The Roof; Saturday Afternoon.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

It had been an odd sort of morning, really. At least, Adah could only assume that it wasn't exactly normal to awaken and have no idea who you were, where you were, and what you were doing there, beyond waking up. In fact, she could only assume that she was even Adah. Waking up confused, the first thing she thought to do was scour through the room for signs of identification: she dove into the books, the notebooks, that she found around her for insight into who exactly she was. She could discern that, barring any odd sort of displacement, her name was Adah Price and she, thankfully, took very careful logs and journals of things, but they were so confusing. Aft first, they looked like a foreign language but, quickly enough, it became evident that, if these were in fact her notebooks, she had a bizarre obsession with writing backwards and being...generally overly nonsensical. If this was her, it only left Adah even more confused. She then decided to walk around, trying to get something, a gleam of a memory from her surroundings, and had been wandering the island all day, only to find nothing. Top to bottom, bottom to top. She was back on the top again, the roof; the air was nice up here, and she had another one of this Adah person's notebook, trying to find some sense of self within.

"Ada, of essence, the is that, broken and bent, slant it, tell, but truth! the tell!" she read outloud from the notebook cradle in her hand, frowning at it as she paced back and forth. "But what the hell does that mean?"

Perhaps nothing; perhaps everything...Adah planned to pace until she figured it out.



[[ OPEN as roofs can be! Just an OOC note (and kind of spoilerish): it gets discovered that Adah's disability is mostly all mental and can be fixed; it's only so persistent because of how she remembers being told she couldn't walk and thinking that it was impossible. Having, of course, forgotten this influence on her behaviour because of Tabula Rasa, she now walks and speaks....somewhat normally ]]

Comments

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

Charlene (her name was Charlene, at least she knew that much) had woken up in Room 419... somewhere. She knew her name was Charlene Roberta McGee because it was in every single book on her side of the room. And she was apparently sixteen, because it said that on her driver's license. Funny how she didn't remember any of that. Funny panic-inducing near-freak-out levels of sure there had been an illegal experiment on her head, but if so, why wasn't she in a hospital gown? Or drugged up?

She'd found a notebook of writing, and decided to go exploring, observing people and writing down facts, instead of everything she imagined. Getting the lay of the place seemed like the best idea. So, she'd headed upward and ooo, cool roof. Ooo, person. Who... could maybe explain what this place was?

"Hey," Charlene said tentatively. "How's it going?"

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

Troubled, distraught (but, then again does one retraught herself?), Adah frowned at the notebook in her hands and read out loud. "Now is the winter of our discontent, but there is no snow in Africa." She turned her head toward the girl who had only just arrived, as if hoping she carried in her pocket the understanding of all the world. "Does that mean anything to you?"

It should be meaning something to her, to Adah, but she couldn't understand what and it was bothering her. So much. her pacing continued, steady, even, frustrated strides.

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

Charlene frowned, and perched on the edge of the balustrade around the roof. "I think the first part's a poem, but the second part sounds off. I kinda recognize it, and then I don't?" Like everything else around here. "What is it?" She watched the other girl pace, and bit her lip, wondering how she was going to cross-examine her when she was already upset. "And hey, have we met yet? I'm Charlene."

Because if this person *did* know her, then at least that was a step to finding out what was wrong with her.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

"It's something I wrote," Adah answered the second question with her forehead creasing in a frown, her voice drawling along in a light American Southern accent, but her voice was tight, dry. "I'm Adah. At least, I think that is who I am. I can't be entirely certain." She flipped another page of the notebook and looked the next page over. "It's very frustrating to not understand yourself, but, at the same time, I feel that even if I did, I'd still be confused."

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

"You too?" Charlene blurted out, not sure whether to be horrified or relieved. "I mean, not about the not understanding yourself. Although I get the frustration. I have all these books with 'Charlene Roberta McGee' written in them, and I have no idea who that is. Except she doesn't write anything personal, just stories and stories and she really hates someone named Griselda, I think."

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

That girl had a log book in her hands it appeared. "G'day to ye darlin'." His accent by the way, wasn't the best. But clearly it must be real, because he was a pirate, and that's how they talked.

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

"Hey," Charlie said warily, as she was heading for the exit. Then she looked hopeful. "Do you know me?"

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"Alas I can't say that I do." he shook his head. "But I'd like to." he smiled. Unlike most pirates, he had perfect teeth. He suspected he must be a high ranking bucaneer.

