Logs:Curiouser and Curiouser

Curiouser and Curiouser
Dramatis Personae Akihiro, Sarah
In Absentia	2019-07-21 “Draw many people today?”
Location Central Park
<NYC> Central Park Perhaps the most famous urban green space in the world, Central Park's over 800 acres of green and blue is a popular escape from the City's hustle and bustle for residents and visitors alike. It houses not only stands of trees and water features, but Belvedere Castle, the Alice in Wonderland statues, and the Central Park Zoo. Those areas tend to draw tourists like a magnet - it is, perhaps, for that very reason that places like Bethesda Terrace tend to attract more New Yorkers than not, if just to escape the press of tourism that infiltrates the whole city. The recent heat wave striking the city has driven many of the natives indoors or underground to escape the stifling air that has settled over the streets and buildings like a blanket. Even the tourists seem a bit more sluggish wandering around the park, listing lazily from spot to spot. Children refrain from climbing over the Alice in Wonderland statues, the thought of burned hands and knees winning over the call of fun. Still, the tourists are out and about, which is exactly why Sarah is out and about. She's settled herself in a folding chair under the shade of a tree, close enough to the Wonderland statues to keep an eye on the flow of people but far enough to be out of the way. An empty chair sits across from her, while beside her: a small, standing sign made out of cardboard and poster board that says '10 Minute Portraits! Only $10!'. A smattering of examples, various people of New York drawn in colored pencils, are taped underneath the words. Business hasn't exactly been steady, but Sarah can't say she regrets setting up shop. Even if shop is little more than two chairs, a sign, and her sketchbook and pencil bag. It’s here that Akihiro finds himself, from time to time, people watching. Despite the continual march of time a lot of sights were the same, even if the technology wasn’t. Stopping shy of the statue he looks around, gaze eventually settling on Sarah and her business. “Awful hot out to be drawing, isn’t it?” Sarah looks up from her current sketch (a tea party between the Mad Hatter and Red Queen--they suspiciously resemble her sister and sister-in-law) and blinks up at Akihiro. It takes a moment for her brain to get out of colors and actually process the words. It may also be the heat. "It'd be hot even if I wasn't, wouldn't it?" she asks, leaning down to grab a sweating bottle of water from under her chair. "Might as well try to make some money while melting away." “You’re not wrong. I wanted to get my picture drawn here back when it came out, but I never got the chance.” Akihiro shares, reaching into the back pocket of his rose covered shorts. From inside of his wallet he produces a fresh twenty and offers it out. “Draw many people today?” "Enough to make it worth being in the heat." Sarah takes the offered twenty with a grin, pulls a small wad of bills out of her pocket to peel off a crumpled ten and offer it back. "Sit down, man. It's not as bad in the shade." Akihiro waves a hand, “You can keep the change.” Easing into the chair he rests his hands onto his knees. “The heat doesn’t bother me so much anymore. Just all the sweating really.” “I’ll be glad when it gets cold again though. You can at least layer until you’re comfortable.” "Oh hey, thanks!" The ten gets stuffed back into her pocket with everything else, before Sarah is flipping to a blank page in her sketchbook, grabbing a pencil to sharpen. The shavings are grabbed and taken away by a sudden breeze, hot and blasting and gone as soon as it came. "I dunno. I think I prefer heat." Cold makes her think of numb and aching feet, fingers too cold to hold a pencil. A long time ago, but hard to forget. "Sweating is straight nasty, don't get me wrong, but I'd take dealing with cold showers over not being able to feel my nose." Once her pencil is sharpened enough to her liking, she peers at Akihiro's face with a sudden bright focus. Looking between eyes and nose and mouth, chin and cheeks and forehead, taking a mental photograph. Click. Holding that in the screen on her mind, Sarah bends over the page. "You know how bad snow gets here? I've been places it gets to over my head sometimes." “We used to get over fourteen meters back at our Hokkaido property.” Akihiro says with a small shrug, practically forcing his mind off of Canada. “Shouldn’t get too much here, at least not in the city proper.” Fourteen--wait, he said meters? For just a second, Sarah leaves her drawing--as of now little more than circles, guidelines, the beginnings of a nose and chin--and does a bit of math on the corner of the page. Fourteen times three is... "That's like nine me, all on top of each other!" she exclaims, looking at him with wide eyes. "How do people even /survive/ that?" “Carefully, used to be a lot of wood gathering, hunting, and shoveling. Think the entire area is a ski resort now.” Akihiro sighs softly and looks upwards. “The last time I was near the place was probably eighty-three though, so I couldn’t say one way or the other.” "Did you like living there? Even with all the snow?" Sarah asks, her gaze falling back to the page, pencil moving again. “Pretty well. Was a simpler time. But it’s been sixty years since I lived in Japan.” Akihiro settles his gaze back onto Sarah, attempting to make the portrait work easier. “Think I’ll move back when I get older.” Sarah looks up again, blinking as she tries to match the words she's just heard and the face in front on her. Or maybe it's a joke? It's hard to tell these days. "You look good for someone who's over sixty," she finally answers, light and cheerful. Back to the portrait. The second look leaves her confident enough to start shaping out his eyes. "How much older would you really need to be?" “Hasn’t caught up to me yet.” Akihiro says with a wink. “I’m thinking I’ll give it another seventy years. Unless it turns out I’ve still been aging, and just don’t look it.” "Seventy years in the future Japan might have everyone growing old and not looking it. Maybe you can get in early and start the hot new trend!" Sarah holds up the sketchbook, comparing both faces in front of her. So far, so good. Akihiro chuckles at that and offers Sarah a smile when she goes to compare images, showing off his sharp canines. “Think it’s the Canadian in me that’s keeping me young. I know the cigars, booze, and fighting haven’t helped any.” Truth be told it doesn’t look like he does any of that. There isn’t a scar visible on any of his exposed skin, or a wrinkle for that matter. There’s a good chance he’s full of shit. "So, like - did you just hit a certain age and stop aging?" Sarah asks, erasing a few guide lines. "Or do you age super slow? Like, just as a crazy example off the top of my head, did you still look fourteen when you were in your twenties?" Maybe she has some kind of anti-aging power and she doesn't even know it. “Probably about twenty-five, physically. Looked pretty much the same since.” Akihiro fishes out his pack of smokes and pops one between his lips. “You mind? But, I heal very fast. Think it’s a side effect.” "Go ahead. Try to keep the smoke away from me though?" Finally satisfied with the details in the face (For a one hundred percent tip, the least she can do is put in one hundred percent effort.) Sarah moves on to sketching out the general shape of Akihiro's hair. "Is that a side effect, or a perk?" “Definitely positive. Can’t tell you how many fingers it’s saved me.” Akihiro chuckles softly, remembering some of the truly gruesome things he’s been through. “What about you, eh? Anything special you can do?” He offers a wag of his eyebrows. "Who, me?" Sarah looks up, blinking. After a moment, she grins, goes back to shading in hair. "I just make pictures. And make money doing it, I guess."