Real Life vs. Fantasy {Nicholas}

[SOPHIE MILLER]

Sophie had finished her homework early. Sophie had finished her homework early. That statement in itself was such a godsend, such a miracle, such a very happy-making thing, and it certainly did make Sophie Miller very, very happy. So happy that she danced around her dorm to her iPod for about five or six songs before falling back on her bed, exhausted. But not so much, because she was just full of energy. After about one Evanescence song of peace, she sprang back up and got some not-pajamas on. It was such a beautiful day out. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect.

As she stepped outside the doors of the building, she skipped down the steps, nearly falling and scraping her knee. But she didn't, and even if she had, she would have kept on going, knee bleeding and everything. That's how happy she was. Which would continue until she remembered that she did still have one assignment left, but that time wasn't now.

Central Park was bustling. Everyone else must have finished their homework, too. Oh, there were so many things to do, she didn't know what. There were some people playing soccer over straight ahead, and some up ahead having a picnic (yes, she would intrude on a picnic), and a man over there with a camera...

Oh. The man was also taking pictures. Of... people? And from behind a bush too. Quite an odd place for that. Curious as she was, she had to know what exactly he was doing. Though she did know she wasn't exactly supposed to talk to strangers, she didn't care. Her need to know was all the more important. Besides, he didn't look like a creep. All he was doing was taking pictures of people unknowingly behind a bush. Not creepy at all.

Skipping up to the bush, she had nothing holding her back. Not even a voice saying that sneaking up behind someone was rude. Nope, Sophie was immune to those voices at the moment. Maybe it was just the extreme happiness she was feeling.

Clearing her throat and tapping him on the shoulder, she spoke. "What are you doing?" she asked, sounding very much like a curious little kid. Because despite her height, she very much WAS a curious little kid.

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outfit

[NICHOLAS AVERY]

CLOTHES. HE'S GOT 'EM

If yellow flowers could dance in meadows, would green weeds waltz on sidewalks?

And if weeds could waltz, did that mean bees could sing? Or hummingbirds could swim, if they slowed down their wings for long enough?

But then, maybe they just needed to speed themselves up. Time was a funny thing, after all.
Maybe they just all went away in the winter—the dances, the songs and the two-steps—so people could look at something else, for once. Something like dead trees, and the way sometimes, if someone looked hard enough, they could imagine a little white blossom budding on the end of a branch. Or in pictures. Winter pictures were the best kind of pictures, because only in winter did people not want to see. Or, well, that was what Nicholas thought, crouched behind the bush as he was, camera clutched tight in hand as he click, click, clicked away at people at the park; swings that no one wanted in the snow, men made from snow that no one wanted in the Spring, and people, always people, running and jumping and walking and hand-holding and screaming and laughing and playing and playing and playing and perfect.

People were perfect. Always, people were perfect when no one was looking.

From behind his leafy hideout, Nicholas watched with bated breath as he snapped his photos of children and lovers and sisters and brothers while they walked past. Most of them were perfect. Sometimes, they knew something was watching. He deleted those—the pictures, not the people. People were for pictures and pictures were for saving and keeping and hanging up for forever. Until they were yellow and grey and old and peeling and then still, they were for hanging up for longer.

Nicholas leaned forward, zooming in close on a young child holding his mother’s hand, the way the little boy’s eyes were so round, bright and brown making his mouth drop open a bit in awe. It was just as he was about to click for the shot to be taken, however, when he was tipped rather unceremoniously out of his state of intense focus by none other than an intruding finger.

“That’s not mine…” the confused, mumbled statement left his lips before he had time to think about reigning it in. He glanced once at the offending appendage before pivoting around, brow furrowed as he squinted upwards at the intruder.

Oh, but it was just a question. And a simple one, too. Simple questions were splendid questions. Nicholas smiled brightly at the girl, potential image of the toddler already forgotten. “People watching and picture taking,” he replied matter-of-factly in that semi-mumbling way of his that teachers had always berated growing up. His eyes darted around the girl’s face, taking it in without actually making eye contact, as was his custom. “What are you doing? I hope you’re not picture taking, too. Sometimes—people don’t often like too many cameras. Sometimes they don’t even like one. I don’t know why. Cameras don’t harm. That’s why I’m here, you see. Behind this,” as though she might not know what he meant by his location, Nicholas gestured to the plant behind which he was hiding. He blinked, waiting for a response that, in all honesty, he didn’t quite know or care if he’d receive.

