by Emilie » Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:04 am
As soon as he allowed access, Emilie was in and her force-field went up around them to keep out prying minds. He could tell she was in there, because his mind became clean of conscious thoughts of his own, replaced temporarily with imagery he was unfamiliar with.
The imagery Victor viewed was all in first person, meaning he was literally seeing Emilie's own memories. The funny thing about memories was that for people without total recall (which neither Victor nor Emilie possessed)
was that they were fuzzy, malleable things at best, subject to the originator's feelings and interpretation of what had happened. Fortunately, Victor was not forced to feel whatever she was feeling through some form of empathy. Unfortunately, that meant he was forced to determine on his own what they were supposed to mean. Looking at her memories was similar to looking at artwork. It could provoke a reaction, but there was no way Victor could really know what she was feeling in these instances, only make educated guesses.
Double fortunate then was the fact she decided to cherry pick only the relevant bits to explain to him in visuals the previous problem.
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They started at a funeral, a picture of a friend of his own placed among a display of purple lilies. The familiar blond haired, green eyed, tall 'woman' 's smile wasn't faint like in high school but wide and brilliant in a way he'd never seen on her before. In this 'here' she was married apparently, evident in the fact that in this picture she was pressing back her hair behind her ear with her left hand which had a wedding band on the ring finger.
A baby's upset squealing distracted Emilie's examination of the display and she turned her head to look in it's direction. A man was holding it, clearly a new father by the fact he seemed to have no idea how to get it to stop making that terrible noise. Emilie went to him immediately. Why wouldn't she? She knew him and in no instance had she ever seen him with a child. He was out of his element, and someone needed to help him before he became too overwhelmed and started crying himself. Being a single father with a new child was enough to make anyone lose their mind.
"Let me take her." Emilie offered. This Victor didn't seem too much older than himself, and hesitated at this stranger asking for his child. "I won't hurt her, I promise." Under the pressure of the crying child and the fact he was in closed quarters so it wasn't as if this stranger could run off into the night with her, he reluctantly handed her over. Emilie looked at the light eyed child as she cried for a moment, then hugged her to her chest and started to hum to her, patting the child on the back lightly. After a small belch, the baby settled into Emilie to rest.
"Well, she seems to like you at least." He jokes in his self deprecating manner.
"Lebowskis always do."
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From there, the memories were less distinct and 'blurred', perhaps because of their nature. Of course she would remember the rejection she felt, but not every distinct detail of each and every time she was rejected. Most people wouldn't. But there were images there, brushes of fingers or the taking of a hand that was moved away from before it became holding. Leaning into to him only to have him move away. Mussing of hair that was meant to be more than a mere annoyance to the Freud. In some instances it was far more blatant and obvious flirtation, though as time went on it seemed to become more subtle.
Things stopped running by him and refocused on a particular memory again. She was looking at her own reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet back home. Green eyes were looking back at her, not the blue ones Victor had been introduced to. She had a towel on her head and was doing some kind of beauty treatment to her face, slowly peeling away a goopy, rubbery substance. As it snapped clean of her face, she heard someone walking in the hallway.
"Emilie? She's not going to bed." Called out his own voice in a desperate sounding tone. "She says I don't do the voices right and she wan- Ho-jeezu-!"
The field of vision turned to look at the other Victor in the door frame of the bathroom. Apparently she had left it open. "Yes Mr.Freud how can I help you?" She replied sarcastically.
"You could start by covering yourself. Or closing the bathroom door. Whichever you're up for." He replied, Looking away from her and covering his eyes only slightly with his hand.
"You only left one clean towel in the closet. Laundry's your problem Freud, not mine. We agreed on that after I ruined that shirt.
Besides, it's not as if I have anything you've never seen before."
"I haven't seen yours!" He retorted. "And there's a child present somewhere around here!"
"Didn't realize we were training her to be ashamed of her body. You probably should have noted that in that handbook you never left me."
"I don't mean it like- Listen could you just put some clothes on or something? I need you."
