Logs:Change the World

Change the World
Dramatis Personae DJ, Polaris, Wendy, Winona
In Absentia	2021-12-09 "I think this was all part of Heavenly Father's plan."
Location <NYC> Polaris, Wendy, and Winona's Apartment - Lower East Side
This tiny apartment is on the fifth storey of an aging and ill-maintained walk-up, its walls dingy and paper-thin. The living room immediately inside the entrance has space for a couch and a coffee table, but little else, though its windows offer a commanding view of the narrow side street below to anyone who cranes far enough to look past the rusting fire escape. The kitchen is tiny and has no windows at all, but being partly open to the living area is at least not completely claustrophobic. One bedroom is almost the size of the living room, which doesn't say much, and the other is much smaller -- really only intended as a study or home office -- to make room for the single closet-sized bathroom. Even with mostly cheap, second-hand furniture, the place has grown steadily more homey over the months. A creaky futon is flanked by an empty food service drum on one side and two stacked milk crates on the other. In place of a coffee table is a long, low bench with a flowery sarong as a tablecloth. Potted herbs line the windowsills, and whimsical metal sculptures line the walls and tables (or the items serving in place of them). A brightly colorful fused glass mezuzah is mounted in the doorway, while a set of matching candlesticks and goblet sit on a disintegrating radiator cabinet in the living room. It's early still. Wendy's in the process of waking up, still in her hunter green bear-print pajama pants and a long pink sleep shirt dotted with strawberries, her hair bound up in a loose braid from which many messy wisps are flying free. She's stifling a yawn, sleepily eying the contents of the fridge before pulling out a carton of eggs and setting a frying pan on the stove. There is a slight creek as Winona steps out of her room, dark circles under her eyes implying that she was up late doing video editing. She wears a black sweater and a pair of old jeans, her hair still in a 'bed head' state. When she spots Wendy already using the kitchen, she pauses to consider. "If you make some extra, I won't crowd you there. If you don't mind." Polaris, meanwhile, has already showered and dressed, irritatingly bright-eyed and non-hungover despite the prodigious quantity of vodka she consumed last night. "Give the anarchist a cigarette -- burn, baby, burn!" she's singing soft but cheerful as she emerges from the bedroom. "Nothing ever burns down by itself, every fire needs a little bit of help." Her black t-shirt is adorned with an image of a silver origami unicorn, and her black jeans with an improbable number of d-rings. She's still donning the rest of her ensemble, black cuffs and belt heavy with steel hardware threading themselves onto her person, as she fetches up against the kitchen counter. "Nothing ever burns down by itself, every fire needs a little bit of--" Right in the middle of the verse, with no transition, she tells Winona confidently, "You haven't even seen Wendy's final form. She can make so many extra eggs. Do we need more eggs? I can pick up more eggs." The buzzer rings -- and then a knock at the door -- and then at the window to the fire escape, all in such quick succession it leads to an uneasy dopplering effect. Outside, DJ is not dressed for the cold, just jeans and a lightweight green checked flannel, arm wrapped around a small stack of books and papers -- The Book of Mormon the outermost visible. "I can make eggstra," Wendy assures the others solemnly, at least before the knocking starts. She blinks, glancing to the door first -- only at a delay over to the window. Blushes, looks down at her pajamas. Also solemn: "We could simply pretend not to be home. That usually gets the missionaries to go away." After another moment of consideration: "Do Mormons eat eggs? We may need to get more." Winona's eyebrows raise when Wendy puns, the disapproving click of her tongue and a quiet, "Terrible," ironic characteristics of appreciation of such a joke. "Not sure how many eggs-- eep!" Her surprise at DJ's arrival is genuine, but she quickly calms down from her surprise, though she rubs at her eyes. "I think Mormons eat eggs." She looks to Polaris uncertainly. "Incoming--" is about all the warning Polaris has time to give before the buzzer, then the knock. "--DJ." She gives an embarrassed but faintly amused grimace, sucking in a breath through her teeth. "Mormons eat eggs, and this particular one could probably get more before you're even done heating up the pan." As she turns to go let in their unexpected guest she offers, over her shoulder, "Maybe me or Winona can take over the eggs if you want to go put on clothes?" She unlatches the window and leans out, propping her elbows on the sill with a lopsided smile. "Good morning! I would like to share with you a message about the power of texting." All the same, she steps back and sweeps a hand to welcome him in. "You all are very cavalier about that," DJ answers, very earnestly, "especially for a bunch of terrorists -- do you really know who's reading your texts? It's probably not just me." He's stepping in through the window with a nod to Wendy and Winona -- a slight blush of his own, a faintly surprised: "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt all of your -- I thought it was -- what time is it?" is quickly followed by, "what day is it?" and after that, no time actually given for answers: "Have you actually been out to the Temple out West? Gosh, it's beautiful." "Did you just come here from Utah?" Wendy has, perhaps, been about to take Polaris up on her offer -- she was starting to offer her spatula out -- but is derailed in this thought and is now staring very intently at DJ. Critically: "It's even earlier there." She returns to the pan, putting oil into it before turning on the heat. "They didn't send you out here to convert us, did they? I think we're at our conversion limit. I'm perfectly happy with my God. -- how long would it take you," mildly curious, "to fetch us another dozen eggs?" "Yep, full up on and satisfied with my religion," agrees Winona with a brief nod. "Though it looks like you've got-" her gaze flicks down to the stack of papers and books in DJ's arm. "-quite an assignment there. Do you have some kind of... homework you're working on?" This last question