Participants:
Scene Title | Synchronicity |
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Synopsis | “Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.” ― Carl Jung |
Date | November 22, 2020 |
The boats in the marina sparkle, reflected back up off the dark water of the bay like so many flickering fireflies. Chess watches it from the parking lot above in her Mini Cooper, looking for signs of life in the distinctive blue boat she’s staking out.
It isn’t stalking if you’re hoping not to see the person who lives there, right?
The boat isn’t completely dark — in fact, it’s lit up with strings of Christmas lights, drawing even more attention to its strange shape and color in a way that makes Chess smile. After ten minutes of watching, and another ten minutes of stalling, she’s satisfied he isn’t there and simply doesn’t care about his electric bill.
She reaches for the brown-wrapped parcel she’s brought him, along with the small envelope, and gets out of the car to begin the downward descent of the ramp that leads to the boat’s deck. After a moment, she kicks off her heels to continue her path barefoot, wincing at the sound of creaking metal that sounds loud enough to her ears to wake the dead.
The clocktower gleams against the sky and a few people come and go in the general area, but none of them the young woman that they were hoping they might see outside the entrance to the tall building. As they look up at the clocktower, they murmur quietly in soft tones, “You know you shouldn’t show up unannounced anymore. It hasn’t been going very well.”
After a moment, there’s a small nod of response, “I know, I know. It’s fun when I don’t actually care what they think of us.” But this time, with the woman he had hoped to see, Basil did care. And that meant she cared too.
Pausing to check his reflection in the door, he buzzes one of the buttons and waits.
No response. But there’s a distinguished-looking gentleman in a uniform watching him.
She’s about halfway down the ramp when the clouds, which have been threatening to break open all day, do just that. There’s a few seconds of sprinkling before the patter of the rain on wood and metal and the water of the bay grow louder. At least it’s rain and not sleet, Chess thinks to herself, given she’s left her coat up in her car for what should be a minute or two minute round trip from car to boat and back.
At the bottom of the ramp, she steps onto the water-level deck that leads to the houseboat’s “porch.” A slight overhang will keep the worst of the weather off of the present, but for a moment she hesitates.
This was a stupid idea.
Luckily no one on the other boats can see her from the angle to witness her indecision, as Chess begins to turn away, parcel still in hand, then back again. At least three times she almost leaves without setting it down, and at least once she leaves the parcel on the ground but turns back to retrieve it.
“Jesus, Chess. Get it together,” she mutters to herself.
Finally, she leaves the parcel, little envelope tucked beneath the twine, on the doorstep. The brown paper is dark in more spots than not where the raindrops have fallen on it, thanks to her stepping in and out of the protection of the overhang.
With a shaky breath, Chess leaves it behind, for good this time, and hurries up the ramp toward her car as fast as she can — to get out of the cold rain and before she can change her mind again.
“Can I help you?” the man suddenly says, causing Castle to suddenly step back and press a hand against his chest as if caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Probably not helping the image the doorman already had of him. “This is a private residence and if you do not have an invitation or an appointment with someone who lives here, then I am afraid I must ask you to leave.”
Castle opens his mouth, considering, briefly, reaching for his badge, but then— no. Probably not going to go well in this case, considering most people don’t even recognize that badge at all anyway. “I’m trying to find Chess Lang— she has a place here, but— she must not be home,” he sounds genuinely disappointed as he looks up at the tall building, then reaches into his coat and pulls out the small bundle. It fits in the palm of his hand, wrapped in a woven bag, with a small twine tied off around it to hold it together, “Can I leave this with you to give to her? Or put in her mailbox, or something?”
The doorman looks skeptical, but he does recognize the name, at least, and the item looks small, and thankfully the Agent dressed nice enough that he doesn’t look like it might be a small package or drugs or something. It takes a moment before the doorman takes it, though.
“You can tell her it’s from Basil,” he offers with a sheepish grin, before he glances back up at the sky, as small droplets of rain start to fall.
Thirty Minutes Later
By the time Chess gets back to the Clocktower Building, the raindrops on her blouse and in her hair have mostly dried, thanks to the efficient heater of the Mini Cooper. But springing to her eyes every few moments are fresh teardrops that she impatiently brushes away as she puts her car in park.
