::1.2:: There is a Place

"What a strange Before," is what Hansol meant to murmur to himself.  Instead, he says it a bit too loudly, and has Jeremiah Sherbet and his strangely-dressed friend turning to face him in an alcove of the mostly-empty library--and, hm, maybe Hansol should work on this habit of talking to himself he's developed recently.

"What was that?" Jeremiah asks.  He doesn't sound aggressive, necessarily, but he looks thoroughly weirded out, which is the exact reaction Hansol has been trying to avoid for the past week and a half that he's spent actively dodging social interaction.

"Um." He tries to not be intimidated by a guy with hair the color of stale bubblegum, but if he's being honest, anybody who isn't like him is intimidating.  And that's--everybody.  

As a result, it's impossible for his brain to conjure up a proper lie.  "It's just.  I can see your past life... and stuff."

"My past life," Jeremiah deadpans.

"And stuff." Hansol deflates.  He knows it sounds crazy.  He feels like he's going crazy, has felt that more and more with each day he's spent alone.

"What, like a mind reader or something?"

"Or something."  He shifts uncomfortably, hopes that a chance to leave the conversation will present itself as soon as possible.  One thing he's learned during the past week is that it's not mind-reading, it's--something else.  Something more complicated.

Jeremiah looks amused, and while it's slightly condescending, Hansol appreciates that it's not open hostility.  "That so?  Wanna tell me what you see, mind-reader man?"

So he does.  Maybe he thinks it'll cause less of a scene than refusing, maybe he does it to avoid being called a liar; or maybe he's just tired of keeping all these things, these past lives he sees and senses, inside.  Whatever the reason, he tells Jeremiah Sherbet about his 'Before,' the uncreative and grammatically incorrect title he's given the pre-Sunset Valley fragments he picks up from others.  Some sims have more fragments than others, and Jeremiah's are particularly vivid.  Hansol tells him everything he sees--the story behind why he prefers his hair long, a few of his fondest childhood memories, how he met the now-absent mother of his son.  He can't resist throwing in a few grandiose hand motions as Jeremiah's expression morphs from skeptical to mystified.

"I didn't know anything about my son's mother," he says, more to himself than Hansol.  "I... I never really thought about it before.  Where is she?  Why isn't she here now?"

"I can't see that."  Hansol drops his hands.  "I'm sorry."

It doesn't take long for word of the local "fortune teller" to spread.  Hansol soon finds himself being accosted wherever he goes--first he's approached at the gym during his morning shower-run (neither his wagon nor the house he's determined to ignore have plumbing), then he has small groups waiting for him at the library, then there are sims knocking on his wagon door.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," Doranne Ambrose says accusatorily after cornering Hansol outside the men's locker room.  "You weren't home."

He finds that, despite seeking out his services, most sims aren't that bothered by the implication that they have memories of an entire existence they've been robbed of.  Some seem to find it comforting in the shallowest way, but to most, Hansol can tell he's just a novelty.

But when Doranne asks him how much she owes for the "reading," Hansol supposes he can play the role of town oddity.  He has bills to pay on that stupid house he's never in, anyway, and he's so low on food that he's had to start rationing his remaining ice cream tubs.

Besides--it's not like he's lying to anybody, and he himself is comforted when he's able to return the fragments he's collected to their proper place.

Another week passes.

Then, one afternoon, there's a woman waiting for him outside his wagon.

She is distracted--and horrified--by Jeremiah's chess strategy.

"Oof.  You haven't even made the move yet and I can tell it's going to be wrong."

"Thanks," Jeremiah grits.

She introduces herself as Clarissa Bradbury, an employee at the local science center.  He recognizes her immediately as the bumblebee woman from the library.  It's been months since then, but he'd be able to identify the crackling sensation of her aura anywhere.

"I've heard a lot about you, Hansol Moon.  The grapevine says you can see things in other people.  Things nobody should be able to see."

"That's the gist of it, yeah," Hansol shrugs.  He's done his best to keep up an act of nonchalance in front of others--his eccentricity already puts him on thin ice with some neighbors, he can tell.  The last thing he needs is to be labelled as unstable or crazy, even if his sixth sense is digging deep into his psyche.  Even if the facade leaves him extremely lonely.

"That must be a difficult burden to bear," Clarissa hums.

"I don't know if burden is the word I would use," Hansol replies, even though that's exactly the word he would use.  "So, did you want a reading, or...?"

"No," Clarissa shakes her head. "I just wanted to talk to you about what you feel, your--awareness that there's something more.  That something is incomplete; something's not right."

Hansol adjusts his beanie nervously.  "Look, I'm done for the day, and I'm really tired, so--"

"I'm sorry," Clarissa says hurriedly.  "I don't mean to bother you, it's just..."

"I feel it, too."

Hansol isn't sure he heard her right.  He lifts a shaky finger.  "You... you can also see the Before?"

She takes his reaction in stride, smiling gently.  "I can't see the past," she admits.  "But I can tell there's something more going on in this town.  There's something below the surface of all this--I can't see it like you can, but I know it's there.  And when I heard of someone else who felt something similar, I thought... I don't know.  We could help each other out."

They spend the rest of the afternoon and a good portion of the evening talking.  Her aura makes Clarissa easy to trust, and Hansol lets what little he knows about his abilities, as well as the information he's gained from them, pour out for her to absorb like a fascinated, bespectacled sponge.

As she said, Clarissa can't see others' fragments like Hansol can, but she is a certified genius, which is what landed her the job at the science center.  She's been very much aware of Sunset Valley's strangeness since day one, as well as her own mental emptiness, and has been using her position at the lab--however low-level it may be--to dig deeper.

