#misguidedtask

@candentilucy

Dying, like everything else, is an art. Gabriel Salinger did it exceptionally well.

Ironically enough, each time he had, he hadn’t been anywhere near a hospital. There’d been a swimming pool, a bathtub, a car. Each exit, & subsequent return, had come with a pool of sorts. He’d have to learn to avoid such tragic motifs, but the only thing on his mind at present was the same that had preoccupied his thoughts for the past seven months: the lack of reprieve. He focused less on the fact that he couldn’t find sleep & more on the bare & hideous revelation that he was running out of things to mull over while the rest of the world slept.

 He could think about what had come before & he could think about the present. Then of course, there was the future but that would be more of the same. To be quite plain, Salinger had no idea why he’d come to the hospital. Or even of how he’d gotten there. Insomnia didn’t have the same affect it would have on the living. At least, up until then he hadn’t been so afflicted. He could recall the sorrow he’d felt. The utter lack of distraction. Perhaps if he could just find it in himself to sob, he could relieve some of the terrible weight inside of him. Under the fluorescents, however, it was hard to bare in mind that he wanted anything but to close his eyes. The whites of which, had reddened enough to detract from his usual look of latent aggravation. 

Something about the staffroom he stood in was terrible, but he couldn’t remember what right then. He must’ve looked like a cadaver, dressed to impress whatever god would meet him, but he moved & blinked & wore the same confusion & melancholy the way the living might. He’d have phased out, he figured that was how he’d got into the hospital to start with, but he didn’t have the strength for it. Up until then, he hadn’t made an effort to discern whether or not he’d even been alone. Blinking width into his eyes, Salinger took in his surroundings only to move beside a large line of filing cabinets. Loathing the idea of explaining himself, when he couldn’t even rationalize his own presence, Salinger moved once more in an effort to find an exit but found only another body. Salinger swayed, as if he might disappear back & she could just imagine him, but he hesitated a moment too long & instead stared his molten gaze at the girl. “I believe,” He said flatly, a hint of desperation & honesty riding his tone. “I’m lost.” The lights flickered then. Without the buzzing of the bulbs above them the room was swallowed into an all encompassing silence. 

He was there & then not. She was there & then not.

@notsocrazymadison

Tipping his head backward, Sawyer scanned the topmost shelf. From what he could see under a layer of dust was... well he couldn’t think of what exactly to make of it. His look of perplexity only intensified as his mouth opened slightly, the man leaning onto his toes. 

“I got that from Vietnam.”

 Concentration shattered, Sawyer turned. Obviously, he’d been caught off guard by the man crouching behind a counter directly down the aisle he stood at the end of. Upon closer inspection, Sawyer realized the man wasn’t crouching. He was simply hunched over in the way only old men were. Spines curved with the weight of what they carried in their heads. It didn’t help that the shopkeep was already short. Sawyer managed a smile. Enough of that. He preferred to do his perusing without being watched.

Edging into another aisle, Sawyer was under the impression he was alone until he heard the man address someone else. He hardly paid the man any mind this time, only looking up for a moment to catch the drift that the man was going to step out. He wondered briefly if that was Michael - for whom the shop was named but a free standing stack of cards on a middle shelf caught his attention. 

Intricate designs had been painstakingly fashioned onto the back of the cards & as he reached from them, he flipped the top card off the stack. The Magician faced him. Staring at him, upside down with his arm raised, an infinity symbol floating ominously over his head; devoid of its meaning because of the onlookers lack of knowledge. Sawyer turned his head back, looking for the shop keeper, but as he did he heard a door close; gone for his smoke, & reached for the whole deck. Splaying the cards in his hands, he admired the illustrations. 

Gabriel Salinger-Rockefeller is twenty years old. He lives in Westchester County, New York in the home his family has occupied for what is now three generations - Kykuit. His mother, Alta Rockefeller is a philanthropist & daughter of oil tycoon & entrepreneur, John D. Rockefeller. Ezra Salinger, his father, is from Bentley, New York & has practiced law for over twenty-five years. Gabriel, an only child, is in his third year at Yale University where he studies economics. He is a member of the Skull & Bones Society & has played polo there since his freshman year. While he is vested to enter into business world, if not law, Gabriel lacks interest in the proceedings of his grandfather’s flagships or his father’s firm. Knowing full well that he will eventually be handed a title & list of duties, Gabriel’s current prerogatives include traveling & having as good a time as he can before responsibility is laid upon him.

In the 1930′s, Salinger was dead set on importing a Bengal tiger from Bangladesh on a bet, but the U.S. government barred him from doing so after discovering the animal would, in-fact, not be dead as stated on the original dossier.

His least favorite movie of all time is Citizen Kane.