She looks up at the rearview mirror, contemplating her red-rimmed eyes and a nose pink from sniffling, and shakes her head. “Stupid,” she tells her reflection, before getting out of the car and heading to the door. It’s still raining, but she doesn’t try to cover her head or hurry in — she’ll be able to get out of the wet clothes soon enough.
“Miss Lang,” greets the doorman as he opens the door for her.
She smiles and mumbles a “good evening,” averting her face so he can’t see her tearful eyes.
But he holds out a package, small and palm-sized, wrapped in cloth. Her brows knit together as he explains, “A young man dropped this by for you. Basil?”
A breath catches in her throat, and she nods once, taking the item, surprised at the heft of it. “Thanks,” is whispered, short and terse but not unfelt, and she heads to the elevator. She doesn’t open the item yet, waiting until she gets to her floor, down the hall, and into her apartment.
Her fingers trace the package lightly for a moment, before pulling at the twine to open it.
The package fits in her palm, much like the small package of handmade soaps and solid shampoo and conditioners that he’d had hanging in his shower in similar bags. This was slightly heavier, but not by much, and had the same basic feel. It fits in the palm of her hand easily, even as the twine falls open, and allows her to see that inside is something shaped much like the small solid soap pieces that he’d had.
Except it’s not. It’s a rock. A soft sandstone-colored rock, like something someone might find near the river, where the water ground down the bedrock and exposed the limestone and other minerals. Only it had color-splashed upon it. A small painting.
A delicate painting of a red flower.
A poppy.
Meanwhile
Castle leaves the safety of their van, with a small umbrella held over their head as they walk up the ramp of the boat dock. “You should have left a note,” she whispers to him softly as they walk, even if she didn’t really need to speak out loud. It was easier sometimes, to carry on the conversation when no one was around. It was just them, after all.
“Yeah, yeah, so you said,” he responds, accent shifting with each change in voice, as their soft shoes walk slowly up the ramp. They make it all the way to the door before they see the small parcel sitting there, blinking in surprise and turning around to look back as if to make sure they didn’t miss a courier who might have dropped it off. A few people did know where their boat was, but not that many.
Bending down, they reach to pick it up, before poking the code to unlock the door into the keypad of the boat so they can step inside and out of the rain to actually open it.
A small note card attached — because Chess did leave a note — includes a QR code on one side. The other side has a few words, in a loose scrawl that’s half cursive and half print.
I wanted to say I’m sorry for how things ended. You were a bright spot in a year of darkness. Whether we have more ‘once in a lifetime’ meetings or not, I will look on the ones we shared already fondly — except maybe the last one.
I thought you might be able to hang this where your painting goes, when you don’t want anyone to notice the space. I tried to make it the right size. It’s not perfect — I’m still learning. But I’m trying.
Chess
P.S. Don’t take any of the songs too literally please. Just music, variations on a theme. No hidden messages. Promise.
The package is easy to open on account of the damp paper, and inside, framed, is a shodo of the kanji for Ichigo Ichie — amateur, for those who know what to look for, but still artistic in its way.
Meanwhile
Chess holds the stone in her hand for a long moment, staring down at the miniature painting as her fingers curl around its curved surface. The weight is comforting, much like the smooth black river rock she had plucked once from a planter in Praxia to replace her baseball as a worry stone and security blanket of sorts.
She pulls the phone from her pocket with her free hand, swiping it open and then looking at the contact list. She hasn’t deleted him, and she stares down at the icon, the photo cropped from a selfie she had taken the day they had gotten pancakes. Dropping the phone on the coffee table, she sets the stone next to it more carefully, ensuring the painting sits upright, not to be marred by the table’s surface.
Getting up, she picks up the remote that turns on the stereo on her way to the kitchen for a glass of something.
David Bowie and Freddie Mercury’s voices start where they were last paused.
Why can’t we give love one more chance?
Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love
Give love, give love, give love, give love?
For love is an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
the people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
under pressure
Chess stops mid-reach for the whiskey and turns to stare at the stereo, a soft huff of a laugh coming from her chest as tears rise in her eyes. It takes her a moment to move — long enough that the song finishes, moving on to the next. It doesn’t seem as serendipitous a choice, as the shuffle decides that Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” would be the best song to play next.
Heading back to the couch, she puts a pause on Becky’s friend’s monologue. And picks up her phone. Pressing text first, she cancels it, and instead pushes the little phone icon, and holds her breath.
