taxonomites | [accidental visual | location: twelfth floor] trust our deepest secrets to the artificial lake

The sun's scrambled high into the sky like a sure-footed kid climbing a tree—it's the itch under his collar and the sweat on his palms. He raises the hoe and swings it down into dry earth, sending up a puff of dust. There's always one weed left. Sun's baleful glare on his back, he drives the blade in again. He hears himself grunt (it sounds more like a squeal, like he's gonna cry) as if from far away.

He must close his eyes because the next thing he knows his hands are empty—slick with sweat and streaked with dirt but empty. He wipes them on his pants and looks up.

His eyes go wide. His arms prickle with goosebumps; he hugs himself against the sudden cold. He takes a step back, then another—it's a white room with a bed and the covers are rumpled. Maybe he should see if they're warm but he takes another step back and stumbles over a bottle. A gasp snags on something before it can escape his throat. He freezes, goes rigid. Listens with all his might.

The tablet switches on to show a dark-haired boy in clothes—a grimy shirt, suspenders, brown pants—that are worn but not ratty stooping to carefully right a whisky bottle.

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"Watermelon it is, then," Long says thoughtfully, and the visual shows movement now as he gets to feet and starts through the halls.

"I have never been to Illinois, I'm afraid. I won't ask if you like it there: at your age, everywhere in the world is better than home," Long says with half a chuckle to himself. "Better, and bigger, and the stuff of fantasies during dull lessons, I'm sure.

"Well, right now, we are both a very long way from our homes, Dick. But not all hope is lost, for there is watermelon; I'm going to bring you some."

He clutches the tablet tightly as the image begins to move. The light fluctuates. Between sentences he can hear, faintly, the sound of Mr. Long walking.

If Long wants to see Illinois, he has only to look at Dick: that's Illinois under his fingernails, Illinois deep in the fibers of his clothes, a smudge of Illinois on his chin.

"You can find me?" he asks. He'll have to make the bed.

"I have many talents," Long says, in the conspiratorial tones of a stage magician. He will explain about the tablets later, but for now...

"I'm going to turn off this little box for now, Dick. I won't be long." No pun intended.

***

It's about five minutes later when he reaches the room that the map shows Dick to be in. Long knocks at the door and listens for movement within; his ears are quite keen. His hands are full-- a bowl of watermelon slices in one, and several bags of odious 'snack food' in another. It is all the hatches are making at the moment. He eyes a bright orange bag with distaste as he waits to see if Dick will open the door.

Or if Dick knows how to open the door, the thought occurs to him with some bemusement.

"It's Mr. Long, Dick."

A precious minute goes to waste as Dick turns the tablet over in his hands, marveling at its sudden and absolute silence. Then, reluctantly, with a stern reminder to himself that he'd been borrowing the gadget, he places it with the watch and cigarettes on the other side of the bed.

The whisky bottle is trickier: even up on his tiptoes he scarcely reaches the bottom of one of the room's cabinets. He has to jump and pull it open, jump again and half-shove, half-throw the bottle into its depths. It lands with an alarming thud but there's no sound of liquid spilling out.

When the knock comes the bed's still in disarray. He smooths and straightens the sheets and yanks the bedspread back into place.

He answers the door short of breath.

Long arches a brow at the picture the lad makes when he gets to the door-- looking as if he'd run a race-- perhaps through a dust devil. He hadn't seen much of the room beyond over the tablet, focused instead on the child, and doesn't really register Dick's attempts to clean up. Poor Dick and his wasted effort.

"There is no fire worth running to spectate at; catch your breath, Dick. Now then, I am certain you have a thousand and one questions, but I think the first order of business among civilised people should always be food."

He moves to hand the watermelon to Dick-- then pauses. "...have we washed our hands?"

Panic seizes him in its clammy hands as the reality of what he's done sinks in. Mr. Long had seemed nice over the tablet, but now he's here blocking the room's sole exit--a stranger who can do anything he wants and Dick won't even know who to call for help. He takes an involuntary step back.

...but at the same time can't help sneaking a glance at the watermelon.

At the man's prompting--and because he has no choice--he obediently turns over his hands. They're the brown of a coffee stain. "No, sir." He risks meeting Mr. Long's eyes. "I was weeding."

"Ah, well. I suppose that explains the dust," Long says with a little sigh. He waves the hand holding the plastic snack bags towards the tiny sink that is set into the wall of the little room.

"Hands, please-- and it wouldn't hurt your face to have a good rinse. Heavens, you have dust in your hair." This is said more with a how on earth did you manage that tone than any real chiding.

Long almost steps into the room, but there's really no space. Instead he simply sits down on the floor in the hall, crossing his legs into a half-lotus, and opens the first of the bags with morbid suspicion while he waits for Dick to wash his hands.

His hands fly to his head; he slides his fingers through his hair then, with a shamefaced look in Mr. Long's direction, returns his arms to his sides. Head bowed as if prepared to throw himself at the mercy of a familiar foe, he crosses to the sink and scrubs his hands, flings some water on his face.

He walks back to the doorway and holds out his hands.

An assessing look in answer, and then a nod. "Much better, thank you. Here-- watermelon."

The bowl is handed over, watermelon cut into neat bite-size chunks, with a white plastic fork jutting out from one of them. The bags, Long is scrutinizing, looking between the two with a skeptical expression.

"And then you may have these... Cheetahs, if you like." Is that supposed to be a cheetah on the packaging? It's orange, it has spots-- close enough, he supposes. "Or these, ah... funny-- no, fun-yuns. Funyuns."

If it sounds like he's pronouncing words from a foreign language, it's because they are to him. Long opens the bag of 'Cheetahs' out of some comprehension that he shouldn't offer a child food of which he is completely ignorant.

[accidental visual | location: twelfth floor] trust our deepest secrets to the artificial lake

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