"Sure, when I'm done. Teaching her delayed gratification is good for her. If you just give her what she wants immediately she'll come to expect it all the time."
As if under duress, he started unbuttoning his own dress shirt frantically and once it was off and he was down to his undershirt, he tossed it to her. "Please." He pleaded as he left.
"I'M KEEPING THIS. THIS IS MINE NOW!" She called loudly back at him as he retreated.
WHATEVER!"
She looked in the mirror again as she was buttoning up the shirt, though all Victor could see in the reflection was the collar and up. Once she was done, she buried her face in the collar of the shirt to smell it and sigh.
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That memory left and another replaced it immediately. Seated across from him (or her rather) was Ronnie, looking more like an adult than he'd ever imagined her to be, though not yet middle aged by the look of her. She was sitting at a kitchen table that Victor was more than familiar with.
"Why do you stay?" She asked.
"Where would I go?" Emilie countered. " Anyways, it's not like he beats me or abuses me or something."
""Mmmmnooooo. He's just a chicken shit."
"An egg?" A tiny voice asked, and Emilie's vision looked towards it. She was now looking at a blonde haired, green eyed girl who couldn't be older than seven, holding a box of crayons. She was nearly a carbon copy of her mother.
"No. Don't repeat that word... What's wrong?" Emilie asked.
"I lost it again." The girl replied, holding out the box and pouting. There was a crayon missing in the box that she was presenting to Emilie.
Emilie sighed, and looked down to her hip pack, the one she wore on her belt of crazy shit. Opening the satchel, she produced a brand new , pre packaged Crayola, 'periwinkle'. "Try not to lose this one, okay?" She said as she took off the plastic.
"Yes ma'am!" the girl replied as she snatched it from Emilie's hand, barely giving her time to get the cellophane off.
Ronnie sipped something from a mug as the child ran off, then set it down again once she was out of sight. "You know she has a ratty, broken cache of those under her bed." Ronnie commented.
"Yea, I know. What she doesn't know is I have the same cache of shiny new fresh ones in the freezer at the back where she can't see them." Emilie chuckled.
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More fast running, blurred information, more instances of 'almosts, but not quites'. Victor was starting to get the feeling the only reason he was being shown any of these memories was so that he understood that this was an on-going and constant pattern.
One more memory, this one so fresh in her mind she could remember almost every detail of it.
Ronnie and the girl in a hallway of what appeared to be a hotel by the many doors in it, all numbered and with key card terminals next to them. They were waving in unison, leaving to go somewhere? The girl looked so much like her own mother now Victor could swear it was his friend herself staring back at him (or rather, Emilie). Emilie went back into her own hotel room, and there he was, sitting at the end of the bed with his hands together, elbows on his knees.
He looked older now. It was odd (and perhaps even unnerving) to see what one's self might look like at an age that one had not even gained yet. He'd been aging gracefully it seemed (though that wasn't any real surprise given the baby face he'd had in his youth) his rounded features taking on a more masculine, angular appearance.
"The ladies are going to the mall. Ronnie said something about ditching us losers to hang out with cool kids or something. Apparently that is what she calls the pimply faced hormone factories that hang out in such places... but maybe only to seem cool. " She laughed. "I think she wants to buy her some new clothes for school. You know how teens are, always obsessed with how good they look."
"We're alone?"
"Yep. Better get used to it. There's going to be at least three years of this... just us."
The other Victor frowned at the thought.
"We should go see a movie." Emilie suggested, trying to take his mind off it. " We hardly ever get to do that. I want to go see 'Cars Exploding Without the Assistance of Mel Gibson.' "
"Sure. We'd probably just sit around here and watch something on television anyways." He said, forcing himself up from sitting.
From here, things were quick and blurred again, but she was clearly just fast forwarding through the boring stuff, including them apparently eating something at some point. It slowed down again in the theater. Emilie was sitting patiently for previews to start, and looked down at the other Victor's hand on the arm rest. She didn't dare to take it, she knew better by now. Instead, she slyly leant her head into his shoulder. It took only seconds for him to stand abruptly, stopping her vague affections.
