Checking In a Bit Late

"Oh, thank you. I promise it won't take long." Alice turned to face the perfectly straight covers of the bed where the shopping bags sat. The bag contained enough garments to get her through a week without ever having to repeat an outfit. They contained several blouses, skirts, and leggings that satisfied the shade-oriented ideas she had earlier. It just wasn't a week for colors, she felt. Most of the bagspace went to her skirts, so long that her boots would kick out from under them when she walked. Another small bag had a whole set of toiletries and other little things. A micro-tip gel pen, a lined notepad, a small bag of lavender flowers to put on her nightstand. All items were newly bought — all she brought with her from home she was wearing.

As she began to separate the items into little groups, she thought about Alex's words. "Sounds kind of beautiful when I think about it. It's like people cannot hide who they are from you when you look at em'.. their badness, no doubt, but their beauty too, right? Oh that's all, don't wanna tell you about yourself and all. It must give you a totally unique view of things," she finished, trying to be casual about her spoken thoughts. To Alice, insight was not something you could do intellectually or verbally, but something one felt and did. She did not want to presume to know what it might all be like. It may be like being surrounded by a thousand televisions set to the shopping channel for all she knew.

"Well, this should all fit nice in the dresser. If y'want, go ahead and put the clothes wherever. I'll put all th'small things where they need to go and then I'll help you with the rest?" She finished with a questioning tone, never at home with a tone of command.

"Funny story about that, actually," she began, tone laced with instant annoyance. "Somebody told me that this island had no flights or ships. About 30,000 feet up, there are fast currents of thin oceanic air..." She sighed. "I just couldn't carry anything or else I wouldn't get far enough before tiring out." Alice glanced at Alex, sheepishly, realizing then Alex's outfit.

Alice gathered up all the things for the bathroom in a massive transparent plastic pouch. For once, she had become absentminded to her surroundings. Her measured observation of every step lapsed. The bathroom had more of the black and white tile as flooring. The walls were wallpapered with hand-painted landscapes of the island that gave a panoramic view. Somehow, moisture did not seem to damage the art. The sink had to be made of dark marble with violet specks in the stone and silver where the water fixture began. A table next to the sink had all the storage space. Alice opened the bottom and found a side of space. She didn't have a mind to organize the contents of her clear bag and resolved to organize it all tomorrow. She stood up and stopped. Now it made sense why the artful walls weren't damaged by moisture. There was no shower to steam up the room — no bath either.

Living at home until now had made Alice want to know the human body better. There was utter art in it. Her supreme attention noticed countless mechanics that happened in the necks of people, for example - the nervous swallow, the draw of air during a gasp, the angle and stress of it during a soprano's highest, longest notes. She did not watch people to know secrets, tell lies, but to watch a miracle in motion. People were art in flowing motion. She had not considered until now that her staring in the circumstances she now knew as inevitable would not be taken very well, but worse still, she would be the object of observation. Nobody had ever seen her in that context since she had learned to dress herself and the thought locked her joints for a moment.

"I see your point," Alice said nervously as she re-entered the room to help Alex sort the rest.

The colors got vivid and shapes got sharp as Alice found her focus again in the relief. "The off-hours sound good — thanks, really. I hadn't thought of that at all." Alice put the empty shopping bags in an empty waste bin by the her desk. She looked over the clothes put away.

"Thanks for the help Alex." She looked to Alex with the small strain of a grin in her relief when she suddenly realized that while she might not have to endure the scrutiny of a packed shower room, she would have to learn to be more comfortable, if nothing else, with her roommate about such things unless she wanted to dress in the coat closet. Alice didn't mind this imposition much. If her roommate was fine with it, why shouldn't she be? Wouldn't she just be more odd for insisting on her modesty to such an extreme?

"Yeah, I flew here. Y'see, I have full control of the air, so I can ride th'wind if I direct winds around me just right. It's real fun, but it's really tiring to do it so high up since I have t'make sure th'difference in oxygen and air pressure don't kill me and —" A small pause when she realized that she might go into rambling about the processes. "But I sort-of, fell on my way down a little bit." She rubbed an arm that she had crushed a bit on the way down.

At the angle, Alex facing away from the candle, Alice found Alex's shadow-obscured face almost reflecting what Alice thought, was a psychic appearance. She realized that her thoughts might have been read somewhat a moment ago. It was fine by her. She might not have thought about the off-hours option until half a year of anxiety had passed. She was excited to know her more. She felt like the long flight through the winds was worth it to meet such exciting people.

Alice remembered the fall. She got her bearings before becoming an anonymous splat, but she had swooped too close to a bird-of-prey and fell from the more comfortable heights trying to avoid the furious mother bird.

"It was kind of fun, sometimes. I had t'fly in the morning fog along the river or during overcast nights. I did not get to fly very much though. I had...a lot of lessons to handle back home. Once in a while though, I abused my powers a little." She remembered the feeling of charges in the air lining up, the howl of anger that came from her mouth, the heat and light as an arc made its way, the look of fear and anger she got back in return, back then. There were scorch marks back home that would never wash off.

"I could go to the football games when the weather wasn't good and watch from the sky. With a pair of binoculars, I could see the game better than anyone. I was cold almost all the time though. It kinda sucks when you need those cold winds just to fly."

Alice took off the cloak that helped her across the ocean and put it into the trash can with the shopping bags and began unlacing her father's old boots. The leather had been shined so much that the polish showed even through dust and the rips. The old Harley-Davidson logo on the sides had been scraped away from one of her father's motorcycle accidents. They were easily five sizes too big. No problem for a girl who likes to fly though, and they also balanced her flights as well. She folded the long laces into the boots and carefully put them next to her nightstand.

"What about you? How was life like b'fore here? How is here for you?

Alex had paused after she said "different." Alice watched intently, always curious. Some of the muscles in Alex's face had relaxed but some under her cheekbones seemed to tense just a little. Her eyes were like obsidian orbs in their reflective quality of the light, so thoughtful it seemed like they became darker though it was just a play on the light. Alice thought she saw some of the small muscles above the eyes tense, almost unnoticeably. What was it? In herself, she knew the combination to mean she was remembering something unpleasant, but Alice hardly thought too much on the matter. If nothing else, she felt the connotation of a word like "different," remembered many occasions where the word came up in her early youth. Alice could sense the thatched walls of a secret, a place where her curiosity had to relent. When Alex spoke, Alice listened attentively.

"Shipped off," Alice asked with a tilt of her head to the right while she began contemplating the pajamas in her dresser, the blouse she was unworking absentmindedly. She would try to sew it back in shape later on.