Try and Open Your Eyes

Who: Alyson and Zhen
Where: Fontaine Park
When: Early evening

Alyson had left Maddy in her apartment so the younger girl could get some rest under the very capable care of Rabbit the Second. With the weather, visiting the park was an unreasonable choice for most, but it had made sense to Alyson who was currently at the empty fountain, sitting on the edge with an umbrella in hand. The fountain was one of the many inanimate objects in the city that Alyson had a 'friendship' with. She extended the umbrella over as much of the fountain as she could while still covering herself.

"Sounds interesting," she mused, midway in conversation with the fountain. "I haven't met any such men recently, but he sounds quite unpleasant. I would be furious if someone just tapped their ashes on me and went about his business." It was gossip, which she felt guilty for indulging in at times, but the man was nameless (well, she'd been given a name but the man wasn't real, and therefore, no true harm was done). Then, she changed the topic, leaning down to undo the laces of her boots, pulling one off and wiggling her toes.

"Do these look blue to you? I'm worried they'll fall off, though I suppose as long as it isn't the big one, I'll manage. One or two little toes, and I'll still be standing, but were I to lose the big toe, I'd be all off balance."

Zhen was out walking around, generally looking to see if anything interesting caught her attention. As it happened, someone did. A young girl, who seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be having a full fledged conversation with the fountain in the park. Granted, she wasn't speaking for the fountain, but it was quite clear that the fountain was in fact in the conversation, even if no responses were heard. When the girl took her boot off, Zhen walked up closer, hearing what she had to say, and she peered critically at her foot. "Pardon me, I don't want to interrupt your conversation, but they do look a little off color. Of course, blue isn't quite the color that's most dangerous. You need to worry when they're white."

Interruptions, when they weren't rude, never phased Alyson. "White, you say?" She looked at her own foot, studying it. Being naturally pale, it occurred to her that her toes were always white. "How white? Is this white?" She wiggled them again, a frown on her lips. "I don't know what I'd do without my toes." Were toes something that could be transferred? If she lost her own, would it be fair to 'borrow' toes from one of the bodies she disposed of. She'd ask before taking, of course. She had more questions to ask -- how did Zhen know so much about toes? And colors? Did blue come before white?

"Well, you would have a hard time wiggling them." Zhen said. "But white because there's no flowing blood in them anymore. I would recommend if you're concerned about the loss of toes, that we find someplace to be indoors. It's rather cold, and limb amputation is never pleasant. They don't fall off on their own, you know. They just stay there, dead, connected to your person, and someone has to come and snip, snip, snip them off, so that death doesn't infect the rest of you. I assure you, it's something best avoided."

Alyson slipped her boot back on. This girl was undoubtedly right. After the shoe was once again laced, she stood up. "I would imagine it's most unpleasant." If they weren't cut off, she wouldn't need to borrow more, but she didn't exactly want death to spread to the rest of her either. "Goodbye," she said to the fountain, giving it a small wave, before she looked back to Zhen and stepped forward, offering to share her umbrella. "Where should we go?" It didn't phase her that she didn't know this girl (or even the girl's name). Names, she often found, were trivial. To her, they expressed very little about a person.

Zhen thought about it for a few moments, then chose a direction. "This way." she said, walking along. "And who might you be?" she asked, curious. Sometimes she could go for ages without asking for a name, but other times she wanted to know. Girls who spoke to inatimate objects were on her list of people she wanted to know the name of. She also did in fact walk while under the umbrella, since she didn't fancy getting sick.

"Alyson. Alyson Walker," Alyson proudly introduced, feeling slightly empty without her sidekick rabbit to introduce as well. His absence was for a good cause, though, as he was caring for someone that Alyson regarded as a friend (whether or not Maddy thought the same way). "Why are you out in this weather, if you don't mind me inquiring?" There were some people out and about, though Alyson figured that was due to people disliking being cooped up, regardless of the weather outside.

