Posterity

Participants:

delilah_icon.gif sable_icon.gif

Also featuring:

baby-walter_icon.gif

Scene Title Posterity
Synopsis Sable makes a bid for the future on a rainy day.
Date May 30, 2011

Brooklyn - Manhattan Beach


Most of the trip was made safe within the confines of an air conditioned car. Windshield wipers need to be deployed when the dirty cotton sky begin to rain down on the summerhot streets of Brooklyn, and for the stroll Sable seems so set upon taking on this, of all days, muggy as anything, they'll need umbrella's, too, as well as a rainshield for the stroller.

And a leash, for dogs are welcome in New York's city parks, Manhattan Beach included. The whole population of 12 Holly Place makes its way to the boardwalk, first passing under lightly dripping branches, the wet gravel crunch of footsteps, pawprints and wheel divots making an odd rhapsody with the susserance of rain on wind-shivered leaves.

It's warm, making a near-rainforest of the place, and underneath the shadow of her little yellow umbrella Sable is in her lifestyle uniform of tanktop and cargo pants, some pockets more laden than others. She keeps hustling ahead, then turning grinning and ushering. "Come on," she'll urge. She's being pulled, out towards the sea, which stands at the end of the path, boardwalk framed by trunks, steel grey tumult of sea and sky hemmed in by overhanging branches.

With the dog either with Sable or tied to the side of the stroller, Delilah doesn't need to worry about him; Samson is his own man, so to speak, capable of keeping alongside. He appreciates the dribbling rain in the heat, even if he does have a very short coat. His wide mouth hangs open, tongue lolling about and into the stroller when he leans in to investigate Walter's state. Everything is still good! Carry on. He is quite dutiful about this.

Delilah has the hood of the stroller up, and thankfully the cooling rain is not heavy enough that she needs to worry about it sheeting under that. Enough water to drip over the ledge where the boy can see it. His mother is under her own umbrella, which is white, and spotted with flowers. Her button-up dress is a safari green, matching the color of cut grass left to the street.

"Are we actually going somewhere? Or is this going to turn into a Slenderman encounter?" Samson would probably eat Slenderman, but that is neither here nor there.

"We're almost there," Sable insists. She dips over to transfer Samson's leash from pram to hand, running up ahead and out onto the sandy planks of the boardwalk, overlooking the sloping beach with it strewn dunes and tufts of green. The rainfall has cratered the sand, speckling it, and as it falls further out, onto the sea itself, it gives the rough skin of the water goosebumps.

Sable tethers Samson's lead on one of the boardwalk railing posts, dipping down to give the hound a scratch behind the ears, some small payment for a pause in the activity of walking. Standing straight, she faces Delilah, waiting for the gentle pacing of the stroller to catch up with her eager stride. "It ain't no place particular, or not jus'," Sable assures Delilah, "it's a finer thing. A moment is what we're comin' 'pon."

The big dog takes this running as a signal, and if Sable hadn't stopped he might just lope onward and drag her along for the ride. Thankfully, he doesn't, or Dee might need to undergo a daring rescue. Delilah's hair blows a bit in the seabreeze that the beach offers, wrinkling her nose at a spackle of rainwater blowing into her cheeks. Walter doesn't seem to mind, squinting his eyes and wiping his hands at his face when the sensation comes.

Brown eyes study Sable carefully, nearly at a place of suspicion. Usually these kinds of things are benevolent, though they might be due for one gone awry. Hmmm. "A moment? How so?" Dee forms her mouth around the words to draw them out, glancing around as if she could find whatever Sable is on about. "Meteor falling to earth?" Wild guess, can you tell?

Sable sets a foot on the middle bar of the railing and draws herself up onto the upper plank, sidestepping and turning so she can perch, like her abandoned name's namesake, on the very pole Samson's tethered to. Hands clasping the sides of her shoes, knees stuck out like the wings of a sunning cormorant, she beams at Delilah. "Right 'bout now, but a year past, up on ol' Gun Hill, yer walkin' through th' door. Pretty as a picture, in dark blue. And with him," her yellow gaze slides down to Walter, "jus' barely showin' on y'."