sounds quite sincere. She sits down on the futon, lifting her legs off the ground to sit cross-legged. Polaris closes the window, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms from the chill air. "Guess I should also share the good news about Signal and VPNs and not planning terrorism over text." Her eyebrows raise up and she squints at the microwave clock from way across the room, then back. "It's heckin' early on a...Thursday?" She sounds extremely uncertain about this last. "Anyway if you we're here to like Gather my housemates, we're gonna need to have some strong words but--frak me, did you just come from Utah dressed like that you must be freezing!" She also does not wait for an answer, pulling a fleece blanket--the technicolor tiger on it looks like nothing so much as a Lisa Frank velvet art poster--from where it lies neatly folded over the back of the futon and shoving it at DJ while offering a hand to take his pile of books. "I'm -- a little cold," DJ agrees -- though his hand feels kind of like ice as he offers the pile of books out to Polaris, "but I didn't come here to convert anyone who doesn't want to come to the Lord." There's only a little disappointment in this, really. He doesn't take the blanket immediately -- just glances over to the kitchen; is gone in the next moment. Back, indeed, before the pan has time to finish heating, slipping a wallet back into a back pocket and setting a carton of eggs down on the counter. "It's not exactly homework," he's continuing as if he never left, "at least not mine. More like homework for the rest of the church. Do you ever get the feeling they're doing so many things all wrong?" His eyes are wide, an urgent edge to his voice as he turns to Polaris. Wendy's eyes have gone just a little wider, but she looks satisfied with the delivery of Rapid Eggs all the same. She holds a palm over the pan, lips pursing as she assesses its heat. "Handy," she murmurs. And, a little brighter at DJ's last question: "See, that's what I've been telling her." Her eyes narrow critically. "I thought you were very gung-ho about the whole Mormon thing, though." Winona's eyes also widen at the rapidly delivered eggs. "Oh geez. That was some quick." She rubs her scalp with her fingertips, which musses up her hair a little more. Hesitantly, she says, "Yeah, I have heard about. Things getting done in ways that--" She does not finish the thought and instead just wobbles her hand back and forth. "If you're distributing homework to all Mormons, I think even you'll have trouble getting it done time-effectively." Polaris does not seem much surprised when DJ hares off. She drapes the blanket around her own shoulders and shuffles through the pile of books on her way to put on the kettle. "If I'm like that when I'm manic I owe a lot of thanks to you both for not kicking me out and to God for not giving me teleportation." She's equally unfazed by the speed with which DJ returns, only goes to drape the blanket over his shoulders instead. "I mean. You've heard my testimonies, right?" This is evidently rhetorical. "Between the white supremacy, homophobia, supercessionism, perversion of common consent and erasure of the Church's radical egalitarian communist roots?" She's ticking off these points on her fingers, wire rings squirming with her own agitation now. "Yeah, I've got a few notes. I never," she tells Wendy, a bit indignant, "claimed they didn't have serious frakking issues." "I tried delivering it straight to the Prophet," DJ tells Winona seriously, "but he wasn't keen on listening." He sounds a little indignant as he adds to Polaris: "You're allowed to appeal a disfellowshipping, though --" He wraps the blanket around himself gratefully -- only to let it fall off in the next moment, his hand turning up, spreading wide in front of him. "I am! I wouldn't be doing this if I weren't. I love the Church. I just want to fix it, you know? Don't you ever just -- care about something so much you can't just sit by and let it -- hurt? I can't believe Christ came to restore the Church just to do paperwork and put increasingly tighter chains on people. He came to make us free and I just want -- to see that being lived." His brows furrow, deep, like he's only just thought of an issue. He glances to the papers Polaris holds -- then to Winona. "... how would you distribute something fast, here?" Verrrrrry reluctant: "I probably need to get back online for that." "I don't think the world would be ready for you with teleportation." Wendy is cracking the eggs into the pan, now. Taking a half-step back as they splatter oil up at her. Her eyes rivet -- not on DJ but the papers he's given to Polaris. "What is that? Did you write that? Are you..." This just trails off. She's eying him with a growing curiosity. "I don't know anything about your Christ, but I do argue with God all the time. I thought your people generally frowned on that." "Yeah, I would probably use some kind of. Online distribution to try and get this assigned. Do Mormons have some kind of internal newsletter or something?" says Winona. She folds her hands together in her lap, leans back and looks up to the ceiling. "What kind of homework are you assigning? Will it cut down on the paperwork?" Her eyes flick once again to the papers. "Would it somehow address the white supremacy, homophobia, so on and so forth?" Her questions are asked with the genuine curiosity displayed by a good journalist. Polaris is leafing through stack of papers among the literature DJ brought. Her expression is difficult to read, but definitely focused and intent. "I am so down with this, but I wouldn't call it a light tou--" She stops, looks up. "Wait wait, did you get disfellowshipped? What happened? Is this like a call for Saints to..." Her eyes are wide and wondering as they drop to the pages in her hand. "...rise up?" "I did. I'm sorry. But I think," DJ sounds just as intent, here, "this was all part of Heavenly Father's plan. Sometimes it takes a kick to get you past your inertia, right? And without this one maybe I wouldn't have been listening to His call." He looks to Wendy, turns his hand upward. "There's a lot my people have frowned on, before now. God's put it on my heart it's time for a change, though." He nods, earnestly, at Winona. "That's the idea. But I'll need people with me. I'm only one person, I can't change the world by myself." His smile is a little lopsided here. "But that won't stop me trying."