ArchivedLogs:Like a Park

Like a Park
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Samara
In Absentia	2019-06-17 "I don't know if worms make you sick but I don't like how they feel in my mouth."
Location <NYC> Guerrilla Garden - Lower East Side
Situated on the lot directly adjacent to the distinctive sleek form of the Mendel Clinic, this space was once abandoned. The chainlink fence around it is still rusty, dilapidated, and the signs affixed to it less than welcoming -- rusty as well, once reading KEEP OUT, and PRIVATE PROPERTY, though they've since been graffiti'd over -- a raised fist clutching a carrot painted over one, and PRIVATE X'd out to read COMMON on the other. A slitted gap has been cut out of the fence to allow for entrance. Neat and cleaned of any garbage and weeds, the once-abandoned lot has been rebuilt. Packing crates have been broken down for their wood to create raised beds full of rich soil, each bed neatly tilled and tended. Stakes label the different plants growing -- a wealth of vegetables growing three seasons of the year in the carefully tended soil. Around the edges of the lot, smaller beds have had brightly coloured flowers planted, lending even more cheer to the little hidden garden. Very eclectically mismatched seating has been brought in; old packing crates, chairs scavenged from curbs, though it's all been brightly painted. Later today, it might rain. The sky is overcast, but kind of benignly so, a muggy haze in the air that may eventually resolve itself into a proper downpour. Maybe. Eventually. Right now it's just humid, warm, grey -- but less grey in here, where snapdragons and nasturtium are blooming in bright range of colors, marigolds shine bold and cheerful alongside fragrant basil, delicate pale eggplant blossoms lush and promising good fruit later in the season. Flicker is not nearly as bright as the plant life around him; pale khaki pants, a crisp blue button-down, matte black prosthetic hand. A large trash bag that he's currently dropping crushed cans into; judging by the mess of them around some of the colorful chairs it looks like someone had a good night in here, last night. He moves slowly but methodically, stiffly bending to pick up another beer can. Stiffly crushing it under one black sneaker. Dropping it into his bag, moving on to the next. Samara is trudging along the sidewalk, her steps weary and slow. She is wearing a light purple t-shirt with darker purple trim at the collar collar and cuffs, blue jeans, gray canvas sneakers, and a dark green backpack. Her skin glows as if lit from within, which makes the grime on it all the more visible, and her dark brown hair is cropped very messily short. She comes to an abrupt stop when she looks up from the sidewalk, then shuffles over to the fence and gawps at the colorful columns of blooming snapdragons. It takes her a good thirty seconds before she even seems to notice the rest of the garden. She does not notice Flicker until she's actually stepping through the gap in the fence, and freezes exactly in place when she does. "Hello. Is this your garden? It's very beautiful." The words come out in a careful, even cadence. Flicker looks up with a blink and a tighter clench of hand around the bag he's holding. The grip eases as he looks over Samara. He stomps another can, stiffly bends to pick it up and toss it in his bag. "It's anyone's garden. I just help keep it clean. It's so people can have some food, if they need it." He looks up, looks around the space, gaze skipping between the plants. "It is kind of pretty, isn't it? I didn't -- I'm not the one who planted it." Samara keeps her eyes on Flicker until he stops speaking, though, lit as they are, it's hard to tell what exactly she's focusing on. She looks back at one of the COMMON PROPERTY signs on the fence. "It is pretty," she says, finally stepping inside all the way, although afterwards just stands next to the entrance. "Is it kind of like...a park?" "It's --" Flicker hesitates. His fingers scrunch at the bag again, and he looks around at the plants. The mismatched seating. He sucks his cheeks inward, slowly shaking his head in contradiction to his uncertain answer: "Yeah, kind of? I don't know. It's more like a community -- project. I guess it's not. Not a park. There's plants and you can sit here. What makes something a park?" Samara's eyes widen slightly, and she picks her way between the beds to a chair sitting slightly askew by the eggplants. She straightens it out with respect to the bed beside it, lowers her backpack to the ground, and sits down. "Usually," she says seriously, "if a place is in a city, has plants, and you can sit there for free even if it isn't yours, then it's a park." Her light flutters brighter as she gazes around. "But most parks aren't gardens. Do you work here? Do you need help?" Her light has started taking on a bluish, purplish tint. "I help my mom in our garden, but it's much smaller. We're growing tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, basil, oregano, and rosemary." She presses her hands against the seat of chair and sits up straight. Then quickly clarifies, "Bell peppers, not hot peppers." "Well. We have plants, and you can sit here for free. So I guess we count." Flicker slowly lowers himself to sit on a crate. He rests his elbow on his knee, setting down the trash bag. "I just help out. It's not -- like a job. I just -- it feels relaxing. To come here. Do you like gardening? You're welcome to help out." His smile is brief. "There's peppers. Bell and hot." Samara's light brighten significantly, shifting more purple than blue, though her eyes are still sunlight-yellow as before. She nods eagerly. "I'm not supposed to do gardening by myself. But I won't mess it up. I know which ones are weeds." She drops down to kneel in the dirt beside one of the beds, looking much more comfortable there than she had been in the chair, though now she frowns, dimming a bit. "I didn't bring my gardening things." Then she looks down at her hands. "I guess my hands