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 Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:44 pm
It was a gloomy day, to say the least. But somehow Coire found himself alone once more on the emptier side of the pond on a park bench under a large tree. He could see children playing on the opposite side. He couldn't remember his childhood being that carefree. But he had more important things to worry about. Beside him lay a pile of books, mostly for school. His study group decided again to 'forget' to tell him about meeting up and had to enjoy another lonesome afternoon playing catch up. He looked up at the looming clouds, maybe its gonna rain... he thought.
He heaved a passive sigh and resumed flipping through one of his several picture-less books absent mindedly.
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 11:00 pm
Quite suddenly, a very young girl still in her own school uniform -- white short sleeved button-down shirt, pink tie, white gloves, khaki pleated skirt, white knee socks, loafers, and her hair neatly tied into pigtails with little pink ribbons -- pulled herself up onto the bench next to him and stole one of the textbooks in his pile.
"Hallo!" She greeted him happily, taking a deep breath before launching into a mile-a-minute speech: "I'm Taji! What's your name? Why do you look so sad? Why're you sitting all alone anyway? What're you reading? I'm learning to read in school but I am not very good at it yet, I like Clifford the bigreddog, do you like Clifford the bigreddog?"
Unfortunately, the book she had cracked open over her lap and was peering closely at turned out to be neither about a Clifford nor a bigreddog. It did not even have any pictures, and though Taji tried to puzzle through a few sentences on a few random pages, she did not understand enough to have it catch her interest. "I would be sad too if I had to read all these boring books," she burst out a few moments later.
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Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 11:16 pm
A little startled by the new and bright appearance of a young girl in his gloomy world, he looked at her baffled; raising an eyebrow in a 'Huh? Wha...?' expression. He sat quiet as she sneaked a book from his stack.
"I--uh---Eh..?" He could hardly keep up with this girl! Talk about taking notes, it was worse than his college professors. He scratched his head, Clifford the BigRedDog? How was he supposed to respond? He guessed he should start with his name... "I'm Coire... And um... Sure kid, I like Clifford the BigRedDog." grinning awkwardly, still scritching his head. He couldn't possibly disappoint her by saying no, since children's books was surely not his thing.
He chuckled. For being so deprived of human contact, this kid sure was somethin' he'd never seen before. "Yeah... That book's all about internet coding and junk. I'm sure you'd much prefer this one here at the bottom..." Even though it seemed the entire jumble of books were for school, there happened to be a few of his own interest. Comic books. He handed her one in amusement. It was a comic about pirates...!
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:02 pm
"Coirrrrrrre," Taji said, rolling the 'r' for no reason whatsoever except she felt like it. "It's a pretty name!" She beamed at him, fully expecting him to be just as elated by his own name, before returning her attention to the book. "In-ternet?" What was a ternet? What was it in? At least junk was interesting, but she would never know what kind of junk this was as it had no pictures.
What a useless book. If it weren't for the fact that it looked like it may have cost quite a bit, Taji would've thrown it in the pond out of sheer spite for its lameness. She gladly relinquished the book to make grabby fingers at the comic book though, accepting it from this 'Coire' person and quickly flipping through it.
"I like pirates!" She finally proclaimed after a few pages, wriggling in delight in her seat. She only marginally understood what was actually going on -- but it was pirates: understanding not required. "Arrrrr," she added as an afterthought. "When I grow up, I'm gonna.. I'm gonna get a ship, and a parrot, an' I'm gonna sail aaaaall around the world and look for treasure."
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:48 pm
His cheeks faintly glowed a pale pink when she said his name was pretty. Coming from anyone, that compliment was sure to make his insides churn even just a little bit. "Um.. Yeah internet. I.. Guess you're a little too young to know about that, huh?" He smiled at the her in a half-apologetic way as if it were his fault her youth deprived her of that knowledge.
As her attention turned to the comic book, he turned on the bench towards her, awaiting her reaction in hopes that she would be entertained by the pirates. He didn't really know what kids liked besides sweets, toys and other little kids. And he didn't want her to find him boring or anything. He anticipated a response, nervously.
A sigh of relief. Phew! he thought. It was like climbing a hill, for him it seemed. "Do ya now..? A ship? And a parrot? ... Treasure? You're an ambitious little girl." He emphasized the And a parrot, since they were hard to train and all. This girl had a very large appetite to fill, he figured.
"Well if you ever manage to get that ship, would ya mind takin' me along with ya?" He joked. He wanted to see the world too, only... Not alone. "Oh hey, don't forget you need an eye patch and a BIIIIG feather hat!" He opened his arms in a wide circle as he accented the size. "Cause I bet YOU'd be the captain, eh?" He checked off a finger at her before leaning over, elbows on knees; grinning at her. He seemed a snippet less tense now.
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:39 pm
Oh. Oh. Internet. In-ter-net. Into net with an accent? "What do you catch in an internet?" She asked Coire, squaring her shoulders and sitting up as straight as she could in an attempt to look old enough to know these things (nevermind the fact that she, well, didn't.)
"Yeah! I'm gonna find all the treasure in the world, an' then... An' then I'm gonna give some of it to charity, then I'll go bury the rest of it again. Oh! And pillaging villages and ransacking loot (drink up me hearties yo-ho!)" This last part, albeit quiet, was very definitely sung -- someone was a fan of Disney, it seemed, and probably had no idea what any of what she'd just said meant.
"Of course you can come with me!" She grinned at him, squirming in delight. Most adults (well, specifically, her teachers at school) would have smiled in that oh-so-adultish 'I don't believe you but I'm going to pretend I do' way and then have drilled her on the sounds a 'b' made. A 'b' made bzzzz sounds, Taji knew this since... Since before she could even remember.
