3 Days & Dead

[Clariee Donya]

Following Thrive in Spite | Backdating to July 31, 2019  

 

“If your life was complete, you'd be dead.” ― Joshua Wisenbaker

 

 

 

 

Well that was unexpected.

 

Clariee toed the body with her boot and lit up a fag.  She took a deep drag, held it in for a few counts, then released the smoke on a long.... drawn out exhale.  "Good thing I already made up my mind."  And that her decision coincided with this little coincidence.  Her baby-sitter was dead in central park.  And to her own surprise, she wasn't the one who killed him.  Was that irony?  Guess it depends on who actually had.

 

She'd taken special pains to get a message to the great and powerful Oz Alistair, and she hoped he'd find an opportunity to meet her in the park.  She had come to a decision about where she wanted to live (and the fact that she most certainly wanted to live, period.)  With the noose tightening around her neck as her compatriots in the Order grew more suspicious, accusing their outliers of leaks, she didn't need a history lesson to tell her how this witch hunt would fair in her case.

 

"At least now I can speak English," she sighed, regaling the dead with her arguments in favor of her final decision. There was no one else around to listen to her self-assurance.  She kept listing reasons as to why this was for the best, but it was hard to believe.  The mind told her this was right, but her heart ached for what was wrong.... Home. Russia.  The motherland.  Don't roll your eyes, to her it meant something.  Even in this dystopian reality, even someone as coldhearted as she was could mourn. 

 

Deciding she'd spent enough time hanging around his corpse, she flicked her cigarette downhill toward the more cultivated running path/walking trail, and began the careful descent from the man-made hill behind which the newly-departed was resting in pieces. Less than 1600 yards away she came to the Bethesda Terrace and fountain and sat down at the waters edge.  It was a warm day out.  She turned her face up to the sunlight, her eyelids closing behind the darkly tinted glasses.  She'd spend the next four hours here if she had to, waiting for someone to find her, either to her benefit or otherwise. There was a large body of water at her back that could fuel an all out battle if it came down to her life or another Orderly's.  On the flipside, it was a nice place to relax until a rep from ARMA joined her with the latest from their leadership (if not their leadership himself.)