Participants:
| Scene Title | Song and Shakespeare |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | …meet in Old Lucy's |
| Date | July 18, 2009 |
Old Lucy's has a vibrant and lively feel to it, from the dark wooden floors to the shady crimson walls lit up by neon lights and many times, the flashing of cameras from the oft-crowded floor. The mirror behind the bar reflects prices of various drinks, bottles lined up, as well as the entire saloon as seen from the bartenders; bolted-down stools line the other side, and there are loose tables and chairs placed all around, though many times they find themselves pushed back for more space within the center of the saloon. A few speakers are placed at strategic places and around a raised stage to the far corner from the bar. Above the counter, an obviously well-used bar is hung; it is this that the girls working will use should there be dancing, which is one reason many patrons choose to come aside from the drinks. Across the bar and near the back, there is a door that leads to the owner's office and just inside a stairwell that leads a apartment on the floor above the bar.
The drinks are flowing and the world is good. Adelaide has taking a place on the small stage and begins to strum her acoustic guitar carefully. It's just a warm up, and admittedly since the Owner passed away, Adelaide's been practically tip-toeing. But tonight's open mic night and she's up there dressed, and ready to perform. The dark-skinned young woman, playing carefully, as if to judge the crowd's reaction to her musical style.
Darien sits at a small table, a little closer to the stage than he usually prefers, but all of the tables further back have been pushed together - a few early arrivals reserving space for a party of some sort. He slowly pages through his book, not bothered by the noise of the crowd, drink all but forgotten on the table before him. His reading slows momentarily as Adelaide plays, head slightly tilted to hear better through the crowd's noise.
Adelaide continues to simply play, adjusting the microphone, listening to the crowd gaining the feedback and judging them.
Darien slowly begins to nod his head to the beat of Adelaide's music, but continues to read his book.
The musician looks down from the stage. She plays a little longer before opening her mouth to sing. It's just a crowd warmer though her voice being almost as if she could transport people through music.
"Standing alone
Mountain stream, flowing water
Many trails, rivers.
Starry sky wonder
Lake reflecting the city
Endless wandering
Seas of dreams
Dancing tides and moon light waters rising
Screaming wind, fierce storms
city lights a glow, standing storms path
Sea of stars above
Catching falling stars, falling
Water enveloping the stars -points of hope- in dark depths.
Hidden songs and powers,hidden by the veil unseen."
He listens to most of the song without a reaction, still turning pages. Darien smiles, a little sadly, as the second to last line is sung, undoubtedly reminded of what he sees during his morning hours. As the song ends, he's among the first to begin clapping, resting his book in the crook of an arm.
Adelaide looks up. Clearly the siren's been entranced or perhaps wrapped in her own song. She pauses sets her guitar down before leaving the stage, as another act takes up, singing a rather silly song. She approaches Darien. "Thanks." she says politely. "May I?" She adjusts her red glasses carefully.
Having already turned back to his book, Darien blinks twice as Adelaide speaks, thankfully catching himself before he takes a cliched glance around to see if she was talking to anyone else. "Be my guest," he says as he stands and pulls out a second chair for her with a nod of his head.
Adelaide smiles. "Aren't you a gentleman?" she asks sitting in the chair cradling her instrument before putting it down. "Good book?" she asks trying to not peer at the text.
"Simple courtesy never hurt anyone," Darien says with a light smile, sitting back in his chair. At her question, he turns the cover of the book up to the light, letting Adelaide catch sight of the title: Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. "Not what you'd probably call light reading, but I like it well enough."
Adelaide licks her her lips. "That's heavy reading, a psychology major?"
He chuckles a little, placing her as a student with that question, and his smile grows a little wider. "Maybe someday, if I ever feel like putting in those last two years. I'd like to say the book is for work, but it's more for personal enjoyment than anything else."
Adelaide nods. "Oh, then you do like your reading…" she smiles. "May I say you're attractive." she says swiftly. She settles down, "Sorry, that was really forward of me."
In the process of reaching for his drink, the surprise of her words is nearly enough to make him send the glass flying, but he's thankfully able to stop it from skittering more than a few inches. "Just a little forward, yes," he laughs a little too loudly, clearly unused to the situation. "Can I buy you a drink?" he asks, setting his own down carefully before anything else happens to it.
Adelaide thinks "Please. Something small though. Strawberry daiquiri." she says swiftly. "Virgin daiquiri." she says. "I'm Adelaide." she smiles.
"Darien Kinnison," he says in turn, returning with her drink a minute later. "I can guess you're a college student when you're not on stage," Darien nods to the front of the room, now occupied by a pair of businessmen singing with as much enthusiasm as they are off-key. "Music major, or is this just your hobby?"
Adelaide grins, "A hobby, though it could have have been a career. I'm going to be studying medicine." she takes a sip of the strawberry- drink. "Ah, though I am also majoring in English and plan to be a copy editor as well, you know in case being a doctor becomes too much."
"Anyone able to stand up in front of a crowd like that probably won't find being a doctor too much to handle," Darien smiles, sipping his own drink, the clink of ice muted against the backdrop of music. "A few people I work with have said that if the internship doesn't kill you, you can survive anything."
Adelaide nods. "Yes, well I am just heading towards my senior year." She shrugs. "So I've already applied to medical school."
"I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about," Darien nods. "At least there's no shortage of openings for physicians these days, so you don't have any worries there."
"True." she says softly. "So um… yes. Adelaide Xylander." she says extending a hand. "It's nice to meet you Darien. I take you don't get a lot of compliments on your looks. But you are attractive." She looked at him, biting her lip, her eyes seeking something genuine in his.
