Participants:
Scene Title | Live It Out |
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Synopsis | A disaffected musician living in New York decides to take a chance. |
Date | June 24, 2009 |
There's something serene about a rainy day, something comforting about the gray skies, falling rain and glistening streets. Something about rain has always been comforting to her; something about the falling rain and that gentle sound has always been a place that she can hide. On days when the bright sun burns through her curtains and casts golden paths across her floor, she can't feel the drive to pull herself out from between the sheets. But on days like today, days when the sun is shrouded behind a veil of gray and everything looks a shade more desaturated, everything looks damp and slick and the air is cool on her skin she feels more alive than ever.
Curled up next to one of the open windows of her studio apartment, Else Kjelstrom stares down from four floors above the streets of SoHo to the way rainwater gathers in mirror-still pools on the sidewalk. It's been rainy for two weeks here in the city, which has meant it's been a productive two weeks for the first time in a long time.
With her legs bent at the knees, a spiral-bound notebook folded open on her lap, a pen scrawls slowly across lined paper, doing little more than continuing to draw tiny little scribbled crescent moons. A sigh escapes her, blowing a lock of blonde hair from her face, eyes half-lidded as she turns her focus inward towards the cluttered floor of her apartment. Laundry lies scattered around wherever it was stripped off the night before, crumpled heaps of denim and cotton and a leather jacket that she really never wears anymore.
Putting her focus back down to the notebook, Else curls her fingers tightly against the soft-cover notebook, then hurls it across the apartment with a grunt of frustration. The pages fan out like wings, paper rustling and crinkling before it slaps loudly against an adjacent wall. Leaning her head back, Else thumps the back of her head against the window frame behind her, eyes falling shut.
The rain continues to softly spray through the window's screen onto her bare feet and the wide sill she's seated on. Outside, cars roll past, splashing through puddles, and birds remain nestled in the eaves of the apartment building across the street. "Fuck" she breathes out the word in a sharp breath, swinging her legs around from the edge of the window to touch down on the hardwood floor.
Bare feet and the too-long legs of her jeans scuff with each step until she comes to a stop by a small writing desk pushed in front of another window. "Just— fuck," the blonde growls out in the back of her throat, rolling the top of the old desk open, revealing a disorganized mess of loose papers and flyers from nightclubs. She rifles through them one after another, looking at one glossy piece of card-stock after another, dropping them to the floor with a slap each time.
Finally, one card-stock flyer remains in her hand, turned over from the months-old promotional to find the establishment's phone number. Blindly, Else palms at the side of her pants, then around to the back pockets, two fingers working down into one to withdraw a slim and cheap cell phone.
Her eyes dart back and forth from the number on the flyer to her phone, making sure she's dialing it right. Once the call starts connection, she just lets the flyer fall from thin fingers to the floor, her back already turning on it. "Uh, yeah, hi — " her brows knit together, tongue rolling over her teeth as she shifts her weight to one foot, angling her hips to the side, pacing back and forth on the phone.
"I was ah, wondering about your gigs. Er, yeah – signin' up for one? What'm I going t'have to do for that?" Brown eyes wander across the apartment, then down towards the floor where that black and red piece of card stock lays. "Yeah? A'right, I'll come on down. How's this afternoon?" There's no happiness in the positive response she gets, just a nod of confirmation.
"A'right then, I'll be seein' you, yeah?" Just a moment's pause for the person on the other end to disengage herself from the terse conversation, then a beep as Else's thumb taps the red cancel button on her phone, which is summarily lobbed onto her bed, bouncing a few times on the mattress before becoming lost in the blankets. Her focus doesn't shift from the flyer, lying face up on the floor. It's not what she has in mind, but something is better than nothing.
How bad could it be, anyway?
The Rock Cellar.