where nature ends

He thought for a moment, not sure how her suggestion could help, but he had nothing to lose; everything he could, at the moment, was gone already. “Yeah,  yeah, I know how to do that. I think.” He pushed the screen down and turned the laptop over, pressing down on something before taking out the battery and putting it back. He pushed up the screen and glanced at the woman. “And do I just…?” He looked back the computer and pressed the power button for a while. “I don’t know if this is gonna work.” He hoped, quietly, that it would. He’d written some quality content, and hours of hard work would just go down  the drain, only because he didn’t have half the mind to buy a decent computer when he could’ve afforded one. It wasn’t long before there was a beeping sound, and the screen came back to life, the logo appearing in bright lettering. “Oh, shit!” Grinning he placed his hands over his head and turned to the woman. “I’m gonna buy a fucking cinnamon roll right now.” 

Admittedly, Tilly had not actually expected to be able to offer any genuinely useful advice. After all, she was not any type of a tech expert or even familiar with the kind of laptop the man had, so reading aloud the most general information from a helpful-looking website was the very best she could do. Tilly waited anxiously and craned her neck to see better, nimble fingers curling around the pleasantly warm coffee cup as she witnessed the computer’s screen lighting up. “Look at that!” she exclaimed with great enthusiasm, very nearly clapping her hands together. “Oh, that must be such a relief. You deserve all the cinnamon rolls you can possibly eat. That must have been so stressful,” Tilly huffed. “I hope the software saved your changes, too.” 

He worried his lip with his teeth and bounced his leg restlessly as the woman tapped away at her mobile device. “It just - the screen just went blank, and I can’t seem to get it to power back on,” he reported, pressing the power button to demonstrate. “It’s a pre-existing document, but I’ve made a lot of progress that I wasn’t able to save before it - it, god.” Thinking about it made his head hurt. Paragraphs upon paragraphs – lost. He knew the program had some kind of auto-save feature or whatever you call it, but he also knew that it won’t be able to salvage everything. And that’s only in the case that this piece of shit machine actually works again.

Tilly nodded and offered him an understanding smile without actually tearing her eyes from the screen. She knew most writing softwares came with a function that automatically saved the changes you did on a document but she had no idea how to actually access any of that when the damn thing wouldn't even turn on. “I really wish I could help but I really don’t know... It says here holding the power button down for 30 seconds might help. Or you could try and remove the battery if that’s in any way possible with the laptop you have. Do you know how to do that?” she asked, glancing at the man and going for a quick sip of her coffee. 

“–And most other people weren’t just handed a baby out of the blue, if I knew I was going to be raising a kid a year ago I would have prepared better. I think I’m adapting to this change quite well, and handling it as best as I can.”

“Right! Of course you are, I’m sure you’re doing your very best. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression I was somehow judging your choices. I promise I’m not, I have no right to do any of that as I’ve never been in your situation.”

“True, but 5 year olds always have the most fun. And naps.”

“Oh god, naps. Yes, I want to have so many naps. I would like to have an extra hour or two just for napping purposes, please.”

Sitting in the small coffee shop, Winter tapped the end of his pencil on the open sketchbook laid out before him. In need of inspiration, he took to one of his favorite places in the city to people watch. He watched an elderly man with a large crooked nose fight with what seemed to be a plastic wrapped biscotti -probably brought from home. Looking over he noticed a pretty blonde with large sunhat adorned with little ruby red flowers. Tilting his head a little, the male watched as she sipped her drink before the corners of her mouth gently curved skyward in enjoyment. Looking down at his sheet of paper, the male began to sketch as quickly as he could. He glanced from his subject to the page, trying to capture whatever it was that drew him to her. Perhaps it was the curve of her lips or the way her delicate fingers gripped the cup, or maybe even just that ridiculously over the top hat. Whatever it was, he needed to capture it, but alas his hand wasn’t quick enough.

Okay, so perhaps pulling an all-nighter and then drinking what felt like an absolute gallon of coffee wasn’t the brightest of ideas, but something had to give. After all, there were only so many hours in one single day and Tilly had been absolutely desperate to finish a painting she’d been working on for a while now. Her desire to create original work ebbed and flowed - sometimes the idea of staying indoors and painting after spending hours restoring an old masterpiece seemed very unappealing. Other times her creativity had no limits, meaning she would do almost anything to make sure she had the time needed to explore new ideas. Sometimes, unfortunately, this meant she would gladly disregard sleep and even leaving her apartment for a few days. 

“It’s kinda sad how many harmful things we learn as we grow up. Bleh this is the worst let’s all just be 5 forever.”

“Well, I think it’s very much possible to continue to be a kind person into your adulthood. You just need to, well, be aware and unlearn any harmful views you might have internalised.” 

“Are you just gonna stare at my ass all night or are you going to at least buy me a drink?”

“Stare at your...” Tilly began and blinked twice, clearly completely unaware she’d been staring at anything, let alone someone’s backside. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even realise I was doing that.”

“Ironically the things we teach children are the things that adults have forgotten. Like “Be nice.” “Use your words not your fists” “Don’t bully others because they’re different”. I have faith we’ll figure it out eventually, probably not in our lifetime though. I’m just hoping we don’t see a third world war in our lifetime.”

“Sometimes children are so much better at life than we are. They’re far less judgemental - unless they’re forced to listen to adults spout bigoted nonsense - and just generally nicer. I don’t know, we should really just listen to kids and try and get over ourselves.” 

Nicholas immediately felt as if he should have reacted differently, which only added to his seemingly endless embarrassment. Those negative feelings didn’t leave as soon as he had hoped. He stared at the painting in front of him until his view was blurred with color. Seconds after, he still felt as if he’d done something wrong, and he wondered if she’d still be interested in seeing him again despite the uncontrollable mess that he was.

Realising just how lost she was without the possibility of actually touching the person she was talking to made Tilly feel incredibly nervous. This was not normal to her. She did her best to respect other people's personal boundaries - she could usually tell when someone did not like to be touched - but this was different. She didn't necessarily want to admit it to herself, but making sure she would have the chance to meet him again had become incredibly important. Sure, she wanted to stay true to herself and not alter her personality for anyone's liking, but she was also painfully aware just how overwhelming she could be when she really liked someone. Finding the balance between being herself and controlling her whims wasn't always very easy.

“I’m a busy man, I’m surprised I even found time conceive her to be honest. At the moment, I can’t to devote time to learning how to be a dad, and actually spend time with her. That’s why its better to get a nanny while I try to work things out at Sports so I can spend more time with her in the future.”

“I would imagine most people are able to fit that in their schedule, no matter how busy they are. I think it’s part of the human nature, really, to find that time. Anyway, I don’t know why I just said that. I think I understand what you mean. I can’t tell you what’s the best thing to do since I don’t really know that much about children.” 

“Mmm, I think I’ll just get a nanny. Better to have someone who knows what they’re doing, rather than trying to teach myself how to raise a kid and screw ‘em up.”

“Really? You don’t think you would do a good job? Well, I mean, getting help is great when you feel like you need it, but I don’t think you would screw up a child. It just takes a while to get the hang of it.”

“See? As long as you’ve got a good story behind the name, it can’t be as bad as you think. –I will definitely cross my fingers for you.”

“Oh, absolutely! And I don’t think I will ever end up marrying any kind of an emperor or whatever, so I should be safe. Hopefully.”