[SOPHIE MILLER]

Sophie didn't mean to ruin the photograph he was taking. In fact, she didn't even realize she had done it. Photography was foreign to her, as were all aspects of copying or taking part in real life. So when the man made that seemingly out-of-place comment, she tilted her head a bit, curious. Was that photography slang she didn't know? She hadn't heard anything like that before in a context like this, but she supposed she could take it. As he stared at her finger, she slowly brought it back. Maybe she was just imagining things (highly likely, in Sophie's case), but he looked like he was going to bite it off or something.

Oooh, Sophie had people-watched before! Mainly it was because some jerk had dropped her notebook in a puddle and took her pen, leaving her with a soggy notebook that she couldn't even bring back to her dorm and blow-dry because she didn't have a hair dryer. Honestly, it would have been okay, seeing she had only gotten a few pages in, and she remembered everything she had written, but the bus wouldn't come and she had to sit there on the bench for hours it seemed, arms wrapped around her legs with her heels on the edge of the seat. Well, if she couldn't write, she had to do something. So she had watched people and wondered where they came from and where they were going. It was a good way to relieve unwanted boredom.

She guessed that you COULD keep the memory if you took pictures, but honestly, she did wish to remember anything from that horrible day, even the sun amoung the stormclouds. Because remembering how wonderful that sun had been also reminded her of the want for the sun in the first place - the stormclouds...

Realizing that she was getting lost in her thoughts as per usual, she refocused on the man just in time to hear him speak. "Oh, no, I don't take pictures." She crinkled her nose a bit. "I don't much like photography. It's so limited to the real world, y'know? Unless you have Photoshop or whatever." Sophie noticed how he didn't make eye contact, and wondered about that. Maybe he was just shy? No, that would be boring. Maybe he was a spy and was looking for an escape route so he didn't give away any information. Yes! That would explain the photographs! Spies took them for surveillence or something like that.

She shrugged, realizing she had again gotten lost in her thoughts, and hadn't said anything about the last part of what he said (Sophie was the type to reply to everything a person said, if they were interesting enough). "Well, I wouldn't mind you taking a photograph of me, whether or not I knew it." Tilting her head again, she wondered aloud, "Why would they think cameras would harm them? It's not like you're going to bash them over the head with it. Right?" Spies didn't bash people over the head with cameras. They used special weapons that were all disguised in what they were wearing. Like laser pens or rings that contained a sleeping gas.

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[NICHOLAS AVERY]

“D-don’t take pictures?”

For a moment, Nicholas could do nothing more than blink. How odd. Not the blinking—he did that quite frequently, perhaps a bit more than normal, even—but the lack of picture-taking. It had never made sense to him, why people wouldn’t use cameras. They were like windows. You saw through them. And they were like magnifying glasses. You searched through them. And they were like notepads and projectors and books and stories because you learned and watched and saw through them.

Why wouldn’t anyone take pictures?

Cocking his head to the side in a manner somewhat resembling a curious puppy, Nicholas’s wide, round eyes blinked some more at this mysteriously foreign girl. And she was foreign; everyone he’d never met before was.

He shook his head. “Oh, no, I don’t use Photoshop. There’s far too much to see and not enough to look at—I don’t think people look at things well enough. Like pictures. People never look at pictures long enough to see them, when they look how Photoshop makes them, sometimes…”

Not only was she foreign, but she was nameless. As curious as Nicholas was, he wasn’t too sure he wanted to change that. After all, introductions could get to be a messy, long business filled with questions that made him uncomfortable to answer for reasons he didn’t quite know. And then there was the “How are you?” which followed, and he’d never been much good at that, either. He always stumbled. The only thing he didn’t stutter on was shutter-clicking, and this girl, whoever she was, had interrupted that and now he was already flailing.

The funny thing was, he wasn’t too sure he minded.