The diminutive woman rises, balanced on her heels, borrowing the wooden prop in order to compensate for the slightness of her stature. Being short is tough, you know, for a gal like her. Gotta act ten times taller, just to compensate. "And here we are now, a year later, by th' endless horizon 'n' th' grand ol' sea," she sets her hands on her hips and bends at the waist to address Delilah with a wide smile. "A year gone, now, darlin', and it got me thinkin', 'bout the picture we found, 'bout that there future what could be. Y'all sittin' f'r a photo, you 'n' yer, grown some. How same picture could be snapped, some years further down th' line."

Her head tilts, birdishly. "And I was thinkin'- why jus' you 'n' he on yer lonesome? I see the picture and I figure- where 'm I? Wasn't so, you 'n' me, when and where that picture came from. But this is us, 'n' this is our here 'n' our now, 'n' it's our future up ahead. So-"

She digs into her pants pocket and pulls out a little digital camera. Some new purchase from the profits of her process serving, no doubt. "Thinkin' mebbe it's time we left somethin' f'r posterity. Start writin' our history a little. Whaddya say?"

Delilah watches Sable clamber around like a pan-creature at first, looking curious in the way one might if they see a squirrel hopping through the grass. What is it doing? the redhead stares for a few moments, looking continually dubious until Sable actually starts to speak. It is then that she purses her lips into a smile and puts her hands on her hips. So it's like that, is it?

Her eyebrows tilt up with concern when Sable stands up on the railing pillar, and Dee almost wants to reach up and pull her down. "You're right. It'd be nice to take a picture of all of us. But it's raining, you dingleberry. And you're gonna slip'n fall if you're not careful. I'm not going to splint anything you break, I'm gonna make you walk to the car like that." Tough love, darlin'. Maybe she is practicing for Walter later on.

"I'll do a picture, but it'll look like we're a few decades behind- and damp, maybe." While she was fitting into sternness, it doesn't last forever, and dissipates with a stark giggle in no time. "Where do you want us?"

"Sure it's rainin'! Only love can make it rain, darlin'," Sable intones, "like the beach gets kissed by th' sea."

But fine, fine, Sable hops down to the boardwalk, landing half-catlike (on two legs rather than all fours), and lifts the camera to her face to peer at it. How does this thing work again? She grins sheepishly at Delilah, and sticks out her arm, camera offered. "Y'all mind settin' this thing up? Can't make heads or tails - damned instruction booklit was awful dull t' try 'n' suss out."

Her head turns from side to side, and then she untethers Samson and guides him over to a corner in the boardwalk's railing, where wood runs out and gives way to sand and the long, waving line of the water's edge, half horizon, half city. "Over here. Mebbe set that thing over that thing," she gestures towards her former perch. She squints at Samson. "Siddown, dog. Pose proper-like."

"Aww, that's such a cute phrase…" Delilah says this out loud on accident, caught between lines of thought and dropped out like a too full wheelbarrow. She puts the parking brake onto the stroller after moving it over to where Sable points out, and then takes the camera when Sable offers it, pointing some things out to her. "Zoom button, picture button. The timer is on the menu-" Good hands with tech, looks like. Dee leans over to show Sable the three button process for the timer, presuming she wants in the picture. "Don't spin the dial, that is for other types of pictures."

Samson, though instructed, lays himself down on the edge of the walk, flopping over and rubbing his nose in the sand, paws dragging him a few inches onto it. Delilah is too busy taking the camera over to the perch to notice, and Walter is kicking his feet inside the seat. What's goin'on? Lemme up! I have to see.

Sable watches the operation and tries to commit it to memory, though she is sometimes distracted a bit, taking in the motions and not their significance - symptomatic of her strange little gift. In this case, at least, Dee is taking care of it. Sable's smile is crooked with relief, and she gives Samson a sidelong look, only to find he's got his own ideas. "Hey, whatall d' y' think yer doin', hound?" she says, "gettin' all sandy b'fore a family-type photo? For shame."

