On the inside, I'm a poet...

[camdenrefugee]

It was warm in the laundry room.  Quiet, too, if you ignored the hum and thump from the machines.  When stacked up against the current chill of the great outdoors and the chaos of the more popular rooms in the Compound, the laundry room had a lot to recommend it.

Marwood sat on the floor, leaning up against the warmth of the dryer as it studiously

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[so_near_an_end]

The clothes box had been quite kind to Cecilia as of late, particularly so today. She barely had fussed with it at all before it began to offer up various infant garments. With the twins only a few weeks from their arrival date, Cecilia and Robbie had much to do to prepare for them. While clothing was only one of the myriad things to which they must attend before their sons were born, it was an important one.

Pleased with what she'd learnt were called 'onesies', blankets, booties, and bibs she had acquired, Cecilia made way to the laundry room, for it wouldn't do to not wash the clothing first!

There was a man inside the room already, waiting for his clothes to dry. Depositing her pile on top of a nearby washer, she gave him a small smile. "Hullo," she greeted, and then gestured to his biro and paper. "Passing the time, I see."

[camdenrefugee]

Marwood glanced up at the voice, worrying the tip of the pen between his teeth. He'd been so intent on his (atrocious) rhyme scheme that he didn't hear anyone come in, but now there was a lady there, further down the row of machines. A very pregnant lady. Feeling his ears begin to redden, Marwood dropped the notebook and scrambled to his feet.

"Sorry, ma'am," he said, because this lady was a ma'am if ever there was one. She seemed pretty close to his age, true, but something about the poise, the smile, the tone of voice told him that this was not one of the girls that he would have hung out with, in every connotation, in Camden Town. No, this was a lady, a ma'am, and Marwood was instantly awkward. "I was just..." Trying to write a poem sounded lame, so he closed it off with, "...didn't hear you come in

[so_near_an_end]

So startled by the way the man scrambled to his feet, Cecilia abruptly set down the bottle of detergent she'd been about to use and turned toward him. There was something terribly endearing about him, giving Cecilia cause to smile slightly. "You needn't apologise to me," she assured him. Truly, Cecilia was not terribly fond of apologies, though he hadn't any reason to offer her a single one.

"I should be able to manage, thank you." The offer was a kind one, although all the same Cecilia felt she could tend to her own laundry. Before she had left the Tallis family home once and for all, after Briony had accused Robbie, Cecilia had no reason to clean anything for herself. Once she had liberated herself from the narrow-mindedness and restrictiveness of all things Tallis, she had discovered that doing so was somewhat...liberating.

"If you don't mind my asking, what was it you were writing?"

[camdenrefugee]

"Oh, it's..." Marwood stooped and grabbed his notebook from the floor. He stared at the mass of half-started lines and futile rhymes before flipping back a few pages, where the white space was densely packed with spiky prose.

"It's just my monologue." Marwood wouldn't call it a journal. That would give it a dignity and a regularity that Marwood unconsciously tried to avoid. "It's just... you know. I have a thought, I write it down. Most of the time, it doesn't go anywhere, but once in a while," he rubbed at a smear of ink with his thumb, "I get something out of it. Maybe for a stage somewhere. I dunno."

He folded the book closed and took a step closer, extending a now-smudged hand, trying for a friendly grin. "Sorry, hello. I'm Marwood, Peter Marwood."

[wongsideofcreek]

While Joey would be loathe to admit it, she was in debt to Pacey for continuing to let her stay with him. She knew sooner or later she would need to move out but during the cold and knowing the holidays were approaching, it was nice to be with her old friend. While she wouldn't dare admit her debt to him, Joey would continue to work it off in small ways, complaining all the while. Today it was his laundry.

Joey entered the laundry room and shed the heavy gray coat that she'd been wrapped in. She slowly started loading a washing machine with clothes, wrinkling her nose at Pacey's many dirty items. She nodded to the laundry room's other companion and gave him a friendly smile.

[camdenrefugee]

Marwood looked up at the newcomer. Girl, nice girl, nice smile. He saluted with his pen and a returned smile before turning his attention back to the matter at hand. A, B, A, B... couplet at the end... damn. Marwood tapped the pen against the paper a few times, leaving tiny dots on the white, before giving up with a sigh and looking up at the other girl.

"Hey, ah," he began, "you know how many lines are in a sonnet?"

[wongsideofcreek]

Joey answered quickly, the words flowing out her mouth before she could stop herself. "Fourteen." She looked down a bit sheepishly, looking up at the boy with bashful eyes.

"Capeside High had a section on sonnets this year," she shrugged her shoulders a bit, "suffice it to say I payed attention."

[dogbitesman]

"It depends," said William, who as an editor and reporter* couldn't help but respond to a question like that, even mumbled. He paused in the process of stuffing laundry into a machine to glance over at what was by appearances a writer. He reserved judgement on that. He always did. "If it's a sonnet, it's fourteen lines, actually."

*Professional nosy person.