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

Charlene blinked at him, then tartly said, "Well, you can't know me if I don't know myself, or you. That would be entirely the wrong kind of knowing. So no."

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

The last time Lee (who totally knew who he was) had been on the roof, there'd been dancing and he'd barely known anyone.

This time, he still barely knew anyone but there was no dancing. He considered that a success. Not that he disliked dancing, he just...disliked dancing.

So, he was on the roof, waving at the very unexpected other occupant and saying, "Hey." And his surprise at seeing her up on the roof cut off any further greeting.

[Couldn't resist!]

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

Adah paused in her pacing, in her rumination over yet another jumbled mass of words. Not written backwards in entirely. Perhaps ordered backwards, strange puncuation. The urge to take a pen, discect it, rip it apart and put it back together in a more balanced organization was very strong, but she'd forgotten to bring a pen with her. And now there was a person. She looked over at the boy, looked him up, looked him down, and nodded. "Hello."

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

The speaking was...unexpected.

"Hello," he said, smiling. "How are you today? Enjoying the weather?"

That was so so lame.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

"I haven't really been paying much attention to it, to be perfectly honest," Adah said, turning her head up toward the sky. She figured she wouldn't be able to tell if it was nice or not; it was the only weather she could remember experiencing, and had nothing to compare it to on a scale of enjoyment. Her head tilted as her attention went back to the boy. "...Should I be? Enjoying it?"

[stupid-toasters.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I thought you liked being outside," Lee said, feeling the slightest bit off balance. "Before. And there's no rain so while it's nice, you can't play in puddles."

He'd go with the talking for now since she'd talked to him before just not this much.

[ashockingbitch]

Jennifer had figured out her name was Jennifer by finding her wallet on her desk. But it might be a prank, because the birthdate said she was a hundred and seven, so maybe she wasn't Jennifer after all. She'd also figured out she was a smoker by the pack of cigarettes right next to it. But she was under the impression that was a horrible, filthy habit, so she was now trying to quit. Cold turkey.

This was not going well.

"Excuse me?" she asked anyone on the roof in a very crisp English accent, with far more politesse than Jenny Sparks had ever displayed in her life. "Do you know who I am, by any chance?"

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

Adah had a pretty good feeling that she wouldn't even need to look at the girl to know the answer, but she looked anyway, good and long and careful, just in case, and out of sheer want. With her head empty of memories, it wanted to be filled with details.

"No," she answered finally. "At least, I know you no better than I know myself right now..."

[ashockingbitch]

Jenny sighed. "Oh, bother. I think someone's playing a trick on me. Or possibly I've been brainwashed, somehow I can't rule that out. I don't remember a thing about who I am and everything that might be helpful is giving me ridiculous information."

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

Adah was tempted to sympathize with the other girl, experiencing the same predicament, after all, but the last part caught her and made her quirk a small grin. "Ridiculous information?" she asked. "How so?"

Couldn't be more crazy than her Other Self's weird ramblings, though.

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

Bill eyed her cooly. He didn't know who any of these people were, but he was starting to think he'd rather like to.

[ashockingbitch]

"Excuse me," Jennifer asked of the young man with the eyepatch, "do I know you?"

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"Bill the Pirate." he bowed. Not easy to do with a peg leg let me tell ye. "At yer service."

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"Blisterin' barnacles." One Eyed, One Legged Bill, or, Peg Leg Bill, or Peggy for short, swore as he finally emerged up onto the roof of the stockade.

He'd come up the stairs in hopes of getting the lay of the land, the better to effect his escape.

"Blasted stairs, blasted leg, arrrrrr."

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

Now that was an interesting interruption from her reading; Adah had to ask.

"Blasted leg?"

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

sorry should have mentioned this before

Bill pointed to the peg leg he wore, which was carved at the end to look like a claw holding an orb of some sort.

"Aye lass. Do ye have any idea how hard it is to climb all those stairs with an impediment such as this?" He vowed to be on his best behavior in front of all the fair young lasses up here. Maybe he shouldn't be in such a hurry to escape.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

no; I knew about it

Adah followed the gesture and she arched an eyebrow at him. "Exactly. How can you call that a blasted leg when there is no leg there? But I can't imagine it would be easy. I couldn't imagine it would be worthwhile, either."