Walker. Zhen knew about the Walkers, and wondered if the child did. But she didn't ask, she just noted it down. "I was feeling like wandering. Plus, one never knows the kind of people you can meet on days when other people stay inside. Thus, I opted to explore a little. And I found you, so, I'm counting this as a victory on the part of chance. And yourself?"

"I always wander," Alyson responded, a smile on her lips. "It gets uncomfortable, being cooped up in an apartment. Too stuffy for me." It was flattering to hear that meeting her was any sort of 'victory', and Alyson wasn't sure how to respond. She opted for a simple, "Thank you, though. I'm not sure I'm anything special." She nibbled on bottom lip, watching the names of the businesses as they strolled by. Most things were closed, so where they would duck inside to was a mystery in and of itself.

A good mystery, she decided. One worth solving.

Zhen headed towards the library, which was closed at current, but she knew where to get in in the back. Through the burned out section, it was fairly easy. "Everyone is special." she said to Alyson's statement. "Absolutely everyone. And it might not be readily apparent, but it's most certainly there. One just has to take the time to look. Or, be at the right place a the right time, like with you. Most people don't speak with fountains." she pointed out, holding a bit of plastic sheeting that was over a hole in the back wall aside.

"Very true!" Alyson agreed, glad to have found someone who, for once, didn't seem too busy dwelling on the more negative aspect of life. It was hard in a city like this. "Well, most people have a funny bias." She crawled through the hole, closing her umbrella and shaking off the water once she was inside. "They all follow this ... hierachy of sorts and try to avoid speaking to anything that they deem below them. It's a pity -- sometimes, it's things like fountains that tell the most interesting stories. After all, the fountain sees more people daily than I do, without a doubt."

"Does it really see them?" Zhen asked, starting to lead the way through the burned out section, through crumbling stacks, discarded debris, and oddly untouched areas where it barely looked scorched. She liked the library. It was an interesting place. As they reached the normal section, however, it was much warmer. Heading over to a desk, she turned one of the small lamps on, that cast the glow really only onto the table itself, which provided them with light, just not much. But then, it wouldn't do to have the police drive by and spot the light.

The normal section of the library was one of the places that Alyson spent a good portion of her time, burying her nose in books. Depending on the day, she'd most often opt to stay there, preferring its atmosphere over that of her apartment. "The fountain? Well, of course. Why wouldn't it?" It didn't occur to Alyson that because the fountain didn't have eyes it couldn't actually see. It told her it saw things, so who was she to doubt its word?

"It does lack eyes." Zhen said reasonably. "But then, I've always found objects to be beings that recorded things on a whole different level than everyone else. They tell stories through the marks they carry, they give impressions through the character they pick up. People speak, see, hear...but things, they've got a different life. One that doesn't translate quite so much to our own. But a life, none the less."

"Maybe it doesn't need eyes." Alyson sounded almost as though she were defending the fountain and its ability to think as they did, but she wasn't angry. She was used to people seeing things differently; she'd never actually met anyone who saw things the same. "Maybe it's blind, but like a blind person, it's developed some sort of... sixth sense." Blind people didn't have a sixth sense, but Alyson would have argued that point as well.

"I would say that it wouldn't need eyes." Zhen said, smiling at Alyson as she sat down. "But then I would also say that because they're different from us, and have different lives, that they don't need any of the sorts of things we do. They're different. No less important, just not the same. So I would deem that they have wholly different ways of both viewing the world, experiencing it, and telling us about their experiences." She slid her hand over the tabletop. "Like this table, for instance." she said. "I'm not going to have a conversation with it, because it won't speak to me like you do. But that doesn't mean it isn't telling me that some rude person named Mitch didn't write his name down the side here." she said, pointing to the faint traces of the name. "Or that it was crippled at some point, and lost this leg, and it needed to be replaced." she added, pointing to the slightly off-color leg that was closest to Alyson. She was all for alternative points of view. And she even thought Alyson had a valid one. She just wanted to present another way of looking at it to the girl.

Were Alyson more confrontational, she would have protested that Zhen just wasn't listening. The table could very well speak, and it was actually offended at hearing that it couldn't. To console it, she rubbed the wood surface. Examining the wooden leg, she frowned, "That must have been quite terrible. Do you think tables feel pain?" In Zhen's world, Alyson imagined that they didn't, but in her own, she could tell the process had been quite gruesome (although it added to her theory that perhaps, if her toes did fall off, they could be replaced).

"I would imagine the loss of a limb or a part of oneself would be painful to anything in the world." Zhen said. "It's a piece of the whole, and nothing is quite complete without that. Even if it's replaced, it's never the same. It isn't what it used to be. Nothing in this world is actually replaceable, even if people seem to think that's the case."

Alyson nodded, more on page with that than the other things Zhen had tried to point out to her. "It would almost be like having someone else permanently attached to you," she pondered. "I mean, not a whole other person, but enough that it would be... quite odd." Then, she questioned, "I wonder how it lost its leg. Termites, maybe. I had those in a dresser of mine once. They're quite cruel, in appearance, but I suppose they're just trying to feed their families." She wrinkled her nose. "I'm glad I don't have to munch on wood."

To the table, she apologized, "I'm sorry if that offended you. If termites did in fact eat your leg, I can understand not forgiving them, feeding their families or not."

"My guess would be children continually kicking the legs of the table." Zhen said. "See? The other legs look kicked too. Actually, the replacement leg looks kicked as well." she added, bending to peer at it more closely. Then she focused on Alyson again. "Do you realize you view everything through your own filter?" she asked curiously.

It was true, but that seemed more gruesome than termites -- it couldn't feel good at all to have ones limbs kicked until they fell off (or were sawed off, most likely). To the question, Alyson frowned. "I do know," she confessed, though knowing and knowing were two entirely different things. She saw the world differently than most, which to everyone else made her view 'wrong'. "People think I'm crazy or a little bit off because I see and hear things that they don't, but people clearly think and see things I don't. Who's really crazy? Me or them, I don't know."

It was near impossible to paint a picture to someone who saw the world as a 'normal' person would. "If something spoke to you, like this table for instance, you would say 'no, that's silly, tables don't talk' and move right along, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, I haven't said anything about insanity." Zhen said first, because she hadn't. "And I haven't said you're insane either. Also, you're making assumptions, dear, and that's never a good habit to be in." she said. "People will surprise you, if you allow them to. However if you go along making their decisions for them, then they never will, and one day you'll find yourself very wrong." Sitting back, she kept her eyes on Alyson, a faint smile still on her lips. "What I asked is if you realized that you view everything through your own filter." she said. "You strike me as a very open minded young woman. You're open to possibility, you're open to the idea of other things and occurances that most people are not. However, the one area I'm seeing you fall short on, is that you have an assumption that everything thinks, speaks, experiences the world exactly how you do. Why would a table be like a human? It's a table. And at one point, it was a tree, which is different still. You said that you were glad you don't have to munch on wood. However, to termites, it's absolutely lovely, the most savory thing in the world. Different, of course, than how wood would taste to you." she explained. "You're limiting yourself, by only thinking about the world in your own terms, in human terms, when humanity...we're just one part of the whole. You say that people don't talk to things that are beneath them, but your own perspective assumes that everything is like a human. Open your mind a little wider. I'm sure you would experience very interesting things."

"Ah, I apologize." Zhen was right about assumptions. "It wasn't fair of me to think like that." Alyson was used to people always thinking one way of her, but she wouldn't offer up excuses. Excuses didn't make anything sincere -- actions did. She owed it to Zhen, too, to consider what she was saying. "You could very well be right." It didn't change how easily it was to fall into that assumption when Alyson did hear the things the objects in question were 'saying'. "Things are different either way. You and I are different, even. Nothing is the same, so it's possible that some things are so different that we simply couldn't begin to understand."

