invite you to come with, but you’re working.”
“That’s cool, I understand,” Andrew said with an exaggerated sigh, and followed with a sniffle.
He turned back to his friends as the girls waved and scampered off, so he didn’t notice when the pair of them simultaneously shot back to get a glimpse of his buns before heading back through the crowd.
“A definite ten,” Molly giggled. Her friend returned the sentiment.
“They’re both regulars,” Andrew said when his friends asked about the two strange little ladies. “Been coming here since before I was hired.”
“They college students?” one friend asked.
“Nah, high school,” Andrew said. “Juniors, I think.”
“A+ on the blonde’s lungs, man,” the other friend said, still watching after the girls. “She’s hot.”
“Jailbait,” the first boy sang cryptically.
“Just sayin',” the first friend said, then patted Andrew’s shoulder. “Besides, she’s been checking out Andy’s ass, not mine.”
“Aw, you serious?” Andrew said with a start, glancing back where the girls had disappeared.
They’d disappeared to the quaint little café seven blocks down the street, where they eased their ailing stomachs with iced tea and ham sandwiches. Serena took as much time as she could to enjoy the tranquility of her day before Molly decided to start a conversation, hoping for the next school week to have less hardships in store for them both than the week before, and reflecting on her tiresome training session that morning with the Frisbee, as she called it to annoy her guardian.
“I gotta eat healthy now,” Molly said, “Can’t have my fat ass running around a tennis court. I’ve been craving a Chicago dog all year.”
“This is so good,” Serena said with a mouthful. “Don’t usually eat here. I wanted a cheeseburger.”
“Carl’s Jr. is just down the street.”
“I’ve been eating healthier too. That’s what I mean.”
“How come?” Molly said, then narrowed her eyes and smiled, turning her head slightly. “Trying to stay slim for a guy?”
“You got your reasons, I got mine. I wanna stay healthy and fit, you wanna look good for Melvin,” Serena leaned over the table and grinned childishly, “so you’ll eventually get married and have lots and lots of children, you hang out with him so much.”
Molly choked a little. “That is not funny!”
Serena digressed, leaning back with her tea and smiling.
“C’mon, don’t get upset. You’re cute together.”
“We’re not…We’re not compatible. So shut up.”
“Don’t like the geeks, do ya?”
“Melvin’s a nice boy. And I feel kinda sorry for him. He’s a nice boy.”
Serena dropped the subject when she saw Molly was visibly uncomfortable. Maybe Melvin had made a move on her over the weekend?
“Whatever. So how’d things go at the jewelry store? I saw some weird stuff on the news.”
The hand only needed one yank of the ripcord to start her up this time.
“Ohmigod, that was freaky! Everyone was grabbing up the first thing they saw and fighting like psychotic children! Then the lady in charge asks me if I wanna try on a necklace, and I was like ‘Sure’, and she showed me this gorgeous necklace fulla…Oh, what were they again? The green gems. What’re they called?”
“Topaz?” Serena said, rolling her eyes.
“No, no, those’re orange. It was the green ones. Anyway, so I’m tryin’ on the necklace and lookin’ fiiiiine, and then suddenly I have this huge headache and I’m on my ass, and the lights are off. And the place was trashed and people were saying stuff about Sailor Moon,” and here Molly drummed the tabletop with a squeal and hopped in her chair. “Ohmigod, Serena, we’ve got our own Sailor Chick now!”
Serena felt a twitch in her temple and took another sip of her tea.
“Yes, we do.”
“Europe has one and now we have one! Isn’t that awesome?” Molly danced in her chair without waiting for an answer. “Sailor Moon representin’ fo’ tha ‘States!”
“I dunno. I guess. I wasn’t there when it happened. I had to…” Serena remembered the feeling of her heart leaping into her chest and pressing her against the refrigerator. “…clean house.”
Molly continued as if she were the only person at the table talking. “All the jewelry was gone, though. That really sucked. Guess everyone cleaned the place out while I was groggy.”
A slip of paper fluttered through the air and came to rest on the table between the two girls’ plates. It was a flier made of a thin paper covered with Japanese characters and English words, and at its center a photograph of a traditional Japanese shrine sat humbly like a Buddhist monk in prayer. Molly immediately picked the flier up and looked it over with intrigue as she finished absent-mindedly.
“Anyway, yeah. It was pretty weird.”
Serena looked up and met a familiar pair of striking almond-eyes staring down at her, blunt and practical like those of a shrewd businesswoman. And as dispassionate toward other human beings as ever. Serena wondered if she had social issues or if her demeanor was typical for all solo Asian girls. And she was dressed in the city’s ever-popular modern fashion sense what must have been considered posh in Okinawa or Tokyo, and probably not anywhere else in the United States, moreso due to the color schemes than the cut of the cloth.
“Can we help you, Roe-chan?” Serena said.
“Rei,” the girl said irritably. “Roe is fish eggs. And don’t ‘chan’ me.”
“Pardon me,” Serena said, snatching the flier from her friend. “What’s this?”
“Open House today at the Hikawa Shrine,” Rei said. “They’re having a seminar on meditation. Helps people to clear their minds and focus on what’s important in their lives. Thought it might do you some good. Y'know, to get a little perspective.”
“Sounds cool!” Molly said.
Serena waved the flier in the air with a smile. “So this is spam from the Feudal era? Thanks, but no thanks, Rei-chan. Why don’t you check it out? Aren’t you really into that Ancient Chinese Secret stuff?”
“I have my priorities straight. I don’t need to attend. And don’t call me ‘chan’! Friends call each other ‘chan’.”
“Oh,” Serena said thoughtfully. “So is that a first for you?”
The air around her felt a little stuffy for a minute, as can be expected when one becomes rattled with fear, except that Serena had no reason that she knew of to fear this girl and therefore had no idea why she might have difficulty breathing, or why her skin began to feel so moist, but the sensation passed quickly. Rei hissed something at the both of them in Japanese and turned to leave, bumping face first right into Darien. With a teeny yelp, Rei leapt back and stared into his beaming smile with a face red as a cherry blossom.
“Fancy bumping into you here,” Darien said with a chuckle. “Ah, I crack myself up.”
Not even thinking, Rei bowed and apologized in Japanese, then handed the handsome boy a flier. Serena and Molly watched eagerly. She wasn’t simply giddy like Molly was upon meeting him, though there was evidence of that; she seemed, in addition, mortified. She was trying desperately to keep a proper disposition while speaking and vented her edginess through fidgeting with her hair.
“Hi,” Rei stammered. “Um, the Shinto shrine uptown’s got an open house today.”
“Oh, yeah,” Darien mumbled as he eyed the flier. “I’ve seen these.”
His eyes returned to the Asian girl’s, jolting her and reddening her face further.
“So you’re the one posting them around town?”
Rei laughed nervously. “Yeah. It’s…kind of a favor. Traditional old folks. Don’t like going into the modern city much.”
“Maybe I’ll check it out,” Darien said, then shot a glance to the girls at the table. “Hey, S’ghetti-n’-Meatballs.”
“Hey, Asshole,” Serena said. “Mug any high school girls this weekend?”
“I didn’t steal your bag. You dropped it. As you so often do.”
“My name’s Rei,” the pretty Japanese girl managed to force out with another dainty bow.
Darien returned the bow and smiled. “Nice to meet you. I’m Darien.”
His watch beeped, and his eyes widened as he checked the time. With a general gesture of farewell, he was off before he’d finished speaking.
“I’d love to stay and chat with you ladies longer, but I’ve got a busy schedule today. See you around.”
Rei bowed again and waved as he left. “Bye! See you around!”
With the tall fellow gone, Rei’s unfriendly demeanor returned like she operated it with a lever. A moment later, when Darien was far out of earshot, Serena and Molly burst into laughter, startling Rei and nearly throwing her back into “nervous fumbling” mode.
“The hell’s so funny?” she said.
Serena immediately mirrored the girl’s jumpy posture from the previous conversation.
“‘Hi, Darien! My name’s Rei! I’m having an open house in my skirt for you to screw my brains out!’”
Molly lost it and fell out of her chair, turning redder in the face than her own hair. Rei cursed in Japanese again, as though putting some kind of hex on Serena, and stormed off in a hurry. Molly crawled back into her seat, moaning about the pain in her ribs between guffaws.
“What’d she say?” Serena said when it looked like Molly was capable of breathing again.
“Something about a fox. I dunno. I’m flunking Japanese anyway.”
“After all the running I did to help you buy your book?”
“Y’all knows I cain’ts read so good, Massah!”
“You get your ass kicked a lot talking like that in Harlem, White Girl?”
“All the hip black kids in my PE class back home were cool about it. Which was not in Harlem. Stupid.”
“Joke. Stupid.”
***********************
Serena’s greatest loathing of the art room was the musty smell of dried paint, oil, and graphite that clung to the clothes and followed her through her next three classes. And she always had to roll her sleeves up before walking in, because every surface in the classroom had a layer of black soot on it that was invisible until she touched it, and took a good scrubbing to remove from skin. She’d thrown out two shirts and a short skirt because of the table she sat at. Worse still, she didn’t know anyone in Art, and the few she did she preferred not to talk to. Art was for the schizophrenic boys and otaku girls to congregate in and talk about bad movies and worse music and how much they wished they were vampires, faeries, anime characters, or all three. Among the roster of freaks and geeks was the Goth from Ms. Haruna’s second-hour Japanese class, as black and pitiful as ever.
She was glad she wore short sleeves on this first day of drapery studies. Everyone in class had to stand at an easel for an hour and grind into a coffee table-sized tablet of newsprint paper with charcoal sticks, probably the culprits that sabotaged her table and ruined her clothes, as evidenced by the fact that the black soot on her hands when she started her first drawing was even worse by the time she finished it.
Serena considered herself a creative thinker. That didn’t mean she was an artist. All she was asked to do was draw a wooden chair in the front of the classroom covered with a bedsheet, and her efforts were one offense to the Impressionistic movement after another, not including the ones she scrapped on the instructor’s request.
“And never forget the importance of negative space,” Mr. Pierce prattled on as she tried to make her chair leg look like a chair leg. “Use the negative space to carve the image out of the paper, like Michelangelo would with a block of marble…”
With a sigh of disgust, Serena smudged along the edge of her chair leg. The shadow on the “model” ran its length in a perfect border between light and dark that she couldn’t emulate with a bent utensil that left solid black lines on either side of every attempt. Her thumb grated charcoal against charcoal with a gritty feeling that hurt her teeth, but at least she’d have something to show by the end of class.
“And don’t smudge your drawing,” Mr. Pierce said. “That’s cheating. You shouldn’t have to smudge. You can get any effect smudging can provide by properly mastering the use of your tool.”
There was a muttered curse word near the back of the classroom, and the sound of paper tearing. Serena started anew yet again.
A voice as soft as down startled her from over her left shoulder.
“Hold your pencil like a stylus.”
She looked back and saw the metallic blue strand of hair again as it was brushed away from a large pair of chocolate brown eyes, which trembled a little as though inexperienced with looking directly at other people.
“…What?” Serena said.
“It still looks like a pencil sketch.”
Serena looked at the Goth strangely, then at her own drawing, then back at the Goth.
“…It is a pencil sketch.”
She seemed to really ponder over this idea for a moment or two, then her processor kicked back on again as she remembered she was talking to somebody.
“Oh. Yeah, of course. But it shouldn’t look like one. Hold your pencil like a stylus.”
“What’s a stylus?” Serena said, getting a little irritated.
The Goth held her charcoal stick in an equally filthy hand, gently clasped along the thumb with her forefinger.
“A drafting tool. Has a pencil at one end and a sharp metal prong on the other. Like-”
She began to apply her own tool to Serena’s drawing, then suddenly stopped with an alarmed look in her eyes like she was about to commit a major faux pas. She gestured to Serena’s picture with an inquiring look in her huge doe eyes, requesting access to her piece. Serena nodded eagerly, and the girl went to work, holding the tip of her pinky against the pad and touching the edge of her utensil to the picture.
In five seconds, she’d only applied the first insignificant bit of shadow to the side of Serena’s new chair leg, but that insignificant bit wasn’t a pencil sketch by any means. With the most delicate movements of her charcoal, the Goth had scratched away the paper and uncovered another chair leg hiding beneath it identical to the one in the front of the classroom. The way she did so, it appeared so arbitrary, so simple. Serena stared with her mouth agape.
In five seconds, the Goth had taught her an entire level of artistic craftsmanship.
“Gives you more control,” she said.
It was nothing to her. Common knowledge. She could’ve just tied her shoes.
Serena mimicked the Goth’s hand motions and continued shading. Though not nearly as smooth with a stick of barbeque fuel, she was still a giant leap ahead of what she’d produced at the beginning of the semester, or even that class period.
“Now it looks like a shadow and not a pencil sketch,” the Goth said.
“It does! That’s awesome!”
She turned again to her tutor and found that her face could, indeed, smile, and had done so on her cheerful exclamation. She could laugh, too, as she found out soon after when the pair of them spontaneously giggled.
“Thanks,” Serena said.
The Goth couldn’t stop smiling in reaction to this, and simply returned to her easel and finished her own assignment.
At the end of class, Mr. Pierce gave Serena the nicest and most astonished critique she’d ever received in Art.
“This piece still needs a lot of work, Serena. But I think it’s easily the best one you’ve done to date. You really surprised me.”
“Yeah,” Serena said, glancing back at the table where the Goth--the girl named Amy--typically sat every day. It was deserted. She was usually the first to leave class, and never spoke to anyone except the teacher on occasion. Much like at lunch, with the cat and Harry Potter.
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you recommend or rate the work highly...
Your work never ceases to amaze me concerning the consistency of its quality. So many parts and no falling off yet... I said it once, and I will say it again: this is great! The way you have made the characters has made each one grow on me. From the edgy Serena to the girl-from-the-hood Molly and the ever-stoic and serious Luna, the characters make the tale humorous in their own ways. No mechanical errors that are not part of the character's nuances, so no problem there.
Vivid descriptions make your story more believable, and I like detail. Of particular note is your take on Rei, the stuffy and proper Shinto priestess-in-training. Her interaction with Darien is amusing and the crack Serena made about her "sales pitch" was funny in a teenage sort of way. However, it is your story and I like its style. Good work... keep it up!
Welcome !