"Yeah!" She sat up again, remembering the other things a pirate needed to be a pirate. "I'll wear the eyepatch... Hmm...." She covered one eye with a palm, and then switched to the other eye, squinting at her new companion and trying to determine what would be best. "This eye," she decided, her hand over her right. "I don't have an eyepatch or a feather hat yet, but... Oh yeah! You can be first mate!"
Leaping to her feet on the bench, still holding the comic by its spine in one hand, Taji brandished it at an imaginary opponent. "Arrrr! Shiver me timbers an'.. walk the plank!" To Coire she confided, "He kept teasing the parrot and drank all the rum."
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:36 pm
Oh geeze... Was she asking him to explain something? He was terrible at explaining anything... "Well uh... Internet's ahm..." He paused thoughtfully scratching the side of his head. "Eh... Yeah, ya know kid maybe you should ask your mom or pop about that. I'm not good at explainin' stuff..." Especially not to a young one like her, he thought.
Snickering at her little singing bit, he figured she didn't know what she was singing about. So he just nodded in agreement with her. "Yeah, I betcha its a whole lot of fun!" He was beginning to like little Taji's company, he relaxed some more putting the book he had in hand on the pile.
You know that warm fuzzy place you feel when someone says something real sweet to you? Well thats what Coire was feeling right now. He grinned wide and soaked in Taji's cheery energy. "Awesome! I'm lookin' forward to it then, little Miss Taji." The warmth seemed to be filling his color-less cheeks now too.
"Are you a lefty, kid?" Watching her shift hand positions. And then thinking back, he realized he had something in his back pocket she could use.... First mate, did she say? He's never had such a 'normal' conversation before, and with a toddler no less! "Hey Taji, I got somethin' you can use." What he happened to pull out of his pocket was none other than a black bandana slash hankerchief. Something he always carried just in case, it was as close to an eye patch he was getting to in the middle of the park. He lifted it over to her.
As she confided in him the wrong doings of the imagined villain, he leaned in to listen. He laughed a little. Standing suddenly to say "Yes! Shame on him, his mummy would surely be disappointed!" pointing outward towards the pond, unsure of where exactly this vandal stood looking down at Taji for assurance.
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 9:01 pm
"Ok!" Taji nodded agreeably. She was used to this kind of rerouting -- apparently some things could only be explained by her mother and father, like where babies came from and this internet. It probably caught really neat things, like giraffes and antelope, that no one wanted children to get ahold of. Hnf!
"A lefty?" She parted her fingers and peered up through them at him. "No, I'm a herey. I.. I think." Confused, she was about to inquire further in this matter when her short attention span was promptly distracted by the appearance of something to wear on her head (she loved wearing things on her head!) Making grabby fingers at the handkerchief before accepting it from him, placing the comic back down on top of his pile, she eagerly wrapped it around one of her eyes and tied a very loose, awkward knot at the back of her head.
"Arrrr!" said pirate Taji, adopting a tone as low and scowly as she could make it, "Me eye, I have lost it in the war." Cupping a hand around her mouth, she confided in Coire in her normal, albeit hushed voice, "I didn't really lose it, of course, but no one wants a captain who has all of her body parts."
She giggled at the mention of the evil villain's mother, and thus thoroughly encouraged, made more complicated-looking swirly motions that might have been her trying to run a sword through this invisible rum-drinker that was indeed apparently standing somewhere in front of the pond. "Avast! Fire the cannons, first mate Coire, before he gets away!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:15 pm
"Here Taji, I'll tie it for you." Reaching over and helping her re-knot the hanky over her eye so it wouldn't fall off later if she were to run about. He smirked, "That better?"
Whispering back at her, "I'm pretty sure pretending to have lost a leg would be much more difficult." he joked in a serious not serious voice.
"Aye aye, Cap'n!" Coire saluted to his little mistress and in a playful scurry, ran around behind the bench, lit an invisible cannon which was supposedly propped up against the back of his seat and shouted "She's gonna blow!" warning his lady while bending over covering his ears, one eye closed. KAPON! Is the sound he imagined hearing the invisble cannon.
Hurriedly peering over the bench, he scouted with a hand to his forehead squinting across the grounds of the very gloomy park. "M'lady! Did we get'im?" "The scoundrel!" he added in quietly. Peeking up at the sky out of his first mate character to ensure that rain would not be coming too soon; it seemed okay for now. Coire continued to squint out at Captain Taji, who was a mere few feet away.
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:28 pm
"Much better, thankye!" Taji beamed up at her first mate, clapping one hand over her new eyepatch it to adjust it a little -- mostly to get her trapped bangs out of her covered eye. "'n yeah," she continued happily as she brushed aside her hair, reaching down and taking ahold of one of her ankles with her free hand, "I would've had to hop around all the time!"
Experimentally she gave a little hop forward and, nearly losing her balance in the process, was at last forced to let go of her leg and, flailing, fight to remain upright. She nevertheless turned back and fell into a crouch, clapping her hands over her ears as Coire lit the cannon, and chirped up with a helpful "KAPOW!" as the imaginary cannonball hit its target.
"Good work, First Mate Coire!" Taji hopped back up and pumped one fist in the air in celebration. "The target has been blown to pieces! And now he is being eaten by crocodiles! And now," she added quickly, "It is time for a victory dance!"
To this end she started to do a version of the macarena that involved lots of twirling around on one foot and nearly falling off of the bench.
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