"Exactly. Some things, I'm sure will never be understood, and perhaps it isn't even our place to understand them. A little beyond us as a species as it were, really. Just not at all meant for people to think about and comprehend. Other things are. But again...just part of a whole, and the whole is made up of everything. You see that better than other people do." Zhen told her, smiling. "I appreciate that in people."

"You're honest," Alyson replied. "I appreciate that in people. It's a rare trait, and hard to accomplish without appearing too judgmental." Everyone made judgments, good or bad, and neither were particularly wrong in Alyson's mind. It was all how people went about putting those judgments into place (or pointing them out to others). "Still, whether or not we can understand, it's fun to imagine, even if we have to imagine with our limited viewpoints. They say the imagination isn't limited, but I think that's another thing that isn't... understood."

"The imagination?" Zhen asked. "I think it's more to do with people, and whether or not they feel limited. I know people who say they don't even have dreams. Now I've cleared up that silly little assumption there, but still. I agree, however, that it has limits depending on the person. Some people never in their lives even try to imagine what it might be like to be someone else. Which really, to understand someone else, you need to at least grasp where they're coming from. Which is likely why people say you're crazy. They've got no imagination. Pity, that." she said, shaking her head. "And thank you for appreciating my being honest. Some people do not. However, my intentions are always just to show people what they're missing. You're missing much less than most people I come across, though. Which is delightful."

"It's easiest for some people to stay in their box," Alyson commented, making a cube shape with her hands as if it illustrated her point, "and maybe that's best for them. I've always thought that if everyone was one way, no matter what way, there would be complete chaos. Left, right, up, and down -- there needs to be all of it, or else the world is flat. Not to mention there's backwards and forwards, and every which way. I imagine, in all of those directions, some people must stay in their box or everything would fall to pieces."

"I believe in chaos." Zhen said, smiling, clearly liking Alyson's view on things, and she propped her chin on her hand. "Though you're quite right, so many people do in fact, stay right inside their little boxes, and never consider a single thing beyond it. Astute observation. Some people wouldn't be able to handle it if their boxes were taken away." In fact, sometimes she set out to de-box people, just to see what would happen. To initiate change, to catalyst the human experience. "I always thought about life as being something that's a spectrum. And in order to honestly live, to truly be human...you must experience things on all points of that spectrum. Box people only experience a few points. They shield themselves against everything. But then again, most people also shy away from negative experiences, and that's not good either. What is emotion and knowledge, all wrapped up together, if not the understanding of a basis of comparison? If all you ever know is one thing, then you don't know any differently. People miss so much, just because they're afraid to shake things up, or feel pain. But I say if you feel that sting, if you know what pain feels like...pleasure and joy will be that much sweeter."

"Like I said, maybe they're meant to," Alyson replied, her own smile gracing her lips, "but I pity them. I would hate to be stuck in a box. Once, I was in a pentagon, and that was just as unnerving." She considered what Zhen had told her and then tried to put into words exactly what she was thinking. Eventually, she settled on, "I don't believe in negative experiences. I believe everything is positive. Some things are bad and hard to get through, but in the end, if you grow and mature as a person, can it really be considered a negative?" Most people certainly thought so, but Alyson found that, for her personally, it was easier to go about life if she accepted that even the bad things that 'got her down' ended up with positive outcomes, even if it took ages and ages. It was different for her, naturally, as time passed in odd intervals as far as she was concerned. She lost tracks of days and months and even years at times, to the point that she'd once created her own calendar.

