New Lost fic
Title: Neighborhood Watch
Rating: PG for one bad word
Characters: Rose, Daniel, Charlotte, Juliet
Summary: Rose is keeping an eye on her new neighbors
Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit
Rose had to admit, grudgingly, that the new neighbors had talents. It was five days after the freighter on which so many hopes had been piled had gone up in smoke and sunk to the bottom of the sea (or so it was presumed: after that incident of the sky turning purple again, the plume of smoke had been nowhere to be seen). In that time, the three survivors from the freighter had been busy building themselves a new shelter. That redhead had planned it, as far as Rose could see, and the three had ostentatiously only used the camp’s tools, and provided all the building materials from the jungle.
It had started with a long conference amongst the three, with diagrams drawn on the sand and debated and long walks around different sections of the beach checking out the slopes and drainage and the ground. Michael had done that once, helping people build the first shelters. He had been good at it; most of them were still standing, although one had been booby trapped for the Others’ attack on the camp a couple weeks and an eternity ago. Presently, excursions into the jungle had started, and piles of bamboo and branches, palm leaves, and fibers from rotted vines had accumulated at the chosen building site. They had even managed to recover two of their parachutes, the least damaged of which now formed a nice sun shade in front of their new home.
That home was kind of funny-looking, made of branches bent over and interlaced together, with sides woven of bamboo like a big basket and the top thatched with leaves. They had two low rooms, one larger than the other, intersecting to form a wider entry chamber. It looked comfortable enough, if you liked very rustic camp-outs, and Rose was holding back any comments until the next downpour so as to avoid embarrassing herself should the thing prove watertight. Maybe she were better to leave off all snide remarks until she had figured out that trick of making string from those vine-fibers. String and rope were valuable commodities in the beach camp and the ease with which Red had produced it with the help of the two men was as galling as it was intriguing. Rose had heard she was some sort of anthropologist. All Rose could remember from her own college anthropology class was interminable kinship charts, but obviously Charlotte had learned something more useful in hers.
Rose watched as the tall skinny guy-Dan?-folded himself up to enter his home. Short n’ Sarcastic had been there earlier fiddling around, but he was off somewhere now. Maybe someone had dragged him out foraging or fishing. Her thoughts were interrupted by a shout from Dan.
“Charlotte! We have bats! Miles gave us bats-come see!”
He sounded far happier than anyone with unexpected bats in the house should be. Rose levered herself off the ground and strolled towards the new hut to see what was going on. Further down the beach she could see Charlotte break off her conversation with Juliet and start home, Juliet following.
“Bats, Dan?” Charlotte asked as soon as she was close enough.
“Chinese bats,” Dan confirmed with pleasure. “Didn’t Miles say bats were symbols of good fortune in Chinese iconography? I saw two on the door frame and there must be more. Aren’t five bats supposed to be lucky? There must be three more around, if we can find them.”
“Why bats for good luck? And five of them?” Juliet asked.
“The word for ‘bat’ is a homonym of the word for ‘good fortune’ so the one can symbolize the other,” Charlotte explained, stooping down to examine the left side of the door frame. “The five bats would represent the five elements of an auspicious life--”
“Health, wealth, longevity, I think-but what’s number four?” Dan put in.
“Dutifulness.”
“Really? That’s not as much fun. Five is dying of old age in your own bed. I thought that one sounded practical and sensible when Miles said it. And unlikely.”
“Is Miles from China, then? Is he some sort of artist?” Rose couldn’t resist asking. It seemed bizarre, but then this was the Island she was living on. Bizarre was as much a part of the Island as the coconut trees. Dan and Charlotte were searching for bats in the two wings of the hut. Rose and Juliet traded glances, then they sat down in the entry to examine the lucky bats. On the upper left side, drawn in ink, a stylized bat swooped down to catch a little brown flaw in the wood. A more staid, and distinctly Chinese-looking, bat flew across the middle of the right side of the door frame.
