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13: Spam: Man got to live what he know.
[Open spam]
[Omar is a roamer. As long as he's not forced to stay in his cabin -- in his cell, comfortable as it may be -- he spends very little time there. He's just as likely to sleep in an empty cabin, or even once or twice in the Enclosure. He keeps bizarre hours, and he keeps them largely to himself.
None of this is new. This is how he's been since he got here the first time. Since his last death toll, though, he's become even more erratic in his efforts to stay unpredictable, and the recent spate of unwarranted brutality has him feeling especially restless. He can be chanced upon at all kinds of odd times and places: at the library early in the morning, in the showers and the laundry room around noon, eating in the dining hall in the late afternoon. In the evening, smoking up on the deck with so many of his fellow passengers, because it's not actually that he's antisocial -- just very, very careful.
Careful enough that he takes data, and so some of the newer passengers may or may not be surprised to glimpse him out of the corner of their eyes every now and again. Maybe even writing something down.]
[Spam for Cold and Dark]
[But there's a predictability even in unpredictability, and he does from time to time spend the night in his cabin, if only to keep up the illusion that he does so much more often. It might take a more careful observer a while to figure out when he's likely to return, but the time comes around eventually.
It's late in the evening, but he's been up for the last 36 hours, and he's tired -- and therefore both baffled and a little annoyed to hear a knock on the door right when he's about to lay his head down.]
Man, who is it?
[Edit: Voice to Ricki, post-Tiffany spam]
You know what? I remember a time this place didn't feel like a cross between a day care and a circus.
[Edit: Spam for Luna, post-pairings announcement]
[Omar's been playing the warden shuffle for a while now. At best, it's been ineffective -- the closest thing he's gotten to a decent temporary warden, in Horatio, got ripped away from him halfway through the month. At worst, it's been disastrous. So he's not inclined to pay much mind to the announcement, not anymore. He goes about his day. Let Luna Lovegood come to him, if she likes.]
[Omar is a roamer. As long as he's not forced to stay in his cabin -- in his cell, comfortable as it may be -- he spends very little time there. He's just as likely to sleep in an empty cabin, or even once or twice in the Enclosure. He keeps bizarre hours, and he keeps them largely to himself.
None of this is new. This is how he's been since he got here the first time. Since his last death toll, though, he's become even more erratic in his efforts to stay unpredictable, and the recent spate of unwarranted brutality has him feeling especially restless. He can be chanced upon at all kinds of odd times and places: at the library early in the morning, in the showers and the laundry room around noon, eating in the dining hall in the late afternoon. In the evening, smoking up on the deck with so many of his fellow passengers, because it's not actually that he's antisocial -- just very, very careful.
Careful enough that he takes data, and so some of the newer passengers may or may not be surprised to glimpse him out of the corner of their eyes every now and again. Maybe even writing something down.]
[Spam for Cold and Dark]
[But there's a predictability even in unpredictability, and he does from time to time spend the night in his cabin, if only to keep up the illusion that he does so much more often. It might take a more careful observer a while to figure out when he's likely to return, but the time comes around eventually.
It's late in the evening, but he's been up for the last 36 hours, and he's tired -- and therefore both baffled and a little annoyed to hear a knock on the door right when he's about to lay his head down.]
Man, who is it?
[Edit: Voice to Ricki, post-Tiffany spam]
You know what? I remember a time this place didn't feel like a cross between a day care and a circus.
[Edit: Spam for Luna, post-pairings announcement]
[Omar's been playing the warden shuffle for a while now. At best, it's been ineffective -- the closest thing he's gotten to a decent temporary warden, in Horatio, got ripped away from him halfway through the month. At worst, it's been disastrous. So he's not inclined to pay much mind to the announcement, not anymore. He goes about his day. Let Luna Lovegood come to him, if she likes.]
spam
Don't think you'd know any of the membership -- they all gone now. First book still be there in the library, though...
[With everything that's passed between them tonight, said and unsaid, can he really send Ricki off after this particular book?
...Yes. Yes, he can.]
Something I picked out from a few years in my future, name of Fifty Shades of Grey. Y'all should check it out sometime. Let me know what you think.
spam
I'll look it up. I'm in there all the time, anyways.
[Oh.]
You should absolutely reinstate this tradition. Please?
spam
[Or to troll her. Mostly that.]
spam
[He's chewing on his fingernail, while he imagines- this is the face Ricki probably gets right before the most gleefully diabolical foreign operations.]
It's practically an emergency morale situation. And imagine everyone's faces if you announce you're organizing it?
[The phrase 'trolling' has not been invented in Ricki's day and age. However;]
We can make all the wardens squirm reading Wanda June.
spam
spam
[And that, obviously, is what is important about this.]
If I make Eggsy come, and we pick first, we can have them reading- what, three months of seventies incarceration literature? A Clockwork Orange. Ken Kesey's Cuckoo's Nest. [Absolutely taking for granted that his young friend will be bullied into this.] I've been flying through this library and one generalization I will make is that my generation's authors feel a lot more traumatized than yours.
spam
Re: spam
Point conceded. The seventies published almost exclusively white and drug addicted paranoiacs lashing out against the American Dream. It's one of the things I am glad is changing.
spam
[He does still go to the library, and he has been getting a lot of reading done in there. It's just been of a largely singular nature -- he's been devouring the kind of literary history they never thought to give anyone in public school in the 80's, not even in Baltimore.
...which runs him up against an odd thought, and he cocks his head, squinting sidelong at Ricki.]
What year was it before you came up here, again?
spam
[He admits though he's deliberately shifty about that. That's a silly thing to hold on to.]
It sounds like a very different future.
spam
Year I was born. Guess I picked up where you left off, in a way.
spam
[That does strike him as strange. He pegs them at around the same age, does some quick mental math.]
What's the future like?
spam
Same in a lot of ways. Technology gets better. So does TV. People still people, though.
spam
[He wants to know. Even if they don't have a book club.]
If I want to know.
[Getting past his drug addicted white cynicists.]
spam
Why don't we start with the one, a'ight?
[Because Ricki may just never ask him for a book recommendation again after that.]
spam
[The most imploring expression imaginable.]
You should definitely run a book club. Teaching poor fools from the past about the world our children inherit.
spam
I'll think on it, yo.
[He has zero intention of actually running it again at the moment, but hey -- a promise to think is no more than that. He can keep that promise.
He sighs softly again and pinches the bridge of his nose. It has been a very long day for the both of them. He nods reluctantly towards the door.]
It's late.
spam
[Says Ricki, and busies himself with reaching for another cigarette. After a moment of thought, he glances back up to Omar, and holds the pack out to him.]
For the road?
spam
Obliged.
[He leans down further for a light.]
spam
You should get into the habit of burning these label end first. That way, if you're tailing someone and you flick a butt away, there's no pattern for someone to notice dogging the litter at their heels.
[Of course, borrowing Ricki's camels, there's no need for that, but it's a good habit to get into, an a sweet little bit of nothing that it's easy to share.]
Take care, Omar Little.
spam
[Although that's not bad advice, considering that he has been tailing people lately. He raises a brow, then lifts his cigarette in a little 'cheers' gesture.]
And yourself, Ricki Tarr. I do look forward to hearing your thoughts.