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 Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:46 am
Zachary had found over the course of his first term that Hillworth had two faces: the rowdy bunch of testosterone-driven boys that were prone to fighting, and the careful facade created for teachers and staff so that they could elude the ever present punishment around the school. He also found that it was easier for him to associate with the latter, but that it was also exponentially more difficult to find a place where this charade upheld, especially as the year drew closer to Halloween and murmurs of mischief went from classroom to classroom. Zachary personally wanted no part of it, seeing as how he'd had quite enough mischief for the year, but luckily, he found at least one place where the status quo could be maintained without too much of a fuss: the library.
Email was strictly prohibited from the school internet, and blocked on many levels, but that couldn't keep Zachary from writing letters to Evelyn, even if they were never sent. He'd been considering having his flash drive shipped out to her in secret for about a week now, but ultimately his strictness towards school policy left him unable to. Perhaps it was the Hillworth getting to him, but there were days when he failed to appreciate even his own respect for authority.
Ah, well. At least the library was a quiet place, with few people using the computers during their lunch hour when they could be outside enjoying the autumn weather. At least here he had peace.
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 11:13 pm
Alexander whistled a jangly, uplifting off-key tune as he walked -- or was that a saunter? He looked like a cat that just made off with the canary as he entered the library, his whistle stopping mid-tune in exchange for a Cheshire grin to the irate librarian, hand poised to deliver a quick shush that never came. Today was great if the notes passed to him discreetly in the halls were true. After all, you can't really pull off a Halloween prank without all the proper planning, right?
At least that is what Alex believed, having experienced first-hand the effects of a last-minute decision to decorate a house in toilet paper. It was quite fun, even if the house's owner set loose their dogs before he and his co-conspirators had reached the half-way point. It also had the added bonus of making him popular on YouTube for a brief period of time.
Speaking of... Alex scanned the library for an open computer before making his way over to Zachary, plunking himself down comfortably in the empty chair. "Allo! Nice weather we're having, aren't we?" He greeted, logging into the computer and accessing his YouTube profile. "Hopefully the weather'll stay up, or at least rain before Halloween, y'know? Rain on that day's a real killer with parents driving their kids from house to house and giving miss Tutu Fairy an umbrella that doesn't match. You can hear the tantrums from miles away! And -- ooh, hey, they updated their page finally! Yessss!" Alexander turned his full attention to his computer screen, grinning and starting up a quite noisy and colorful flash game.
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Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 11:43 pm
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Zachary registered a noise, a whistling of some sort, but it was largely ignored as he continued to type away, still blissfully content in his own little world of silence and peace. All of that was shattered, however, as he heard a rather loud and grating voice from the computer next to him, and to express his irritation at having been disturbed, he slowly turned his head to face the aural assailant, his eyes narrowing from under the glare of his glasses. "Indeed," he intoned in response to the boy's banter, turning back to his typing with a brusque shake of his head. Maybe, if he were lucky, that was all the disturbance he would receive.
But luck never seemed to be on his side while he was at Hillworth. The colors and sounds of the game seemed to reach out to Zachary, much to his chagrin, toying with him with its loud beeps and sharp trills, indicating that some goal had been met. He looked to the librarian, to see if she could offer some way to restore peace to his relaxation time, but his hopes began to fade as he realized that the main desk was empty, the old woman likely out on her lunch break. Well, that figured.
"...Is there any way you could put headphones on?" Zachary asked, his voice flat and indifferent as he looked to the other boy. "I've got...homework to do, and I work better when it's quiet." Zachary could only hope that this boy was one of the few that preferred not to get confrontational. He didn't want things to turn to fighting over one's right to use a computer in peace.
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Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 10:23 pm
Alex quite liked the library's computers. They were hooked up to an internet that was a bit faster than dial-up and more reliable than the wifi he leeched off of at night, even if he did have to jump through page after page on the internet to get through the school's security.
His face lit up as the first sounds of the game hissed and crackled through the poor, abused speakers. Was it? Really? YES! Someone hacked the computer for sound!