Zhen listened, smiling as she did so. "If everything is positive, there's no basis for comparison." she said. "And without a basis of comparison, then there wouldn't be anything. If all anyone ever knows is one thing, then they don't know any different. For instance, the people from the village I was born in, they didn't miss electricity. They'd never had it. So they didn't sit around and wish they had it, or lament the lack of it, because they didn't understand what life was like with it." she said. "Now, you take some of them, give them electricity for a while, then have them turn it back off---then you get people who want something. Alternately, you take the have nots in the city and they're always presented quite clearly with what they don't have, and therefore they know what they're missing on some scale. I understand what you're saying that everything can at some point be viewed as a positive, but there needs to be the downtime when it doesn't feel good, even if the end result is something else."

Alyson nodded, realizing she hadn't quite meant that nothing was negative. There were times when things definitely didn't feel good, and those things were different for everyone. She was the type of person who often found herself trying to place herself in others' shoes and try to get into their thoughts, figure out what they daydreamed about and what made them excited. It didn't always work, and more often than not, it gave her wild impressions of people (mostly because the writer in her created up unbelievable life stories for them). "Point taken," she answered with a smile. "Ah, this is quite the jump, but... What was your village like? Did you grow up there?"

She didn't realize that she still didn't know Zhen's name, and therefore, it was prying that she was asking about something like that.

"it was small." Zhen said. "Very quiet. A village, so not a lot of actual structures like here. Mostly it was farmers, good, if very simple people." she explained. "A different world from here." It might as well have been another planet, really, with how different the entire culture was. But getting into cultural differences was always something that was difficult, and they weren't talking about that just now.

"Hmm," Alyson mused, trying to picture what the place would be like. She imagined it was something like what was described in the books she read about such places. "I wish I could travel. I think it'd be nice to get out and see the world. This city is so... dark."

"Traveling is good for the soul." Zhen said, smiling at the girl. "Also, I think that you'd take well to it. You've got quite the mind, little one. I think it could do nothing but expand, and see wonderous things if you had occasion to get out of a place like this. Though I also must say, you do wonderfully with what you have to work with. Truly inspiring, really." she complimented.

It was enough to make Alyson blush and for a moment she looked away. "Thank you," she giggled, a nervous habit whenever she felt really flattered. "Although..." It was a passing comment Zhen had made, but Alyson wondered: "Can anyone's mind shrink?" It was unlikely she'd get out of the city any time soon. For now, she'd have to stick to the story books that did their best at trying to describe the rest of the world to her. Her imagination was vivid enough that she undoubtedly romanticized the places, but it was better than not knowing of them at all.

"Oh, most certainly." Zhen said. "In fact, most people's do. People have this silly tendency as they get older to think they know everything. Or that they've seen everything, or that they've had every experience, or met every type of person, all that. It's ridiculous, really. But people do it all the time. The moment a person believes they've reached a pinnacle, their mind shrinks exponentially. There's nothing so tiny as a space where there's no room for discovery." she said sagely.

Alyson nodded sagely. "I wish it was possible, in a way," she said. "To have every experience possible. I mean, there's no way to know every type of person, because unless you're them, you'll never truly understand what makes them tick, but I wish I could see every place and have every experience, just to see how I would grow as a person." There were some experiences, the ones people deemed as 'negative', that would change a person drastically, often for the worst, but Alyson wondered if even those were with experiencing just once. She smiled, "When I'm old, I want to be even more open-minded than I am now. My mind will grow, not shrink."

"I have every faith that it will." Zhen said firmly, nodding. "And should you need any help in that endevor, I am at your disposal. I'm always up for helping people's minds remain open, and to provide new experiences." she said. "Though, I suppose for the time being, I should be off, and you should as well. But I do hope we meet again soon."

In the library, it was almost possible to tell the time -- not that Alyson had any sense of time to begin with. She'd left Maddy at home, though, and felt she needed to check on the other girl. While Rabbit the Second was an excellent caretaker, sometimes people had trouble understanding him and Alyson was always glad to serve as the translator. She smiled at Zhen and said, "It was a pleasure to meet you. I'm sure we'll run across each other again. I look forward to it if we do."