letting the days go by, into silent water [open]

[yardbird]

CHARACTERS: Murphy Pendleton and you.
LOCATION: Anywhere. This is pretty much a free-for-all of CR.
WARNINGS: Insert the usual Silent Hill disclaimer here.
SUMMARY: Insomnia hits. Friendly neighborhood convict takes a little stroll.

---

He couldn't sleep.

Granted, this was nothing new and exciting. If nothing else, it was fucking tedious. His brief spell of excessive sleeping habits died real fast after the jump wired Murphy up all over again.

It wasn't always this bad. In fact, he used to sleep a fair bit. There wasn't much else to do during his alone time in prison, so it had been the only resort next to going stir-crazy with boredom.

Even with Anne in the same room these days, Murphy still felt the nagging urge to escape the closing walls of his cell bedroom. Unlike Ryall, he could at least work off his restlessness by stretching his legs. There were still places that he hadn't yet seen, grounds that he hadn't yet covered. He could scratch this itch. He could.

So he just wandered for awhile. Aimlessly, as usual. He almost felt dazed. But it was good to be out. Not free, not safe, though close enough to settle on the fact that his present situation proved to be more favorable than where he had been coming from, in ways.

That was just sad.

Murphy, this is your life right now. Take a good long look at it.

Comments

[watashinonamaewa]

"No. I feel I'm very right about this."

Taking Killy from where he belonged seemed like a horrible idea. She couldn't be sure how he would react being confined in such a place, especially if he was given his Gravitational Beam Emitter upon arrival. His attempt at the destruction of the Tranquility seemed like the most likely worst-case scenario if the weapon was functioning properly. Unleashing a wild tiger into space, you could say.

A wrench in her gut forced her vision downward and her hands to casually wrap around her lean stomach. As she pulled her knees up closer to her body, she felt her voice grow soft, "Please, let's talk about something else."

[yardbird]

Murphy wondered if some of the people already aboard just weren't cut out for this place, either. If maybe bringing them here was someone's way of acting out some kind of cruel punishment. It was wrong and unfair to them, but who was he to judge those that come and go?

He then wondered about that kid he'd ran into some time ago. A boy named Jared, who said he was taken from his father. Been awhile since the last time Murphy saw him.

Maybe Cibo was the same. Not as vulnerable, but just as harshly ripped away from someone that she cared about. Maybe it was just as cruel to say that he didn't have anything to look forward to...

"...Right, uh. No problem."

Judging by her sudden change of body language, coupled with Cibo's words, Murphy quickly got the message and didn't push. Rather, he grabbed his head and rattled his brain, trying to think of something more tactful than Seen any good movies lately?

"...Seen any good movies lately?"

Shit, that's not gonna fly.

[watashinonamaewa]

The confusion caused by that question certainly was a much different feeling than what she was feeling moments ago, but it didn't help to put her mind at ease when she didn't understand what he was talking about. She had that problem with everyone though.

People aboard the Tranquility had considerably more knowledge of certain things. This wasn't insulting to Cibo's intelligence in any way — what she knew was all that her reality could provide for her. Of course she wouldn't have known of anything that may have been locked away on the Net Sphere. No one in The City had that kind of knowledge.

"What are movies...?"

[yardbird]

Murphy raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? You've never seen a movie before?"

He wouldn't be so surprised, except that Cibo didn't strike him as being from one of the old-fashioned places like Alayne and her father were from. It seemed strange to him that anyone would have to ask that kind of question, but he was also meeting different kinds of people every day more and more.

"They're like... pictures that move on a screen to tell a story, like a... You know what a play is, right? Theater? D'you have any kinda entertainment where you're from?"

[watashinonamaewa]

Murphy's words could not have flown any higher over Cibo's head unless they had hit the next planet. The far future was her home, yes, but all forms of entertainment had long-since been deemed wastes of time and risks for survival.

"A play? Theater? No. We don't know of anything like that. I actually don't think I'm very familiar with that word... Entertainment, you said?

But these 'movies' are a manipulation of images onto video-screens, right? Are they visual playbacks of someone's memory or data? I've shown others my memory in ways like that before."

[yardbird]

"Er, kinda, and... not really. It's not really a memory, since it's like... there are these actors, and, they..." He gesticulated, not that it really helped but it was more of a force of habit. Always had to do something with his hands when he tried to explain things. "Dammit, I'm not any good at this..."

He rubbed his forehead briefly, before holding his hands back out again.

"Hey, you got your device on you, right? There should be a media library on it that you can find -- though it's... mostly just shitty soap operas."

Soap operas that Murphy may or may not have watched a significant chunk of.

Hey, he has to pass the time every now and then.

[watashinonamaewa]

Cibo remembered placing the device near the foot of the bed when she entered the room. As she stood, she couldn't help but to let out another ignorant question. Voice quiet from embarrassment. She felt like she should have understood with certainty what he was saying, but didn't.

"Isn't soap what you humans use to clean dirt? Why would there be a 'movie' about that?" Not that she hadn't used soap during her stay at Tranquility, it was just such a foreign substance to her.

After bending over to take the device from her bed, she turned in an easy motion to sit near Murphy - leaving a gap, under the assumption he may have been uncomfortable being so close. Her fingers quickly skim through to the media center and stop there. She was confused of what to look at next.

[yardbird]

...It was more sad than anything.

The idea of someone being deprived of entertainment was appalling. However, it definitely explained a lot about Cibo, didn't it? Murphy seriously wouldn't have otherwise pegged her for being your average movie-goer at the theater, even then... Everyone was supposed to have their likes and dislikes.

"Erm, well... While you're here, soap's probably somethin' you should get used to." He gave her a look. Personal hygiene didn't seem like a high priority given the circumstances, though something about a woman like this not knowing what soap was struck Murphy was a little disconcerting. "Anyway, it's got nothin' to do with soap. They're just... dramas that revolve around people's lives."

He leaned over slightly when he saw the media center pop up on Cibo's device. It took Murphy long enough to figure it out (technology was never his forte), but when he did...

"Ah, there." He pointed at one of the titles on the screen suddenly. "That one's kinda tolerable, and that's... putting it loosely."