are already dirty anyway." Though this sounds very dubious, she actually does start plucking out weeds. "I like hot peppers." "If you know what's what, why shouldn't you do it by yourself?" Flicker is gradually wilting forward, drooping over his knee with his fingers resting over the black prosthetic hand. His eyes track Samara -- idly at first but with a bit more interest when the tone of her glow shifts. "I've never thought of gardening as all that dangerous. Worst it's ever given me is a little bit of sunburn if I'm not careful." He nods off toward a row of plants at the side of one bed. "Do you have a favorite type? We've got a few." Samara looks up from her weeding to Flicker, her light dimming and tinging an unpleasant sickly brown. "My parents don't believe me. They think I will mess up or get hurt." Her color shifts to a faint pinkish hue, fluttering lightly. "They are afraid I will eat the plants. Or dirt. Or worms." She sits back onto her heels and adds, very seriously, "I'm not going to do that. I like Thai chilis. My avó grows them. Little ones." She holds up her thumb and index finger about an inch apart. Then she tilts her head slightly sideways at Flicker. "What plants do you like?" "The plants are for eating, though. So that's alright. Not so sure on the worms." Flicker's eyes close. "Avó?" His tone lifts, curious. "Do you actually get sick if you eat worms? I don't think I know. Probably one or two would be fine. I've never tried." He opens his eyes again at the last question. Then his mouth -- silent -- closes it. "I don't -- know. I mean." His brows scrunch together. "I guess I hadn't -- thought about it that much. My friend planted these and -- they were helpful to people so I." His cheeks flush darker. "I don't actually know all that much about them," he admits, with a sheepish dip of his head. "Basil is delicious?" "Only parts of the plants are for eating, and sometimes the other parts make you sick." Samara's eyes are wide with sincerity. "I don't know if worms make you sick but I don't like how they feel in my mouth." Her light flutters a little again, though the color doesn't change. "My avó is in Brazil. She has a much nicer garden than we do but it's not as nice as this one." She shakes her head solemnly. "Basil is delicious. There's some over here." She shuffles over to the herb beds and stares at the lush growth there. "Your friend is very good." After a moment's consideration and a few more uprooted weeds, she says, "You are also very good, if you don't know much but you still help. That's harder." Flicker opens his eyes wider, his mouth twisting down. "Eugh. I -- wasn't serious about the worms. I don't -- - think. Mouth squirming sounds awful." He looks up with a small uncertain tilt of head. "Avó? -- oh! A relative. Did she teach you how to garden?" The red stays in his cheeks as he shifts slowly into a more upright position. "He's great. And he knows tons about plants, just." Rather than finish the thought, he just watches Samara weed for a moment. "Do you? Know about the plants?" Samara nods vigorously. "Avó taught me. After that Mom did, too, but not before." The light flutters again. Then steadies and brightens, shifting purple. "Yes." Frown. "No. Yes." She squeezes her eyes shut. Her brightness doesn't diminish, though, and this time the fluttering looks more like flickering. "I know about some plants. Not all plants. I always want to know more. These are lambsquarters. They don't actually have anything to do with lambs, they're just called that." She holds the weed she's just uprooted toward Flicker. "You can eat the leaves." "There's a lot of plants to know about. Probably nobody knows about them all. Just means you get to have fun learning, right?" Flicker's jaw tightens briefly as he shifts position on his seat. "You eat the leaves raw? Like spinach or like lettuce?" There's a small fluttering blur of motion -- a moment later he isn't there anymore but sitting perched on the edge of the garden bed that Samara's been weeding, so that he can look more closely at the plant. "Do you know why it's called that?" "It is a lot of fun. Not like school." Samara glows suddenly much brighter when Flicker blurs, and she leans back so far that she topples onto her butt. Granted, it was not far to fall, and she doesn't seem particularly bothered once the initial surprise passes, shifting to sit cross-legged on the ground as her light settles back to its previous level. Notably, she's still holding out the plant. "You are really fast," she says, eyes wide. "You can eat it raw or cook it. It tastes kind of like spinach." She pinches off one of the leaves and eats it herself by way of demonstration. Her head shakes slowly and deliberately. "I don't know why it's called that. I tried looking on the Internet. Maybe your friend knows." "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle." Flicker's blush returns, but he reaches to carefully pinch off a leaf, too. He munches it contemplatively, tongue running over his teeth afterwards. "Huh. Learned something new today. Are you going to keep them, then?" He nods towards the plants Samara's been weeding. "Or the edible ones, at least?" He's getting up again slowly, eyes briefly scrunching as he stands. "And some schools teach you this kind of thing. Not enough schools, though." He trudges over to pick up his trash back from where he left it. "I should get going. You're welcome to stay, though. You don't have to do work to hang out here, but we definitely appreciate the help." "It's okay, I overreacted," Samara says immediately and flatly. "Yes, I will eat the ones I can eat." She bobs her head. Then keeps bobbing it. "The other ones, the compost will eat, and then the other plants can eat it." Her light tints bluish-purple, brightening again. And then even brighter. "Maybe high school will teach fun things." There's a complicated ripple of other colors now, green and cyan and pink, but only briefly. "I will stay here. And help." Then, after a moment, hastily adds, "Goodbye!"