Religion Saves, I Spend

[Moonlucent]

“He had three fingers. I couldn’t help notice, you know. . . He was shaking hands with stranger on the corner.”

The beanbag chair make a terrible noise of fake leather as the young girl sat within it moved one leg over the other, in a continued effort to get comfortable in a chair of that nature while wearing a skirt. The blonde woman, with highlights that had gone out of style with 90210, across from her sat in a similar chair, though unmoving but for an absent star as a large pad of paper on which she was drawing constant.

The young woman continued. “It was almost humbling, you know, this man had lost something most everyone has. . .” she danced her fingers on her thigh, while speaking, “So he made sure everyone knew, with something everyone does. Just, shaking hands with strangers that passed him. . .” She moved again in the chair, tugging down on the end of her skirt and giving a gruffer sigh. “Anyways, I don’t think I can explain how it made me feel, it was a feeling. Just made me think about it a lot, when my mind wanders. Always going. . .” She leaned forward with a narrowed brow, snapping her fingers at the older woman, dressed in a black casual business suit, with a loose pink shirt. “You even listening?”

The woman smiled a doe eyed smile, without diverting her eyes from the paper. “Yes, of course.”

The younger woman leaned back into the beanbag chair, three times, until one felt less uncomfortable than the other attempts, still eyeing the blonde.

“Miss Atwood, anyone ever tell you you’re kind of a creeper?”

The woman kept the same smile, breaking eye contact with the paper to look at the young girl with her died black and blue hair, dark purple makeup applied in copious amounts and sleeves rolled to the elbows. “It is alright to call me Valerie, you know.” She set he pen down for a moment. “Tell me about the other one,” she said, calm, returning to the drawing.

The younger of them was taken back. “The. . . Who?”

Atwood used the top of the pen to motion a gesture toward the younger’s wrist, where a tattoo of a Hebrew scripter had been, on the underside of her arm below where the palm began.

She looked at her wrist, and back to the woman. “Oh, you read Hebrew. . .” Atwood shook her head, in a gentle motion, he blonde hair moving in slight with her. “Oh, well. . . It says: ‘If I am not myself, who will be me.’ Than the one below it says: ‘Love he who tells you your faults in private.’ They’re from the Book of Proverbs, and uh. . .” She gives a light shrug with a shoulder. “Anyways, yeah, you mentioned something about someone else.”

The blonde gave a light nod.

The young woman rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah. . . I don’t know. I got these when I had that incident back home, you know. I mean I’m assuming you know, since you can apparently read between the lines of languages you don’t read. . .” She gives a quiet sniffle of her nose, rotating the small silver ring through one side. “Anyways, yeah, I haven’t felt, I guess. . . Alone, since then. Guardian Malakh, you know. It feels like mine is sick, though. . . Tired. I. . . Nevermind.” She waves a dismissive hand looking around the office in its simple décor, spotting an ornate pewter figurine of a Unicorn on the desk at their side. She gestures toward it, biting on her lip. “Got one, too?”

Atwood looked up from her drawing with the same smile she had kept through the whole session. “I think we’re done for today, Danelea.” She sits up out of the beanbag with a clumsy grace, setting the pen and paper pad on her desk. “You have a session downstairs in an hour or so, would you like to get a coffee together before we go?”

Danelea made four or five attempts to get out of the beanbag chair on the ground while wearing her skirt, before finally coming to her feet. “Oh, uh. . . No thanks.” She grabbed her large purse and slung it over a shoulder, walking herself out.

“See you.”

[Moonlucent]

The calm was hard to keep.

She leaned against the outside wall to a back door entrance into the prestigious school, alone and quiet. The solid structure fondled hard against her back. The wind moved her hair into her open mouth. Her knees trembled so that she felt she may have even fell over, if not for the unforgiving wall.

Smoke danced from the cigarette in her hand, pressed against the side of her head. With closed eyes she tried in vain to keep a composed, ceaseless breath. That familiar unusual guiding, bright brilliance continued to build in her chest. It was gentle, soothing, and all the while alarming.

Suddenly, the door to her side opened.

She took a quick and startled clumsy posture off the wall, to face the emerging stranger, her hands collapsed behind her back to hide the cigarette.

He was a tall man, with the look of beer aged wisdom to him. While his bald head and near emotionless demeanor would tell of an authoritative posture, his eyes had a deep kindness. His nose creased at the smoked scent of the young woman.

“We’re ready for you,” he said abrupt, motioning inside the door he held opened.

She stepped carefully around him, taking a long route with an awkward walk, dropping the cigarette behind her into a water grate on the side of the one car road that passed by the entrance, and walked quickly passed the man without making eye contact.

He followed her inside, locking the door behind them.