“Miles is from L.A. I don’t think any of his family has ever been to China. However, he does do very nice Chinese calligraphy and painted Dan and me each a fan when we stopped in Fiji, while we were trying to learn to be a team. I’m not finding any bats here.”
“I’ve found three and four-three’s on the back wall and four is roosting over the bedrolls. Try looking on the ceiling over your bed.”
“Oh, there it is-thanks, Dan. With its wings wrapped round it, it was hard to spot. Does that mean we get luck now? We could use it.”
“Umm, I think it’s supposed to be more a hope than an actual expectation, so I wouldn’t really count on it, but--”
“Pity. We really could use it.” Charlotte didn’t seem especially surprised or disappointed and she smiled more gently than Rose would have expected at Dan’s regret. He perked up a bit at her regard.
“Have you read what Miles put on your fan yet?” he asked.
“It’s in Chinese and I don’t read Chinese.”
“No it’s not. It’s just meant to look like Chinese, but it’s in English. I only noticed it the day before yesterday. Here, I’ll show you. Where’s your fan?”
“You’re joking,” Charlotte said as she turned and dug in her pack. She and Dan scrambled out to the main section of the hut with the fans, while Rose and Juliet shifted back almost out the door to make room. They all gathered around as Dan spread out his fan and pointed at the characters. The fan had a little sketch of palm trees and ocean and the writing looked very Chinese.
“I was just looking at it and suddenly I thought this character looked like the word ‘not’ and then I started seeing English words. See, it says ‘It’s not the heat it’s the’ and that last one has to be ‘humidity,’ although I have trouble making it out.”
“I don’t believe this,” Charlotte said, staring at the fan. She spread out her own and they all craned over to look at it. Hers had a sketch of beach with a few little trees off to the side and the sun up high. The inscription ran in two neat vertical lines over the beach. Even after seeing Dan’s, at first there was no meaning there.
“‘Do’ is the second word,” Dan started. “‘Why do’ and there’s another ‘it’s’ along with a ‘so’ in the second column.”
“I see ‘Why do they live’ as the first column.” Charlotte said slowly. She looked up and caught everyone’s eye. “Sound reasonable?” She looked back down at the fan. “Then the next word has to be ‘where.’ ‘Why do they live where it’s so’ something ‘hot?’.”
“‘Damn.’ ‘Why do they live where it’s so damn hot?’ is the whole thing. Maybe Miles noticed you wishing for air conditioning on the Kahana.”
“He would. Did you ask him about this when you realized you could read yours?”
“Well, I asked him what style of calligraphy it was. I didn’t really want him to know I had only just figured it out-that didn’t seem politic. He said it was a modern style, developed by an artist called Xu Bing.”
“I know that name,” Rose said suddenly. “There was a calligraphy exhibition by him in New York when I was visiting a friend there a few years ago. We went to another exhibit instead, and then after I went home, she went to Mr. Xu’s exhibit and raved about it on the phone to me afterwards. I guess I missed more than I thought.” She looked at the fans and laughed. “Look how far I had to come to see work in the style of Xu Bing! I wish I could call Beth and tell her about it now.” A wave of homesickness hit her suddenly. She had resigned herself to being dead and never able to talk to her friends again, but here she was alive and well and as far parted from her friends and family as death would have brought her. Thank God Bernard was here with her. She could endure losing everyone else, but not Bernard.
As her attention came back into the conversation, Rose found that Daniel was trying to explain a theory to account for their two episodes of purple sky and why the constellations had changed after the second episode but not the first. Juliet and Charlotte were hanging in gamely, but Rose knew she would never understand it, no matter how Dan rephrased his statements. She excused herself as soon as she decently could, and headed over towards the kitchen, looking for her husband as she walked. On her way, she passed Miles coming into camp.
“You do nice work, Shorty,” she tossed over her shoulder without pausing, and enjoyed his puzzled stare all the way over to the pantry.