"I'm going to go get some candy, want anything?"
"... No, I'm fine."
Skipping again, right through the film. Which meant Victor was just going to have to watch it himself. It slowed again as Emilie was walking out of the building and into the parking lot. "OH MY GOD THAT WAS AMAZING." She exclaimed running ahead of the other Victor. "RACE YOU TO THE CAR." She added and ran ahead. She looked back at other Victor to see if he was chasing after her, and then everything went spinny and the ground came up on her quickly. There was a bounce in vision, and then the spinning stopped. She had fallen. Seemingly into a planter full of very low growing shrubs.
"OW." She cried out. Other Victor was walking towards her and shaking his head at her antics.
"That's what you get for eating half my candy, sugar fiend."
"WITNNEEEESSSS MEEEEEE!"
"Witness you what, sacrifice yourself to topiary?" He offered out his hand to help her up.
"Maybe." She took it, and was upright once more, reaching out with her other arm to catch onto him for balance. "I live... I die... I live again... as a weeble."
"Slow down now. You don't want to fall again." Once she was upright, he let go of her, and lead the way back to their car. It was a purple Volkswagen 'New Beetle', now old and beat up. Victor would remember riding in the front seat of this very car on several occasions. So when Emilie took her seat in shotgun, it was nothing new to him. What was new was seeing himself behind the wheel. She would never have let him touch Dino so intimately.
Emilie looked down at her own feet and began to unzip her boots. " Maybe now that our baby's off to school, we should get you a new car and let Dino go back to it's old stomping grounds. I bet he misses the Institute."
"Why, so some stupid horny boy can knock her up in the back seat and accidentally kill her like the previous owner?"
Emilie stopped and looked immediately at Victor, who'd already realized what came out of his mouth and was very pointedly not looking at her.
"You know that isn't the truth. We both know that isn't the truth.
For one thing look at that back seat, there's no room for riding let alone impregnating someone. The only reason all four of us fit into it is because three out of four of us are compactible."
The other Victor didn't respond, he just kept looking out the window.
So Emilie continued. " You have blamed yourself for this for nearly fourteen years now, you can't go on blaming yourself for this forever. You didn't know what was going to happen. She didn't know what was going to happen, but she did know it was risky and she decided to do it anyways.
The only person responsible for Malina Lebowski not getting to raise her own daughter is Malina Lebowski."
"Then why do I still feel guilty?" He asked, though with the fact he was still turned away, it seemed more like he was asking his own reflection than Emilie herself.
Emilie began to lean in to hug him, because she couldn't think of anything to say to him.
"Don't. Please."
She stopped, and pulled back. She went back to getting her boots off and kicked them off onto the floor of the car, then adjusted her seat back and curled up on her side, and watched the other Victor quietly as he internally sorted out whatever it was he was thinking about. It seemed like she must have waited awhile, as she was doing that thing again for Vic, that time lapsing, fast forward-y business. But instead of seeing bits and portions of what was going on, Other Victor continued to stare out the window.The forward-motion stopped when the other Victor looked at her. His eyes looked a mess, and his cheeks were obviously tear-stained, but he hadn't once reached up to wipe his own face. Now that everything was dried, there was nothing to wipe away.
He smiled at her. "Where are your shoes?" He asked. "You can't wander the post-apocalyptic desert without your boots on."
"I thought we agreed you were going to chain me to the front of Dino's radiator and I was going to ride the hood while wailing out some sweet licks? I won't be needing shoes for the future-times."
The other Victor reached out his hand to her hair. Our Victor could almost hear Emilie's heart pounding in her chest as the other did so, but he quickly pulled away again, with what seemed to be a chunk of bark between his fingers.
"You've got mulch in your hair."
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It stopped. Victor's conscious thoughts were now free to roam about the cabin.
"Should I continue, or is that enough of one Freud's misery for today?"