As he looks at Adelaide and takes her hand, Darien is reminded of one of the first women who passed through the Crisis Center in his early volunteer days, a battered, abused victim of a shattered home… but unlike many others to come, she met his gaze with a mixture of defiance and strength. She "had goals, had dreams, and isn't going to let anything get in the way of them!", she had said. He knew the numbers and statistics, but as he passed her on to a shelter, he suspected she might be one to defy both.
He remembers her name and her face, of course, but most of all he remembers her eyes.
"You have beautiful eyes," Darien says, before he realizes the words he's saying.
Adelaide blinks. She averted her eyes. "Um thank you." she breaths. It's under a blush that's apparent even on her dark skin. "I've never had anyone compliment me on such before."
"I- ah, I don't usually give compliments like that, so we'll call it even." Darien laughs a little with a wider smile, honestly coming up with a blank for the last time he gave that compliment.
Adelaide grins. "Oh well then perhaps we should talk more Darien?" she asks, she takes a another sip.
"I'd like that," Darien answers honestly, no longer very surprised at his answers.
Adelaide grins. "That's good. So… you like reading. Shakespeare perhaps?"
"Of course; the Bard is always topical, for better or worse," Darien says with a wry shake of his head. "I prefer the comedies to the tragedies, you?"
Adelaide hmms. "Well it depends. As You Like It, was always good. Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet… the biggies."
"The problem I've always had with the star-crossed lovers, the suicide, and the mad," Darien muses, citing the last three, "is that nearly everything could have been solved with more talking and less plotting. But I suppose they'd be much shorter plays in that case."
Adelaide nods. "You're right, but Romeo and Juliet is about the young, they didn't run away, even thought they had the opportunity to do so… they could have run and left taking jewelry sold it and made a life for themselves…" she sighs. "But they didn't, they have to plan… almost worked. I get teary just thinking about it. If they'd just left after the balcony scene, you know. Run away never looked back… or talked with their families."
"Or if Juliet had made sure her message had reached Romeo, or the Friar had waited at the crypt himself… too many unfortunate coincidences ruin even the best plans, which they certainly didn't have," Darien shakes his head with a frown.
Adelaide nods. "You are right. But in a way the story is both a warning to you people love that falling in love can be dangerous, but also go for it you might find what your looking for. It's a double edges sword. Personally, I re-wrote the ending a bit. I had the die… but I made it a choice. So many people stage Romeo as love torn and princely, but I re -read and looked at it in fact Romeo should really be painted in his final moments as… being in love with the idea of being in love."
"I've heard that reinterpretation. Another I've heard claimed it was a grandly veiled statement against the role of the church in state affairs of the time. Without the Friar, they would have had to leave Verona to be married, and Juliet would have been "alive" so Romeo wouldn't have killed himself. Even so far as that he set the ending in motion intentionally, knowing that if love couldn't reunite the two warring houses, death would."
Adelaide says, "It could be taken that way too. But there are a lot of interpretations. Like the anime Romeo X Juliet.. that takes it to a whole 'nother level. with magic and trees… and a sky continent. It was good… interesting. And the bard himself showed up, as an slightly effeminate guy. The ending was 'truer' in a sense and yet you had a lot of questions when the series was over… like why…" she shrugs. "I think the story being about love, the nature of it. The impulsivity of it. The sometimes ephemeral nature of it- I mean Romeo drops Rosaline the moment he meets Juliet.""
"I wonder what Rosaline thought of the whole affair," Darien thinks out loud. "Wooed by Romeo, finally dropped like a stone after constant attention, hearing about what Romeo and Juliet go through and their ending. 'Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.'
Adelaide says, "True. But you gotta wonder what happened to her. I mean did she enter a convent, was she a political pawn in some other marriage. Was she allowed to love? I mean you don't know much about Rosaline, but Juliet herself is a rarity. 14, was a very young age, and Juliet was the exception than the rule." she pauses. "Sorry. I keep going on and on about love and stuff and its probably the craziest thing ever. I am sorry.""
Darien shakes his head, smiling. "Don't be. If more people went on and on about 'love and stuff' like you do, I suspect the world would be a better place for it."
Adelaide grins. "You think? I'd worried. I mean sometimes I guess I loose sleep over that kind of thing. Love and what it means. People and how they respond."
"There are worse things to lose sleep over, in my unbiased opinion," Darien says after a sip of his drink. "Some people think a romantic soul is the only kind to have."
"You think so?” Adelaide blinks. “I think its a good soul to have but it can't dominate your soul or else you get like me. I want to find love, and hold on to it. And you get sew frustrated when everyone around you is in love or out of love or you don't have anyone to love- and not just romantic love either- so you start to see only love… and weighs you down sometimes."
"That- well, I don't have any easy philosophical out for that one," Darien smiles wryly again. "The best advice I can give is to try to give it a little less thought. If you strain too hard to find anything, you'll overlook the forest for the trees." He pauses for a moment. "Que sera, sera. 'What will be, will be.'"
Adelaide nods. "Yeah. I've heard that one." She picks up her guitar. "Oh wow. I let them play my set." she finishes her drink. "Ah… brain freeze." she blinks a few times, rubbing her temples as tears come to her eyes. "Ah, perhaps we should start a book club or a discussion group, your rather fun to talk to. I've not met someone as into reading and such as I am, and you'd probably make a great writer.. hmm.. wanna help me co-write something?"
"I'm sure Hokuto would love to see that, so that wouldn't be too hard to get running-" Darien says, then quickly adds as he sees Adelaide's eyes widen slightly, realizing his mistake too late. "My employer; she runs Ichihara Bookstore over on Roosevelt. As for writing… I can't say I've written much, but I'm willing to try my hand at it."
Adelaide nods. She blinks and slumps back into the chair stirring the remnants of ice and strawberry mix. "Sure." she says quietly.