Rating: PG for one bad word
Characters: Rose, Daniel, Charlotte, Juliet
Summary: Rose is keeping an eye on her new neighbors
Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit
Rose had to admit, grudgingly, that the new neighbors had talents. It was five days after the freighter on which so many hopes had been piled had gone up in smoke and sunk to the bottom of the sea (or so it was presumed: after that incident of the sky turning purple again, the plume of smoke had been nowhere to be seen). In that time, the three survivors from the freighter had been busy building themselves a new shelter. That redhead had planned it, as far as Rose could see, and the three had ostentatiously only used the camp’s tools, and provided all the building materials from the jungle.
It had started with a long conference amongst the three, with diagrams drawn on the sand and debated and long walks around different sections of the beach checking out the slopes and drainage and the ground. Michael had done that once, helping people build the first shelters. He had been good at it; most of them were still standing, although one had been booby trapped for the Others’ attack on the camp a couple weeks and an eternity ago. Presently, excursions into the jungle had started, and piles of bamboo and branches, palm leaves, and fibers from rotted vines had accumulated at the chosen building site. They had even managed to recover two of their parachutes, the least damaged of which now formed a nice sun shade in front of their new home.
That home was kind of funny-looking, made of branches bent over and interlaced together, with sides woven of bamboo like a big basket and the top thatched with leaves. They had two low rooms, one larger than the other, intersecting to form a wider entry chamber. It looked comfortable enough, if you liked very rustic camp-outs, and Rose was holding back any comments until the next downpour so as to avoid embarrassing herself should the thing prove watertight. Maybe she were better to leave off all snide remarks until she had figured out that trick of making string from those vine-fibers. String and rope were valuable commodities in the beach camp and the ease with which Red had produced it with the help of the two men was as galling as it was intriguing. Rose had heard she was some sort of anthropologist. All Rose could remember from her own college anthropology class was interminable kinship charts, but obviously Charlotte had learned something more useful in hers.
Rose watched as the tall skinny guy-Dan?-folded himself up to enter his home. Short n’ Sarcastic had been there earlier fiddling around, but he was off somewhere now. Maybe someone had dragged him out foraging or fishing. Her thoughts were interrupted by a shout from Dan.
“Charlotte! We have bats! Miles gave us bats-come see!”
He sounded far happier than anyone with unexpected bats in the house should be. Rose levered herself off the ground and strolled towards the new hut to see what was going on. Further down the beach she could see Charlotte break off her conversation with Juliet and start home, Juliet following.
“Bats, Dan?” Charlotte asked as soon as she was close enough.
“Chinese bats,” Dan confirmed with pleasure. “Didn’t Miles say bats were symbols of good fortune in Chinese iconography? I saw two on the door frame and there must be more. Aren’t five bats supposed to be lucky? There must be three more around, if we can find them.”
“Why bats for good luck? And five of them?” Juliet asked.
“The word for ‘bat’ is a homonym of the word for ‘good fortune’ so the one can symbolize the other,” Charlotte explained, stooping down to examine the left side of the door frame. “The five bats would represent the five elements of an auspicious life--”
“Health, wealth, longevity, I think-but what’s number four?” Dan put in.
“Dutifulness.”
“Really? That’s not as much fun. Five is dying of old age in your own bed. I thought that one sounded practical and sensible when Miles said it. And unlikely.”
“Is Miles from China, then? Is he some sort of artist?” Rose couldn’t resist asking. It seemed bizarre, but then this was the Island she was living on. Bizarre was as much a part of the Island as the coconut trees. Dan and Charlotte were searching for bats in the two wings of the hut. Rose and Juliet traded glances, then they sat down in the entry to examine the lucky bats. On the upper left side, drawn in ink, a stylized bat swooped down to catch a little brown flaw in the wood. A more staid, and distinctly Chinese-looking, bat flew across the middle of the right side of the door frame.