Moments Before
“See, she left a note,” she tells him, even as they both read it. Castle holds the note in one hand gently, before setting it down on the counter of the kitchen under a ceramic salt shaker to hold it in place, before going to hang up the new gift. It doesn’t need to replace the painting that he had taken down before, because he had already put it back up wrapped up like a present for Christmas. It would stay that way until well after the New Year, so he wasn’t worried about hiding it for a while.
But this piece of art he wouldn’t wrap up and put a bow on. No. He wanted to hang it somewhere he could look at it, because it was a reminder of that moment. The moment they had met.
Maybe he should try to go see her again? But should he listen to the songs first?
“Your phone is ringing.”
He hears his own voice saying that rather than the phone buzzing a soft song in their pocket, he’d been distracted, after all, but thankfully, he has someone else there to pay attention to things. He reaches to grab the phone, looking down at the picture— the same cropped selfie from the pancake breakfast. Just shared and cropped differently.
And with a simple. Stardust. Instead of her name.
He hesitates, as it rings again, then there’s an audible sigh. “Do I have to do everything?” and a finger runs over the touch screen and the phone is brought up to his face. “Looks like we’d just missed each other?” is said with an amused tone— and sadly the young woman on the other end of the phone doesn’t get to see the frustrated face that he makes in response to—
Well. His own mouth.
When the phone rings a fourth time, most likely about to go to voicemail, Chess rolls her eyes at herself and shakes her head, about to push the red phone icon to keep from being tempted to make a fool of herself on the recording. But his voice sounds, and she pauses, thumb jerking up from where it had hovered over the glass.
She lifts the phone to her ear and is quiet for just a few seconds longer than feels natural as she struggles to find something witty to say in return.
“Hey,” is the most clever thing she can come up with, spoken breathlessly. She sinks down onto the sofa, looking down at the black ink still staining her fingertips from the shodo. “Jung would have something to say about this little bit of synchronicity, I think, but I wouldn’t exactly call it acausal, so maybe there’s another word for it.”
Chess has no one to talk to in her head or even her apartment, so she once again just rolls her eyes at herself.
“An unpredictable moment of meaningful coincidence…” Basil whispers into the phone, tone slightly different than before, with a little less surety of self, but something quieter about it. A softness that was definitely his own. Somewhere, she was laughing at him, but at least he didn’t have to hear it, because she had faded away into a memory of the past, something that he doesn’t get to participate in for the moment. Just as she doesn’t need to participate in this every time.
And he might be grateful that she’s slipped off, unheard. If he wasn’t distracted by the voice on the other end of the line. “He also liked to call it the parallelism of time.” And time had been something that he had to familiarize himself with.
“I— I wanted to say I’m sorry. For what happened.” He was told to apologize, so he was going to apologize.
Her tears are unexpected, borne of something like relief at hearing his voice. It’s comfortable and warm, like the feeling of coming home after a long and tiring trip, and Chess doesn’t understand how that’s even possible after just knowing him a few short days.
They’ve been apart far longer than they knew one another.
“I don’t think anyone would say you’re predictable, ever,” she murmurs, turning to look at the clock on the wall, considering the time, parallel and otherwise. She shakes her head at his apology, but it takes her a moment to force herself to breathe and to find the words.
“You didn’t know. You were trying to keep her safe.” A tear slides down her cheek and she brushes it away. “I’ve done worse things, trying to do the right thing. And your agency might even be right to have done it.” She looks at the clock again. It’s a Sunday night and Monday is fast on its way. There are many reasons she shouldn’t say the words that spill out next, but none that seem to matter.
“Do you want to come back?”
“God yes.”
The answer is so simple. It’s also said with a relieved exhale and that accent that was all him. Not the muddled one that he would sometimes slip into during the masquerade, or during the fight that they had had. Or even when the phone had been answered. And Basil was just plain relieved, so much he blinked back some moisture he didn’t even really think about much.
She wasn’t angry at him, she understood. At least enough that she was willing to give whatever that had been another chance. Starting to move, he makes his way toward the “captain’s quarters'', the forecastle of the boat, already going through a plan in his head. He’ll pack a small bag, download the playlist and have something to listen to on the drive over and— then he stops midstride.
“Make sure your doorman knows I am actually invited this time.” It’s said with a sheepish laugh. Since he hadn’t been last time.
But this time— this time he was.