Biting his top lip, Nicholas’s brow scrunched as he looked the girl over. She had a very lovely face, yes. But it was better suited for candid pictures. He wasn’t much for posing people, anyhow. That went against the whole idea of photography, in his quietly-spoken opinion. Still, he brightened slightly at the prospect of not being scolded. “Really?” Not that he would have seen it coming, if that was what she’d set out to do in tapping him on the shoulder in the first place.

Again, he shook his head, a look of alarm coming over his face. “No! No, I would never do that!” despite still being crouched low to the ground, he sat up a bit straighter, eyes and voice quietly earnest as he began to plead his case. The words picked up pace as he began to tug absently on his little gold earring. “I think—I think it’s more that people don’t…well, they don’t much like to not know someone else is there…which I am. I’m here, but they don’t know I am,” he pointed to the ground as though to emphasize, “And then when they do know I am, they don’t much like it, because they didn’t know all along, but if they had known all along, they wouldn’t like that much, either…” he paused to take a deep breath, shoulders slumping slightly in defeat as the wind of his quiet rant left him.

He shrugged, pale blue eyes casting their gaze absently to a cloud hanging high in the sky. “So I’m not really very sure, truly…”

[SOPHIE MILLER]

Sophie curiously watched him blink, then shrugged. "Well, I don't take pictures... recreationally? I don't know. I'm just saying I'd rather draw or paint, as far as images go. It leaves more to the imagination, I guess." Shrugging again, she looked around, almost getting distracted by a buttefly. She stared at it, her eyes following the graceful movements, while Nicholas spoke of Photoshop. She still sort of listened, of course, because not listening would have been a rude thing Sophie was aware of, and looked back at him when he was finished. "I see. I guess it's like when something's really, really pretty, but it's actually hiding something, right? Like... a fountain with a secret passageway, or... a book with a code in it that only someone who looked reeeally well would find. Right?"

Awww, look at him. He got so happy when she wasn't mad. What was his name again? "Yeah, it's not like I mind pictures, really." How to word this. "I would just never take a picture of someone if I could sketch them really-super-quick, you know?" Well, that sort of made sense a little bit. It would do for now, right? Yes.

"Oh, I never said you would!" He freaked out at that thought, huh? "It was just a joke. I was kidding, you see." He began to speak a lot again and Sophie realized the butterfly was long gone. Instinctually, her lips formed into a little bit of a pout. It was so pretty, and now it was just gone. That's what seemed to happen to pretty things, sometimes. And it didn't look like there were any other butterflies within her eye range or whatever you would call such things.

"Oh... I know. People don't like not knowing things, I think. It puts them on edge, like they don't know what's going to happen and they want to. But they don't see that no one apart from a psychic could predict the ending. I guess." She shrugged again, then continued. "And then a lot of people don't like getting their pictures taken because they might not like how they look in them, and they don't like looking bad. And they also don't know what the pictures are going to be used for, and where they're gonna end up. I suppose it relates back to the not knowing." Sophie smiled after his shoulders slumped, hoping to cheer him up, like he was a few moments ago. She liked it when people were happy. "See, I would rather not know, because then I can fill in the pieces with whatever I want to, and when it happens, it happens, but at least I could imagine what could."

Realizing she hadn't yet given her name, she smiled brighter. "I'm Sophie, by the way." It's not that she thought that be giving him her last name, he would stalk her or something. Last names weren't important to Sophie. If you didn't know them, you could let your imagination run wild. Like, someone could have the last name of a president or actress or book character or royalty. She'd like to imagine that she was talking to someone related to someone famous sometimes. Or an ACTUAL famous person in disguise. That would be fun.

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[NICHOLAS AVERY]

Well, she was certainly a—what was it they called it? An odd bird. Yes, she was an odd bird. Like a yellow sparrow or a blue-green finch. He liked it, though, in a strange sort of way. Just like how one might like finding a rainbow sprinkle on their ice cream cone, even though all they’d asked for was the blue ones, please.