“Miles is from L.A. I don’t think any of his family has ever been to China. However, he does do very nice Chinese calligraphy and painted Dan and me each a fan when we stopped in Fiji, while we were trying to learn to be a team. I’m not finding any bats here.”
“I’ve found three and four-three’s on the back wall and four is roosting over the bedrolls. Try looking on the ceiling over your bed.”
“Oh, there it is-thanks, Dan. With its wings wrapped round it, it was hard to spot. Does that mean we get luck now? We could use it.”
“Umm, I think it’s supposed to be more a hope than an actual expectation, so I wouldn’t really count on it, but--”
“Pity. We really could use it.” Charlotte didn’t seem especially surprised or disappointed and she smiled more gently than Rose would have expected at Dan’s regret. He perked up a bit at her regard.
“Have you read what Miles put on your fan yet?” he asked.
“It’s in Chinese and I don’t read Chinese.”
“No it’s not. It’s just meant to look like Chinese, but it’s in English. I only noticed it the day before yesterday. Here, I’ll show you. Where’s your fan?”
“You’re joking,” Charlotte said as she turned and dug in her pack. She and Dan scrambled out to the main section of the hut with the fans, while Rose and Juliet shifted back almost out the door to make room. They all gathered around as Dan spread out his fan and pointed at the characters. The fan had a little sketch of palm trees and ocean and the writing looked very Chinese.
“I was just looking at it and suddenly I thought this character looked like the word ‘not’ and then I started seeing English words. See, it says ‘It’s not the heat it’s the’ and that last one has to be ‘humidity,’ although I have trouble making it out.”
“I don’t believe this,” Charlotte said, staring at the fan. She spread out her own and they all craned over to look at it. Hers had a sketch of beach with a few little trees off to the side and the sun up high. The inscription ran in two neat vertical lines over the beach. Even after seeing Dan’s, at first there was no meaning there.
“‘Do’ is the second word,” Dan started. “‘Why do’ and there’s another ‘it’s’ along with a ‘so’ in the second column.”
“I see ‘Why do they live’ as the first column.” Charlotte said slowly. She looked up and caught everyone’s eye. “Sound reasonable?” She looked back down at the fan. “Then the next word has to be ‘where.’ ‘Why do they live where it’s so’ something ‘hot?’.”
“‘Damn.’ ‘Why do they live where it’s so damn hot?’ is the whole thing. Maybe Miles noticed you wishing for air conditioning on the Kahana.”
“He would. Did you ask him about this when you realized you could read yours?”
“Well, I asked him what style of calligraphy it was. I didn’t really want him to know I had only just figured it out-that didn’t seem politic. He said it was a modern style, developed by an artist called Xu Bing.”
“I know that name,” Rose said suddenly. “There was a calligraphy exhibition by him in New York when I was visiting a friend there a few years ago. We went to another exhibit instead, and then after I went home, she went to Mr. Xu’s exhibit and raved about it on the phone to me afterwards. I guess I missed more than I thought.” She looked at the fans and laughed. “Look how far I had to come to see work in the style of Xu Bing! I wish I could call Beth and tell her about it now.” A wave of homesickness hit her suddenly. She had resigned herself to being dead and never able to talk to her friends again, but here she was alive and well and as far parted from her friends and family as death would have brought her. Thank God Bernard was here with her. She could endure losing everyone else, but not Bernard.
As her attention came back into the conversation, Rose found that Daniel was trying to explain a theory to account for their two episodes of purple sky and why the constellations had changed after the second episode but not the first. Juliet and Charlotte were hanging in gamely, but Rose knew she would never understand it, no matter how Dan rephrased his statements. She excused herself as soon as she decently could, and headed over towards the kitchen, looking for her husband as she walked. On her way, she passed Miles coming into camp.
“You do nice work, Shorty,” she tossed over her shoulder without pausing, and enjoyed his puzzled stare all the way over to the pantry.