Felixentric

Scene 28: Bees?

He should have just told Janette about Banefade and I'lloozjhen and Quixotic and being aggressively followed by Hale's ghost and knowing he was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He should have told her the truth about why he was upset - the damned Hale Ruby-Hohl - and then asked her why she'd been upset.

He should have done anything, but the thing that didn't even fit their plot lines.

Somehow, he made it outside again after that, but he didn't know how long after.

From all around him, the street was wild with people. Of course, there weren't hundreds of people around - like in one of the crazy, American cities he'd heard of like New York City or Las Vegas -, but it felt like a lot for Jupiter. A sputtering stream of people walked around Felix in the other direction and behind him a tinkling noise hit the ground. A woman, he saw from the corner of his eye, bent over the cement and offered it to the man walking just beside her. "Did you drop this?" she asked, holding it out on a flat palm. He shook his head and continued on. The woman, then, came up to Felix and did the same. "Is this yours?" He gazed into the shining necklace. It was a small golden cross on a tiny golden chain.

He darted his eyes around, but no one else had stopped. Whose ever it was, it didn't matter, because they were far too gone.

"Yes," he said, "But you can have it."

"I'm not a Christian," she said, with a shy smile.

"Neither am I," he said, "but symbols are what we make of them." And he took the cross from her and nodded a goodbye.

She turned, in what looked like a joyous confusion - inspired maybe - and went on her way.

Felix let the cross glitter in his hand a moment and then latched it around his neck. For about three paces, he wore it that way, but stopped again and flipped it around so that it hung on his back and under his shirt instead of over his chest and on top. It felt better that way, more natural since he wasn't technically a Christian. It's different to worship Christ and be a part of him.

Finally, after one more block, he sat down on a bench across the street with no other intentions than to watch the city scurry around.

It made him think about being Art and how he was only good at one thing artistically. It made him want to be more. Quixotic, he heard from Hen, was like Quinn. He was good at poetry and writing and quoting things. Felix wanted to be like that too. Even learn how to sing or play instruments, if he had the time.

But, at that point, he looked at the sky and tried his hardest to describe it in the most creative way he could muster. The only word that popped into Felix's head when he looked at the sky was "blue." It was a blue sky. What gives? Felix stared at it harder. Blue. "No," he ended up accidentally scorning himself out loud.

He could have also tried to process the kiss in a poetic way, but he decided that he wasn't going to think about the kiss for as long as he could.

He closed his eyes entirely, not even allowing himself to see the sky he wanted to describe. Words come from imagination, not reality, he thought Quinn might say, feeling like Quinn could be really sitting next to him and teaching him. If things were only as important as they were by their visual being, then words wouldn't be needed. Felix changed to voice in his head to fit Quinn's perfectly. Imagination is what makes real things important.

Felix's eyes shot open. The sky was there: a sky that bled the ocean and reflected the Earth in his eyes. He thought all of this, putting himself in third person and feeling each word he mentally spoke.

This is where my power comes from. Poetry. But why can't I do it?

Before he could try again, an old woman sat down on the opposite side of the bench, juggling two young children beside her. One was a very young girl, probably five or six and was in pigtails and a flowery dress. "A bee!" she screeched, pointing at a wasp sitting on the pavement at her feet. The chubby fingers wiggled around and held the index finger tightly out to make her point.