But what is she gonna do about it? The best photos are candid anyhow. Sable leans over the stroller and speaks to Walter in a low, confidential tone. "Thanks f'r hoofin' it out here, 'n' bearin' out th' rain. 'ppreciate it, honest."

Sable grins at Delilah and gives the camera a wave. "Howzit look?"

Samson sits up, rattling his skull and sneezing heavily. He goes to lay down again, but decides otherwise and stands up to shake his shoulders. He folds his haunches a moment later, as if waitinf to see if Sable wants to fuss with the sand on his face. Walter looks between the smiling dog and whispering girl, putting his fingers in his mouth while he stares up at Sable. No problem. Right?

"Ummm…" Delilah vocalizes her concentration, perching the camera on the rail and leaning across it to look at the finder screen on the back. Hopefully she doesn't cut off her own head because she set the camera too close to where Sable stops. "There. Looks good. I'm gonna wait til the clouds move a little bit, and then we have thirty seconds. There'll be a blinker."

Oh, man, so she needs to get ready for the shoot. Sable tries to find a good way to pose, moving from weight shift to weight shift before giving a crooked smile. "Guess I don't gotta pick a pose yet, eh? Not 'til yer here. Jesus, thirty seconds? That's too much 'n' too little, both!" She glances down at the sandy Samson, but offers no assistance. If that's how he wants history to remember him, so be it! A sandy mutt he'll forever be.

Sable tips her chin upwards, checking the sky, trying to judge when Dee will be starting the countdown. "Think- think we got a clear patch, might swing over us real shortly…"

Delilah looks up at the cloudy off-blue color of the sky; it contrasts with the sand, for the most part, and the clouds over the seashore in the distance have freckled themselves with white.

The wind moves things along at a decent clip, and before long Delilah is pressing down on the button and making sure the camera stays put before she scampers away from it and back to Sable, the Stroller, and the Sandy Mutt. Dee gives her dog a small glower before she makes sure Walter doesn't cover up his face. Thirty seconds goes faster when you are primping-

-so when the redhead hooks her arm around Sable's back, it is a bit hurried even as she watches the camera's red light begin to blink its intervals faster. They have enough time to put on smiling faces under umbrellas before it goes into a flicker, and the fill flash and shutter click off to take the picture.

The flash catches them, and the moment after their smiling faces have been captured beneath those protective umbrellas, Sable turns to plant a kiss on Dee's cheek, a moment set a hearbeat behind inscription. Her own arm, perched so her hand rests high on Delilah's waist, gives the taller woman a small squeeze. "Thankee kind, darlin'," she says, her umbrella bumping against Dee's, "I'ma keep a copy in my wallet, so's each time I reach f'r my money, I'll see whatall it can't never buy."

"And if you're about to buy something silly, you'll hear me telling you not to~." Delilah sing-songs and leans over to kiss her way into Sable's messy hair. "Thanks for dragging me out here for it. Better than me trying to drag you to a Sears Photo or something, right?" Can you just imagine?

Walter lets out a noise, hands grabbing onto his feet and tugging fruitlessly at little shoes. "I don't think I'd want to risk putting him in a little suit, either." Gingers in dress clothes too? Eesh.

"Gal, y'all already are half my goddamn conscience," Sable quips, smile crooked at the kiss. She pads forward to snatch the camera before it gets much wetter, dodging back and offering it up to Dee. "Le's see it," she urges, "how do we take a look at it on this here screen?" Not terrifically tech savvy, she still has luck on her side, and by some miracle she activates the view mode, the captured moment smiling back at them in miniature. Rained upon, under a grey sky and next to a grumpy sea, the little group may, we hope, shine all the brighter for it.

"Thank you, darlin'," Sable insists, then grins at Walter, "we'll save the swanky dubs f'r a more formal type occasion."


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