The boy's eyes narrowed in concentration, his fingers splayed across the WASD keys and one hand on the mouse, falling into the clickity tap tap rhythm of precision the game called for. "Headphones? Nah," he replied, "Someone keeps shoving gum into that jack so when you wanna hook up, you get ABC'd. School's too cheap to fix it and I'd rather not risk getting shocked trying to get that junk out, so they added speakers. What's the point of having speakers when you can't have sound out of'em, you dig? 'sides, just think of these blips and beeps as being background noises like the simple scratchings of a pencil. Or the anguished cries of a student who didn't cram the night before."
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:29 pm
Zachary listened to the boy's speech with an uninterested stare. He really couldn't care less about what happened when you want to hook up or ABCs or whatever the hell the guy was talking about (it seemed half-gibberish to him) but he did know that as the boy got to higher levels, the sounds seemed to get more and more annoying. Sure, he could move to another computer, but the likelihood that he'd find another fully functional one was dim, and by now it was a matter of principle.
"...Yeah...Could you just, I dunno, not listen to the background crap, then?" It was a half-hearted venture, but half-hearted was about the best Zachary could manage at this point. The boy had done nothing to really piss him off, other than to have an irritating choice in entertainment, and provided he had an ounce of decency or respect for others, he would surely turn the sounds off. There was a good part of him telling himself that there were no such things at Hillworth, but for now he was trying to remain in good faith.
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 9:08 pm
blip.
The sounds from the machine halted with the simple press of the button, and he simply stared at Zachary. "Wh..." he began, failed, then tried again. "Turn it off? This is classic remixed music! How can you ask to turn it off when it's so good and adds to the atmosphere of it?! It's just... just..." He failed, looked around, then sighed. "Maaaan! Missing out on the music is like being a taster and cutting off half your tongue! The music and sounds along with the graphics and gameplay all work together to make a game that's awesome and fun to play and to just not do it is just cruel man! But yeah, yeah, I getcha, fine I'll mute it. 'til you go away, at least, heehee!"
Alex clicked a couple buttons off on the computer screen, then froze as a thought occurred to him. "Oh crit I didn't just say that last part out loud did I?! Maaan!"
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:33 pm
Zachary didn't think it was possible to find something even more aggravating than the random blips of the computer. He thought his patience had reached its utter limits, and that in any moment, he was going to descend upon that piece of hardware in a divine fury the likes of which the world has never seen before. He even took some internal amusement as he imagined the boxy piece of equipment being tossed down one of Hillworth's many staircases.
And then the kid opened his mouth.
Zachary couldn't help it, and he admittedly just had to stare. Was this kid for real? The boy must have been on drugs, and if he wasn't, well, he needed to be. Was 'crit' even a curse word? Somewhere along the way, Zachary decided that it probably wasn't the best idea to piss off the crazy kid. "If turning the music off just means you're going to talk the whole time, then by all means, continue playing the music." Brusque? Maybe. But Zachary had letters to write.
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 12:58 am
Oblivious to the fact that he was pushing Zachary's figurative buttons, Alexander was more than happy to turn the game's sounds back on. "Thanks dude! No harm feelings, right? Right!" And with that, Alexander focused his attention back onto the screen, stopping only to perform a victorious fist pump as the princess was indeed in the castle he just beat.
And then he frowned as the pixel-princess was stolen away again. Crit.
The boy seemed to have forgotten all about Zachary, but he at least was silent. Or rather, he was until he started humming along with the background music...
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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 7:40 pm
At least he's not talking. At least he's not talking. At least he's not talking.
Zachary just didn't get it. He didn't understand how someone could just get away with playing such loud, obnoxious noises in a library of all places, and he didn't understand why the librarian couldn't be back from her lunch break to tell the kid so. All in all, his 'write a letter to Evie' vibe had been irrevocably trashed, and so with a shifty glare to his computer neighbor he resigned himself to youtube, idly clicking away at the different tabs to try and find something worth watching. Not that his speakers would work. Not that he would be able to hear anything over that annoying-a** music.
Things were not going well for Zachary, not in the slightest.
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