[camdenrefugee]

Marwood looked up in surprise at the man's sudden appearance before the words sunk into his brain. "Fourte- oh, hell." So that was where the couplet went. Now Marwood had two extra lines to fill, two extra lines of mortifying, stomach-twisting torture, even if it was for a really quite excellent cause.

Marwood took off his glasses and let his head fall back against the dryer with an echo-y metallic thump. "This," he said momentously, feeling like he was channeling Withnail's sublime pathos and despair, "is a lot harder than I thought."

[dogbitesman]

"Well, then you're already a step ahead of most would-be poets," William said, pausing with a red military jacket and then deciding that however Maladicta's jacket had gotten mixed up with his laundry, pink shirts were not the way to go. He put it back in the basket. "If it was easy I imagine you'd be doing it badly."

Which was not to say he wasn't doing it badly, now. William hadn't read it, he couldn't say. But the chances were slightly better.

[pudge_halter]

I hadn't been on the island very long, so exploring seemed like a pretty good idea to me. I remembered being told about the laundry room, but I was still surprised when my search ended in one. I guess the guy who was sitting in there didn't hear me come in, because he was talking to himself about what sounded like a sonnet or some other poem. There was a moment where I wondered if it was my place to say anything-- a long enough moment that by the time I finally got the words out of my mouth the man had probably figured it out or at least forgotten that he had said it at all.

"Twelve... and a couplet at the end." Iambic pentameter had been drilled into my head in school. I used to get so angry at the example 'To be or not to be, that is the question' because it didn't fit the meter. Question was a hyper-metric word and the teachers would only get angry when I'd point it out.

[camdenrefugee]

Marwood looked up (and up, guy was tall) at the voice before glancing down at his scribbles again. "That makes fourteen. Fuck." The expletive came out a little louder than he would have liked, but the project had seemed hopeless even before the addition of two extra lines. Better and better.

Looking up again at the helpful stranger (who looked a little startled now), Marwood regretted his outburst. "Sorry," he said more easily, trying a smile. "Not your fault I don't know a sonnet from a sestina. I just..." He let out a whoosh of breath and took off his glasses. "I'm just not very good at this."

[pudge_halter]

"Then why are you doing it?" I asked. So far the greatest thing about the island to me what was there were no rules to abide by. No having to keep the door open in a girls room after 7, although I hadn't actually attempted that one yet, but I assumed, no rules against smoking, or drinking as a minor, no threat of going home if you do something wrong. But on the downside, not being able to go home no matter how much you wanted it.

I walked over and sat down so that the guy wouldn't have to hurt his neck. I sat indian style until I realized how awkward that probably looked, and then switched to leaning on one side, knees on my left and my arm draped over them. Alaska had sat like that a lot, and so I know it was affective in looking a least a little cool.

[camdenrefugee]

Marwood was momentarily nonplussed. Why was he doing it? He wasn't going to admit the reason to this kid he'd just met (especially since he would barely admit it to himself). For a moment, he contemplated pulling off some quasi-profundity about how excellence could never be a prerequisite in any attempt at progress, but it sounded like too much like Withnail in his head.

Finally, Marwood settled on a hedge. "It's a... Christmas gift for a friend. Well, it will be." He huffed a small laugh, more of an exhalation than a real noise. "And I'm doing it because I'm even more rubbish at everything else."

That was true, at least. Marwood hadn't been on the island long enough to develop any kind of new, useful skill. But writing was writing, application of pen to paper, the reproduction of imagery and ideas in words, and Marwood could do that. For the most part.

[acarelesslife]

Before the island, Leon had never had much reason to do his own laundry. A leisurely life had followed from from home, to school, and even into adulthood, with the help of a heavy dose of favors from his father. It had been a charmed life, and one he had never thought about much. Of course, island life had been equally charmed, or so he had once imagined, even as he had grumbled half-jokingly to Briony about the tedious process. And while Briony had been less than sympathetic, he hadn't minded much. Laundry wasn't so bad.

"You'd think with it being magical snow and all, the least they could do was make it less cold," he observed to the stranger as he came in with a pile of clothes under his arm. He flashed a grin that belied any sort of actual annoyance. "Sorry," he added, raising his brows in curiosity as he saw how the man was staring hard at the piece of paper, "busy?"

[camdenrefugee]

Marwood looked up, unable to suppress a grin at the sentiment. "Not at all. But I think you're forgetting why we're on this rock to begin with," he said in reply. "I'm not certain, but I suspect it's for someone else's amusement. And that someone is probably laughing their arse off as we freeze ours off." Withnail had a phrase Marwood had particularly liked: We are as genitals unto the gods. They play with us for their amusement. Considering the circumstances, Marwood had to agree.

"Most people say it's only for a month, though," Marwood said, tapping the pen in thought. "Does this happen every year?"

[acarelesslife]

"I suppose it would be much less interesting if everything was perfect about it," Leon agreed with a chuckle. "Well, it is a fine thing to know that someone is enjoying themselves, at least, at our expense or not. He unceremoniously dumped his clothes on top of the washer. "I've only been here a few months myself, but that's what I've heard."