“Well, yes,” he nodded after thinking a moment. “Yes, I suppose you could think of it in that way, yes. Only I like to imagine others things—like a smile hidden behind a frown, or a laugh fighting to stay curled up in someone’s throat when they know all they’re supposed to do is cry. Which is a bit of a silly thing, crying. Holding back a laugh…I’d think it would only make you feel better.” He shrugged as his mind drifted, not particularly caring about the motivations behind it all, so long as he never held back a good laugh when he wanted to let one go. And he hadn’t. Why, in the middle of his Grandma Jane’s funeral service he’d let out quite a loud guffaw—so loud, in fact, that it’d stopped his Uncle Ted’s speech right there in the middle, and his mother had had to take him clean out of the church. He hadn’t minded, though. He’d wanted to be outside. Maybe that was why he’d done it.

Nicholas shook his head. “No, I don’t know. Pens and papers aren’t too fond of my fingers, I don’t think,” he shrugged, feeling that explained the situation well enough.

“Oh.” Nicholas’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Yes, yes I see. I’m very glad for it, too.” Jokes were always better than being told off, even if he never quite got the funniness from the beginning. Why, even now he wasn’t too sure what was supposed to have made him smile about what she’d said; but jokes meant smiling, that much he knew, and so smile he did anyhow. Just a small one, though. Not even with teeth.

When she began to speak again he listened closely, head tilting far towards her so as not to miss a single word. He nodded along in agreement, expression turning slightly eager by the time she was through and it was his turn to speak, as that was how conversation worked among people. “I like knowing because then I can be sure, and I’ll never mess up about other people, because I can see them when they can’t see themselves. People are very different, when they think no one is watching. It’s a little bit sad, sometimes, though, I think. A little bit. Because you don’t quite know why they are so different, and I would like to very much, but no one seems to know the answer or what I mean by my question,” he sighed dejectedly, face drooping a bit at the memory of unanswered questions.

At the mention of her name, however, Nicholas snapped straight to attention. He leaned in a bit closer to her before standing and leaning some more, his tall, lanky frame made somewhat less intimidating by the innocent buggishness of his eyes. “Sophie, you say? Why, I had a friend named Sophie once. She was my very best friend in the whole entire world for a very long time. She used to call me Nico,” he nodded and smiled, although the smile was somewhat sad. His eyes drifted for a moment before looking back at her—or her general direction, as it were, resting somewhere between her eyebrows. “Maybe…you could call me Nico, too?”

[SOPHIE MILLER]

Okay, maybe Sophie was developing a little bit of a crush.

Yeah, definitely.

It really wasn't that big of a deal. He was just interesting, and Sophie liked interesting. He also wasn't mean to her, and a lot of people tended to get frustrated with her "immaturity" after a while. Which is why she didn't date any soccer/other sports guys. They weren't interesting and they really weren't nice. She didn't know why; that's just the way they were. Weren't rather.

But this strange man in the park? Well, he was a whole 'nother story, and one she maybe wouldn't even have to write... She didn't know if she would ever see him
again after today, though she hoped so, but surely she could consider him a friend if they did, and that's all that mattered.

Anyways, focusing. Right. She nodded at what he said about the smiles and frowns and laughs and cries. "People do tend to hide sad things. I think it's because they don't want anyone asking them 'what's wrong'." She shrugged. "I don't like it when people ask me that. Everyone's different and I don't think one person will understand why someone else is sad." Sophie tended to get sad about little things. Throw fits, even. She was working on that bit, though.

She tilted her head curiously. "Silly. Anyone can draw or sketch or write, all it takes is imagination and practice. And everyone can do those things." She hated when people said they didn't have imagination, or they weren't creative. Everyone can create something. Everyone! That was part of being human, right? Thumbs and all that.

Sophie understood, or at least, she was pretty sure she did. "I think people make impressions on other people. And people don't like being embarassed. And like I said, they don't want to answer a question and have the other person think the answer is dumb." It made perfect sense in her head, at least. Things tended to do that, make sense in her head then get all jumbled when she spoke them. And it was so much easier to erase what you write opposed to what you say.

Something seemed to spark when she introduced herself, and she got maybe a little scared when he stood up and leaned into her. Not that scared though. She didn't run away, only leaned back a very little bit. When he spoke, she went back to standing straight up, and smiled. "I'll call you Nico." And then, a little bit of girly jealousy and curiousity set in, and she wanted to ask him something. "What was she like?" Realizing that made other Sophie sound dead, she added, "Where is she now?"

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