"This whole town gives me the creeps," she says, brow furrowing, lips turning downwards.  "So mechanical and hollow beneath the surface.  I can hardly stand it sometimes."

Hansol hasn't ever thought that, exactly; it's more his internal chaos that he wishes to alleviate.  But maybe there's more to it than just the forgotten memories of others.  Maybe there's something else going on, that Clarissa can sense and he can't.

Whatever the case may be, just having the chance to finally release the mess of thoughts tumbling around in his otherwise empty head is... nice.

☽

Clarissa is very invested in her research of Sunset Valley.  She convinces Hansol to meet with her that weekend, insisting that his abilities might be able to help her with her most recent discovery.  Hansol, having nothing better to do and eager to keep his first real connection, agrees.

She leads him past the buildings, along the sidewalk and road to where they dip in-between the hills surrounding the town.

"What's with the face?" she asks, partially teasing, partially to make conversation.

"It's hot," Hansol grumbles.  "You didn't tell me we'd be walking this much.  And the grass feels weird on my ankles."

"You're weird," Clarissa counters lightly.  "You literally live in a park."

"No, I live in a wagon.  It just so happens to to be located at a park.  And I can't move it; I already tried.  It's too heavy."

"And yet everyone still sees you wandering around town all day."

"Out of necessity!"

"Still weird."

"Says the one wearing heels on a hiking trip," Hansol mutters.

"Touché," says Clarissa.  And then, suddenly, they both stop.

Hansol's grumpy face shifts to a frown of confusion.  "That's... weird."

Clarissa puts her hands on her hips and sighs.  "You feel it too, then?"

"I can't step forward," says Hansol.

"Mm.  It's like this along the entire perimeter of the town."

Hansol takes an experimental step back.  Then he steps forward again.  And then, like the first time, he can't take another.  The idea, the intention, is in his head--but his body refuses to cooperate.

"I came up here a few weeks ago," Clarissa explains, when all Hansol does is stare at the grass, the trees, the empty road ahead of them, which plunges over the top of a small hill in the distance and out of sight.  "I thought maybe if I kept following the sidewalk, it would lead me to... I don't know, somewhere else.  But I froze here.  It's like there's an invisible barrier, but it's not physical.  It's mental.  Somehow."

Hansol surveys the area contemplatively.  There's definitely an unnatural energy in the air, but he can't pinpoint it.

"Do you sense anything?" Clarissa presses.  "I brought you here because I thought maybe you'd see something I can't."

At first, Hansol doesn't.  But then he notices it, out of the corner of his eye; whirring above her head, spinning frantically.  "Your plumbob," he mumbles.

Clarissa glances up, though all she can see overhead are leafy branches and sky.  "The little green crystal you said was above mine and everyone elses' head?  What about it?"

"It's going crazy."  He isn't sure how to explain it to her, though he tried on the day they met.  He'd learned early on that it wasn't peoples' minds that he was reading, but their plumbob.  Each individual had one, and they were packed with information, from the mundane--name, occupation, favorite color--to the mysterious--their fragmented memories.  From what Hansol had gathered, no one else was even aware of their plumbob--the name he'd learned from the information inside the plumbobs themselves--much less able to access the details inside.  Hansol isn't even sure how he is able to tap into them; just that he could.  He could see past the emerald shell, into the jumble of data it held, and translate it into facts his brain could understand.

"Is that not normal?" Clarissa asks.

"Very," says Hansol.

Clarissa hums, then fishes her phone out of one of those hidden inner-skirt pockets.  "I'll make a note.  Here's the thing, though; I've spent quite a bit of time near the perimeter, trying to map it, find someplace where it doesn't work.  And every once in a while, a car will come down the road, and pass me, and disappear over the hill.  Like it's nothing."

"Cars don't have plumbobs," Hansol says.  "Not unless there's someone inside."

At this, Clarissa shuts her phone off and puts it away.  "It must be the plumbobs, then," she says, with an air of finality.  "They follow us everywhere, store information on us, and make sure we don't go past the limits of the valley.  Do they control us, too?"

"I don't think so," Hansol says slowly.  "It's never seemed that way to me."

"But they have enough power over us to stop us from passing a certain point," she murmurs.  She falls silent for a moment, leaving Hansol to listen to the wind whistling idyllically through the trees, watch the soothing shade shift along the ground.  Then; "We'll have to find a way to get rid of them, then."

"We?" is the part of that proposition Hansol chooses to focus on.

"Don't you want to?" she asks earnestly.  "Living here, constantly feeling out of place because you can't shake the feeling that something is wrong--doesn't it drive you mad?"

"And, what, you--you think you'll find the answer out there?  What if you don't?"

"There will be some sort of answer," she says, "there has to be.  And I think that finding it, whatever it is, will--make me feel better.  It'll placate the anxiety this place gives me."

 Hansol watches her fall silent again, gazing upward, past the trees, past the hill, past the spiraling plumbob she can't see.

He thinks maybe she's right.

So he says, "Okay."

☼

::

"There is a place where the sidewalk ends

And before the street begins

And there the grass grows soft and white,

And the sun burns crimson bright,

And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind."

(Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends)

Since I planned for her to be my founder's partner (spoilers?), Clarissa's traits were also randomized in CAS.  She turned out to be a frugal, snobbish, loser genius who also happens to be a great kisser.

The exposition chapters are almost out of the way, I think.  Maybe.  Hopefully.  There might only be one left, if I can write concisely enough.

A song to send you on your merry way: