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oghoneytryst · 5 years

Text

savior;

continuation from the sunflower. series / part 3

where a fan becomes a friend

a/n: thank u for being so patient with this. my inspiration and writing just ... hasn’t been it lately, but I'm really pushing through and i am so happy to have finished this part. honestly, we’ve got a long road ahead of us, but I will try my absolute best to drive this wild ride down.

pls let me know how you feel about this part! pls be nice b/c I'm currently in sad bitch hours :-)

also sorry that tumblr is a weirdo and made the format for text super strange, idk what to do about it but i hope it doesn’t affect anything!

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~ Nov. 14 ~

Every digit embodies a shapely mark of intimidation; all ten, with their loops and their curves that shower in iridescence through her late morning eyes. Midnight ink saturates the sticky note’s pale yellow, tiny creases in the square body and little curls at the edges. She knows the value of this ordinary paper, and in her hands, it dances in the flame of eternal possibilities.

The pregnant woman sits on an office chair with desperation in her chest. Beneath the buttons and ruffles of her bright marigold blouse, her heart beats against her clammy skin. Heavy thighs stick to the squish of the chair, a mermaid’s tail in a muted pencil skirt. The material expands and shapes over her little bump; her growing joy; her inconvenient little bundle that she adores so much.

As a result of her punishable overthinking, she tears away the inside of her cheek, gnawing teeth at war by mindless command. In a pile of her worries, the minimal harm is at the very bottom. At the top are these ten digits that transfix her curious eyes. It isn’t as if she hasn’t considered dialing the number before. Insignificant pregnancy whines, however, cannot compare with the favor she would be asking of him now.

Without trouble, she recalls the days that had followed Harry’s visit. She recalls her tears on the couch, angry at nothing, angry at everything; the frustrating changes of her body, the awful work days. In all of her recollections, she complains to her roommate, who she admires greatly for putting up with all of her dramatics.

On the 6th, she had obsessively craved some Dippin’ Dots. It had been on the 6th that Aaron found himself arguing with a pregnant woman, a feat he had never wanted. It hadn’t mattered that such a pregnant woman had been his infuriatingly needy roommate, someone he actually does care for. He really had no trouble telling her no after her incredibly annoying behavior that afternoon.

She, of course, is never able to control her pregnant mannerisms. Yet, Aaron has always been suspicious of what she had been like prior to the bun in her oven. He has only ever known her as a woman-carrying-child in need, so perhaps during this process a lot of her personality hyphens instead of alters.

Nonetheless, her demand had been frankly impossible on the 6th. The nearest Dippin’ Dots is more than a half hour drive away from their home, and nighttime had been approaching soon. There hadn’t been a chance that Aaron would bear through Los Angeles traffic for, quote, “fucking balls of ice cream.”

So, with the fire of the sun drizzling to a bedazzling California sky, she had wept over nothing and everything at once. The timeline of her pregnancy had not made her emotions plausible. Instead, it had been the collective world turning against her on a tiring, unwelcomed day.

In the flash of a second, she had heard the ding in her fuzzy brain. The sticky note with the fruitful digits ... maybe he has some connections! Maybe he can bring us some! Do you think? If he’s not busy? What if he has a special freezer meant for his own supply of Dippin’ Dots?

It had been harmless on her part; an oh-so-bright idea crafted from a momentary desire for soft frozen food. She had been so close to make the call, if not for her dearest roommate and his not-so-delicate intervention. Aaron, the man who she believes admires Harry more than she does. With a high percentage of certitude, she knows he’d be first in line to invite the Cheshire man back to their unimpressive home.

In truth, that had been the reason for his disapproval of ringing him up that night. He believed it to be lunacy, sharp scissors at the ready in order to cut the special ties she had somehow knotted up with Harry. The man’s exact words – in that richly Northwestern accent – had been: “if you ever need something, please, don’t hesitate to call this number.” Something, in Aaron’s eyes, had not been anything. While he does not have a single doubt that the rock star would fly to her rescue in any situation, he advised against calling him for certain things.

Not everyone is so fortunate to have Harry in their lives. Aaron, with all of his respect for the man, knew that this had been a game to play carefully. If his pregnant roommate really enjoyed Harry’s company, she would have to play every card right, especially with a man as reserved as he is.

His points had been compelling, but she had not seen it as seriously. Her intuition had not stopped her from rethinking her decision once and twice and thrice. In the end, she had put her trust in Aaron’s madman words and had not called Harry. In the days that had followed, his charismatic voice lured in the back of her head whenever she scanned the sticky note, second-guessing herself about whether her temptation to call him had been worthy enough of his time.

It had been more difficult to resist calling when she had been alone one unfortunate night. The bustle of the neighborhood brought her to a reality that she did not particularly enjoy. Forced by the comfort of her pregnancy pillow, there had been a magnetic pull of the stars that whispered to her eyes through an overbearing distance.

She only wanted a friend that night. Someone to talk with, to hear their voice so that it could bring her back to the bit of sanity she had left. Previous nights, Aaron had been a solace for her, soft-spoken words lulling her to sleep after suffocating in the clouds for too long. Except that night, he ended up at his workplace until the late hour, and she recognized her loneliness as dangerously frightening.

For hours she cried, wanting a hug, wanting something to make her feel real and existent and safe. On that night, in her most calamitous moments, she later came to notice the vivacity of her swollen stomach. It had been – always is – comforting to feel something there, even without having to actually feel movement. It had been therapeutic to whisper her fears and truths. It had been on that night, she would never be alone again.

She hasn’t thought to call the number since. While it has only been a mere 10 days, there feels to be an infinite timeline of moments in-between. She knows it to be more accurate for him and his busy, ever-changing schedule.

They’d had a conversation last time, when he brought her that treasured gift. He sat on the dusty floorboards, her rested on a heavenly cloud with a smile to match. It had been simple, a little awkward at times, though never once had it felt forced. She feared them reverting back to strangers, to sense the shift in energy that would put a strain on her heart.

She scans the note again. xxx-xxx-xxxx. A dime of kisses, where no other option lies.

With her phone face-up on the receptionist’s desk, she rolls her eyes. Messages of apologies and excuses flood in, though her scant aggression dissolves into an antsy frown. She cannot be mad at Cindy/Sydney for cancelling on her, especially when she does not even know her actual name. The frustration of her anger devolves into frustration of herself, for this damn appointment that she had not set up a backup plan for.

“Excuse me?”

Breaking up with an intense, one-sided conversation, she raises her head to a sheepish man in his late 30’s, early 40’s. He stands at a short height on the other side of the receptionist’s desk, square glasses disguising his truest features.

She grins at him, a cheery delight overpowering her honest glum. “Hi, how are you?” her voice chirps, a shift in her behavior that she considers a skill-set. “What can I do for you today?”

“Uh, I’ve already spoken with you. I have an appointment with Sanders at 10 and you told me to fill out a form. I’m still waiting for it.”

The woman’s smile falters at the man’s irresolute explanation. He ends each sentence as though it is a question, not wanting to step on a wrong foot. She takes in his appearance, and there is familiarity in his rusty red, untucked polo.

“Right.” Her eyes close in repent of her common forgetfulness. “That’s right. I’m sorry.” She scurries to get the papers together on a clipboard, pushing the rolling chair in every different direction. “I’ve just been a little slow today.” The man laughs off the mistake, assuring her that there are no worries.

“Really, no trouble at all.”

He thanks her for the form once it is secure in his hands and walks to the waiting area. This accidentally precedes her rushing to hand him the sticky note, to which she quickly realizes her mistake before he has a chance to read the numbers. He sits down in a modern arm chair next to its twin, where a young preteen girl shifts around nervously. Out of plain assumption, she recognizes the pair as a father-daughter duo. The man smiles at the girl, crossing his legs, trying to console her nerves as best as he can with humor.

The pregnant receptionist smiles.

The ventilated air of the office smoothens in her lungs.

For her child, she would do anything – everything. As hesitant thoughts surge through in hungry waves, she dials the number in her phone anyway. In the back of her head, she contemplates whether it is actually his number or if it belongs to an assistant of his. It doesn’t sound completely off from what a celebrity would do. He doesn’t know who she is. It’s better to play it safe than to make a foolish mistake that he later regrets.

The trio of short, snippy buzzes vibrate through the line. It is an electric feeling, comforting almost to hear its warm murmur during her wait.

“—Hello?”

Her languid eyes illuminate in the mirror of neon signs; her body freezes over with a blizzard of nerves. His voice is somehow deeper than she remembers from 10 days ago, an ironic sultriness in his polite tone.

“Hello?” he asks again with a tad more infliction in the single word.

“...H-Hello,” she responds, tongue running dry and the last sensible part of her brain sabotaging her. Why didn’t I prepare for this? It is feasible that deep in her subconscious, she had expected an assistant to answer. She practically wanted an assistant to answer.

He repeats himself, “Hello,” a little more chirp in the melody of a mockingbird.

“Hi. Harry?”

“Who’s calling?”

The question stumbles her for a second. Is it good or bad that he cannot recognize her voice? Admittedly a consequence on her part for taking so long to reach out. She answers anyway, her name spoken with so much dubiety, but really, what is she afraid of?

“You know, the uh, the one from—”

“Oh—”

“From Mel’s and, the one with ... pregnant, y’know—”

“Yeah!” he exclaims, echoing her name through a mildly static output. “Of course. How are you? Doing alright? Baby’s fine?”

She pulls away from the phone to breathe, suddenly elated over his reaction. His charisma is virtually magical. She touches her cheek to the screen again to answer:

“I’m doing great, thank you. Baby’s fine, I hope.”

A delay of worry replaces his lack of an immediate response. “You hope? Why, what’s – is there something wrong?”

“No!” she bursts out, the father and daughter staring back at her in surprise. She nervously chuckles and smiles at them, deflating in her chair as she continues. “No, sorry, that came out wrong. I meant to say ... well, I’m sure the baby’s fine. Nothing feels wrong, but I do have an appointment for an ultrasound today.”

A faint crackle from the line resonates in her ear. She clearly pictures Harry’s sigh of relief.

“Really? That’s great. I hope it all goes well.”

“Thanks! Thank you, I do too—” she snickers, “Obviously, but I have uh ... there’s a bit of a predicament.”

“Predicament? Fancy word.”

“Right, well, it’s not so much of a fancy situation that I’m in. See, I was supposed to be picked up later today by Cindy Sydney so that she could take me from work to the appointment, but she just called and cancelled because she has to pick up her aunt from the airport. She got the dates mixed up somehow, which makes no sense because pregnancy has made me very forgetful, and even I didn’t get the dates wrong. I think that might have to do with the planner, it does keep me organized, but even then—”

“Darling,” Harry stops her, unaware of how she chokes on her own tongue at the endearment. Darling. Darling again! From darling to love, she is in a storm of beating hearts. “You’re gonna ‘ave to slow down. What – you don’t have a way to get to your appointment, is it?”

“Yes. Right. I don’t have enough for an Uber or a Lyft right now without affecting my budget for next month. She offered to pay for it, that or for cancellation fees, but I don’t really trust those kinds of transportations right now, and I already got approval from my manager, so switching the date would just be super inconvenient.”

“Right. I understand.”

“I’m so sorry, it’s just that no one else that I know of is available, and I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy. I wouldn’t be calling if—”

“No, no, that’s alright. I’m glad that you’re calling.”

The pregnant woman simpers, a needle pricking at her heart. “R-Really?”

“Of course. I would be more than glad to help. If you could just send me the location of your workplace and where you’re getting your ultrasound ... what time is your appointment?”

“At 2. I want to get there maybe fifteen minutes earlier. You’ll never know how much the traffic will back up at that time. Is it okay if uh ... are, are you picking me up or...?”

“Yeah, why?”

“N-No, nothing, I just ... didn’t know if you were busy. Didn’t want to assume.”

“Yeah, my schedule’s fine. Not really doing anything that I can’t do later, so everything’s fine.”

“Oh, okay. Good. Great. So, uh, is it okay if you arrive here at, say, one-oh-five-ish?”

“Oddly specific.” Harry chuckles. “But sure. I can make that happen.”

“Great! Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“You’re quite welcome ... thank you for calling.”

While her appreciation for him has always been so strong, this heavy thump in her pink and red organ is nearly unbearable. Ever since he fell intertwining into her life, she tries her hardest to ignore whatever feelings may occur. Now it seems more ideal to control it than to suppress it.

“You’re welcome,” she speaks softly, 16 again with a crush on a boy. “Thank you for picking up.”

Unbeknownst to her, he smiles on the other end. “S’ my pleasure. Now, get back to work, you over-achiever!” His accent purposely thickens on his second sentence, eliciting a natural, honest laugh. “Don’t forget to send me the addresses. I’ll make sure everything works out.”

Their phone call ends with innocent expressions of repetitive gratitude and gentle goodbyes. The pregnant woman does not waste a second to send him the addresses via text message, not allowing herself to fall victim to her lapse of memory. She checks over the numbers, the street names, the zip codes – all more than once, to make sure that all is well and not in metaphorical flames.

new message: Got it. See you later. H

H. She bites on her silky lip, a refreshing taste from her natural balm. She is familiar with the signoff, though she doesn’t know if it is something he does regularly or if it is only a one-time confirmation that this is, in fact, his number. Does he expect her to save his ten digits in her contact’s list, somewhere underneath a family member and above an old friend? She is giddy, undoubtedly so. An unspoken dream of hers as a plain teenager unraveling into reality! It causes the brightest smile this orthodontist office has ever seen.

So much esteem fills her up at eleven in the morning, and to her expectation, the hours go by very slowly. Alternating clients, each with different lives, somehow bound to this one place and time. Sorting forms and making calls and opening emails; a distraction in one way or another, but neither can steal her attention entirely.

Due to a much-needed bathroom break, she almost misses the message. Relieving her bladder had not been the first or even second of the day, but it is important that she stays hydrated, and this is especially true during her pregnancy. She really cannot afford a preventable trip to the emergency room right now.

When she reaches the receptionist’s desk, the message hides behind the black screen of her phone for an entire minute. She is lucky that her outdated iPhone can still be trusted by reminding her of a message succeeding two minutes from when she receives it.

new message: I’m outside. Toyota Camry in black.

Despite her anticipation for his arrival, the message throws her off any and all guards. Primarily it is because he arrives six minutes before their agreed time, whereas her friends are usually a few minutes late. Secondarily...

“Toyota?” she whispers to herself, eyebrows arching together. She isn’t too up to speed with car models, but she is more than certain that Harry has driven some different sort of vehicles in his time. The only moment she can ever recall him in a Toyota had been that commercial he had done years ago.

Regardless, she raises steadily from her chair on wheels, pushing it back as she collects her belongings. It is without trouble that she notices the slight shake of her hand, the sweat collecting on different sections of her skin. She ignores it. “Ang!” she calls, groaning at the absolute mess of her work bag. It is more professional than her casual bucket bag, wide with its faux leather, but it is just as much of an interior travesty.

She picks up her phone to send a one-handed message:

Conch.

Coming*

Be out soon.

“Ang!”

There is a franticness to her as she steps around the receptionist’s desk. She sports an added height in her footwear, something that she tries to savor before her feet start to swell. She thinks it will be unbearable to wear heels then, but she’s not for certain.

“I’m here, I’m here!” Ang announces, stepping into the light of the front area in her navy scrubs. “Sorry, nena, I had an alarm set for one in case you forgot. Guess it didn’t go off.”

The pregnant woman watches her coworker situate herself on the rolling chair. “No, no, you’re fine, it’s not one yet. Honestly, I don’t think I would’ve been able to forget. I’m just so excited, you have no idea.”

“No, I don’t.” Ang smiles. “You’re about to see your child! That’s a huge deal.”

“I know! I know, I can’t wait.”

“I can. Especially until Stefan buys me a ring. Otherwise, I’m going to keep working on my career.”

The woman smiles at her friend, thanking her once more for taking over her station while she is gone. She repeats the same gratitude, expressing how much this truly means to her, because it all comes from her honest heart. She really is in awe of how willing people are to help her when she is in need.

“Also, turn that alarm off before it starts ringing. It makes me anxious every time I hear it.”

“You and I both.” Ang snickers. “You’re off to your appointment then?”

“Yes, my uh, my ride’s here so ... better early than late when it comes to these things, y’know?”

“Mm-hmm. Who’s taking you?”

The pregnant woman hesitates. “A friend. Has the day off from work, thankfully.”

Ang begins to sift through a small pile of paperwork, sparing her coworker a measly glance. She’s not unfamiliar with the receptionist’s work, so she takes this as an opportunity to rest her active legs. She can also recognize the strange tone of the pregnant woman, a shaky smile that carries suspicion.

She doesn’t think too much on it. “Great. Be safe. Let me know how it goes.”

For that, the pregnant woman is grateful. “Thank you.” She smiles, a frail wave in Ang’s direction as she blindly scurries away. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

She almost runs belly first into the glass door, but stutters her movements before any panic arises from Ang. Still, she sighs with relief when she hears the chime above her pregnant coworker’s head. “...Be careful.”

“Got it! Bye!”

The woman’s face twists in agony as she exits the office. A tenacious heat buries her in an embrace. Parallel to the sidewalk she stands upon is a dark vehicle, a protective tint rises from the brim of the tires and extends beyond the sleek windows. She gravitates in its direction at the sound of the passanger door unlocking, considering it symbolic, the single click of the door a new breath of feasibilities.

She stalks a couple feet to her right where the car reeks with caution. It isn’t until the passanger windows rolls down that she can sense her blood settle and burst all at once. “Hi.” Harry leans forward at his side, revealing his face amongst the darkness of his surroundings.

“Hey, hi,” she greets him back through the open window. “Good to see you. Nice car.”

“Thanks.” He smiles, scarce eyes pulling to her every movement. In the most mundane activities – fingertips at the door handle, crouching to the seat, buckling the seatbelt – she highlights his curiosity. “Good to see you as well. Also, s’ actually not my car.”

With her lips as barriers around a reusable straw, she pretends to be surprised. “It’s not?” she smacks her tongue, relishing in the purity of her water.

Harry shifts the gear in drive, setting the GPS up and maneuvering out of the lot with high-alert. “No. I’ve borrowed it.”

“Why—”

“Starting route to—” The animatronic voice interrupts their conversation.

She tries again, “Why would you do that?” with slight disappointment in their reunion. It lacks excitement, but somehow picks up where it’s been left off. No longer a drastic stretch in time are those 10 days.

Harry shrugs casually, turning onto the main road where other vehicles swim along. “Draws less attention.” He pauses, to which she then decides to look over. With the exception of him driving, she gets the impression that he avoids her eyes more so to keep her from catching the sadness in his. There is only a sprinkle, a shimmer that is never truly absent. “Thought you’d might be a little anxious about your appointment,” he continues, “Didn’t want you to have to worry about something else.”

“Oh.” She warms up, her organs all collectively combusting. “Thanks. Thank you for thinking of that.” Her words express gratitude with ease, but the glimmer in her eyes twinge with empathy. She doesn’t ponder over her privacy, or how simple it is for her to go out and do as she pleases. Since his 16th year, he had not been so lucky.

“Of course,” he replies, professionally monotone, as though he can shut off even the faintest flicker of emotion. “S’ my pleasure. How are you feeling? Nervous?”

“Uh, yeah, a little. I’m really jittery and I’ve been drinking water nonstop. On top of that, my bladder is the size of a bean. I’m really good at holding it in though, so I’m not afraid of ruining your seats or anything. Or ... not your seats, but your seats for now. Not like ... not that you were even thinking about that...”

Harry chuckles throughout the entirety of her run-on spoken thoughts. It is never at her – no, never. It is because of her, because despite any situation, she is this fountain of goodness drowning in gold. “Very nervous then?” he teases.

“Yeah ... sorry.”

“No, it’s alright. Nothing to be ashamed about. It’s an important day for you. I’d expect—”

“Turn left on—”

“I’d expect nothing less,” he finishes, lowering the volume of his pesky GPS. “Must be surreal, if anything.” The robotic voice is still present, but becomes more of a background noise that allows them both to speak freely.

“Oh yeah, completely. It’s like ... it’s like I can’t feel them yet, like movement wise, but ... I don’t know. I guess ... obviously I know they’re in there, but even without movement I can feel them. I know they’re present, heartbeat and everything. Does this – is any of this making sense?”

“Yeah,” he quips amusingly, “it is. Even if it didn’t, doesn’t matter. It makes sense to you and that’s more than enough validation.”

“Mmm. Right, but it’s still nice to have someone understand.”

Harry sneaks a glance in his peripheral, inhaling and exhaling as to settle into the moment. “I know—”

“In 500 feet, keep right—”

“What was, uh—” he digs into another topic, the robotic voice somehow a savior that refreshes the conversation. “What you said on the phone about ... Sin City, I think it was?”

“What?”

“You said something about being picked up near Sin City? From your work to your appointment? I thought there might’ve been a store or somethin’ near your job, but I don’t think I saw anything like that.”

“Sin ... oh!” The woman laughs, slapping her knee consciously. “Cindy Sydney. She’s my ... well, yeah, I guess she’s my friend.”

“Cindy Sydney?” he repeats, slowly enunciating every syllable so as to make sure he’s got it right. “Huh. Eh ... that airport story makes more sense. Didn’t know who you were talking about.”

“Yeah, my bad. I know I tend to ramble, probably explains why no one calls me anymore. They can’t even understand what I’m saying.”

“I understood!” he proclaims, expression of his pride lacing around his lazy smile. “Yeah, got it now. Cindy Sydney. That’s really her name? Like ... Phillip Phillips?”

“No.” The woman laughs, almost choking on her water. “N-No, it’s ... I don’t know her name, to be honest. One of them might be it.”

“Wh—how do you not know?”

“Okay, so basically, I met her maybe a month and a half ago? Somewhere around two months, I guess. And it wasn’t like this everyday sort of meeting at, say, a retail store or something. Can you believe that one night I wake up to use the bathroom I half-pay for, and this woman who I’ve never seen before comes out, no pants, maybe underwear, and what I now assume to be Aaron’s shirt?”

“Aaron?” Harry questions nonchalantly, as though the thought of him is of half-importance. “What, like a—”

“Yeah, so, he usually never brings anyone home. If anything, he’ll go over to someone else’s and come back really early in the morning. So, picture me, pregnant, really loopy because I have to pee, half-awake mind you, running into a complete stranger in my own home.”

Harry adds dramatically, “In the middle of the night!”

“Exactly! So, while I’m tiredly freaking out, trying to not literally piss myself, she’s apologizing and introducing herself. I don’t know if I heard Cindy or Sydney, hence why she’s both, but it could be neither. Anyway, we ended up talking in the hallway and I told her about my situation and why I was living with Aaron. She was actually really nice and offered to drive me whenever I needed a ride.”

“Hmm. Interesting how that played out.” He shoots her a look, to which she can only shrug. “Why haven’t you asked Aaron what her name is?”

“I did! I think he’s annoyed that I befriended his one night stand because he told me her name was Sierra. Then again, he probably doesn’t know himself.”

“Jesus. Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“Oh, it’s too late for that. I’ll just be extremely awkward. I really do feel bad about it though. She is a nice person, except for, y’know, cancelling on a pregnant woman. I mean, it’s not a huge deal or anything, but ... c’mon. Would you ever do something like that?”

“Dunno,” he playfully smirks, “Maybe if she forgot my name...”

“I didn’t forget it! I never knew it!”

“I’m joking, I’m joking. But I have noticed that you like to play the, uh, the pregnant card a lot.”

“Oh yeah!” she fixes her position on the seat, pulling the seatbelt to her preferred adjustment. “Not a doubt about it. Coming from a place where no one really took me seriously. I mean, yeah, maybe I was a little dramatic when I was younger, but that shouldn’t invalidate my feelings. Now it’s like ... you have to take me seriously. Not only am I going to raise a child on my own, I’m literally growing said child inside of me. Isn’t that just ... just fucking amazing?”

Harry stops at the red stoplight, which he is glad for, because now he can look over and mesmerize at her. He can see before him a woman who smiles at the window, water bottle between her thighs, hands on her belly. It’s grown a bit, he thinks, and it is truly, wonderfully, unimaginably powerful.

“Yeah,” he silently agrees, “fuckin’ amazing.”

The woman smiles, but her wandering eyes suddenly widen with worry. She holds her hands out, an aura around her belly as she props an inch forward. “Did I...” she thinks aloud, “I didn’t ask you how you were doing today. How are you, Harry?”

She looks at him with features full of soft inquiry. The now green light ever so symbolic, he wonders how magical such a mundane thing must be in the dark of the night. “M’ alright,” he answers, pressing on the gas, somewhat wishing that the drive never ends. “Thank you for asking.”

Her angled feet dangle from her seat on the examination table. Harry sits in front of her on a separate chair, leaning back in a position juiced with supremacy. His index finger taps against his lips in sync with the tick of the black and white wall clock.

“So, you work as an orthodontist?”

She looks to Harry with her body stiff in discomfort. “No,” she answers, noticeably quieter in such a mellow area. “Just at the office. I’m a receptionist. Didn’t go to like ... an orthodontist school or anything. Even if I did, I’d probably still be there. Probably takes a lot of years.”

“Right,” he agrees. “A receptionist, then? Do you like it?”

“Sure. It’s not my dream job, but it pays the bills. Plus, I get along with everyone in the office. They’re like ... my distant second family.”

“Alright...” he gradually begins to smile. “What’s your dream job then?”

The woman shrugs, so quickly that it is considerably sad. “I don’t know. I went to community college undecided.”

“What did you graduate in?”

“Well, I got my A.A., but beyond that I haven’t ... finished. I transferred to the nearest University but after a semester or two I just ... I just didn’t finish.” She looks to her lap where her fingers play with the material of her blouse. Harry discreetly frowns at her dejected expression, an ambience of regret seeping out of her system. “It’s hard enough for people to get a job with a Bachelor’s degree. Competition is high, especially in Los Angeles. I’m lucky as it is with just my A.A.”

“Yeah. I understand. M’ sorry for bringing it up. Didn’t mean to pry.”

Her features immediately shine with worry. “No, it’s completely fine. I’m the same way. Always curious.” She forces a laugh, but the intention is sincere enough. “If anything, thank you for asking, or even ... caring at all. Not a lot of people show an interest in me, especially not after this one.”

She points an accusatory finger to her belly, which he takes as another opportunity to marvel. It is so fascinating to him, as he believes it would be to anybody. This power she holds, the strength she gives off. This strange and endearing woman who he had met by questionable circumstances of fate – she opens his eyes to something he’s not quite sure of yet.

“Anyway, being a receptionist is fine for me,” she continues. “I’m basically Pam Beasley except knocked up and without a Jim Halpert. I mean, she was pregnant twice, but by then she was already married.”

Harry narrows his eyes. “I’m sorry, who?”

“Oh ... um, The Office reference.”

“Ah. Alright. Still haven’t seen it.”

“Finished the series again. At least Pam wasn’t a receptionist forever.” She allows her eyes to wander around the room. “...Thanks for coming in with me,” she offers, meekly smiling amidst a thick, awkward air. “I’m sorry if it’s super weird, they’re probably going to assume you’re the dad, so just so you know—”

“Oh—”

“Just so you can be prepared—”

“Right, no, it’s fine. It’s good. That’s fine.”

“...Really?”

“Of course. I mean ... like, I’m not the father, duh, but it’s harmless. I’m honored to be here with you either way.”

She looks down to her belly, where her freshly painted nails – she’d recoated for the special occasion – search tenderly. “I didn’t ... picture it like this. Not everyone wants to have a baby, or get married, or things like that. But those who do ... you just can’t help but picture it, y’know? You dream about your wedding, what the venue will look like, what you’ll dance to or wear. Or when you have a kid, you imagine that first look. Your first look at your baby to know they’re actually in there, and you can almost see your whole future right before your eyes.”

By now, Harry is in a trance of both comprehension and disbelief. For him, it is difficult to find people in which he can relate his thoughts to; someone he can honestly understand. With the spontaneous flow of his life, he isn’t able to picture the future as he once did at 16. Yet, as her defenseless words spew out, he contemplates the quick flash in his eyes.

She smiles, and though it does not reach her eyes, it is authentic in the purest sense. “I ... wish the circumstances were different. No one ever really wants to picture it like this.”

He doesn’t find offense in her honestly, no matter how poorly she constructs it. If anything, with his entire body and soul, he aches to turn back time. “I understand,” he says, because while she most certainly does not need or depend on the father, she had pictured it differently. He knows that she had pictured herself to be in love instead of broken and built up again. She doesn’t need him, but she wants him, at least a little bit. It is for that that he can never entirely hate him.

“...Except you,” she confesses shyly. “And I’m not just saying that for obvious reasons. If you weren’t here, I’d be alone. I probably wouldn’t even be here. That’s why I’m always thanking you, because it really does mean more than you can imagine. Being alone is fine, I can sort of manage, but ... it’s nicer to have someone with you, y’know?”

“...Yeah.” Harry blushes, failing to cover it up with a cough and a sniffle. “I’m ... I know. I understand.”

The sound of the door unlatching rattles their bodies. “Hi!” the doctor storms in, breaking their moment. The two of them smile, the pregnant woman nods as her name from the lips of the lady in the form of a question. “This must be papa?”

The pregnant woman silently snickers at her oh-so-psychic abilities. She offers Harry a witty raise of the brow, but due to the blindness of her pride, she fails to recognize the cheeky glint in his eyes. As she opens her mouth to deny the doctor’s innocent assumption, Harry chimes in and steals her words. Except, they’re not her words at all.

“Yes,” he announces, his accent supplying to the playful sarcasm of his tone. “Yes, that is me. As Maury would say ... I am the father.”

To say she is shocked ... well, it is not all that off-character. Harry is a humorous man, one that loves to entertain. The statement makes her do a double-take, jaw opening with a single throaty chuckle. He responds with an animated grin and cartoon wink – how can she not play along?

“Right.” She nods. “This is my baby daddy ... Halpert.”

Harry snickers, but covers it with a cough. “Halpert. Yes. Says so on my birth certificate.”

The doctor smiles at them both, amused by their charade. She has probably seen many acts in this office, so she lets their humor be. Besides that, she begins by asking a few simple questions, reconfirming everything before directing the woman to lie on her back.

“Sorry I didn’t dress practically,” she discloses, “I just came from work. Didn’t really have time to change, or even think about bringing clothes to change into.”

“It’s no problem. We’ll just open this up...” The doctor starts with the lowest button on her blouse, continuing to undo the following three. “And lower this down a little,” she continues, carefully dragging the upper part of her pencil skirt down until her belly is nicely exposed.

The pregnant woman tries to ignore the discomfort that she feels. Firstly, lying on her back is a nightmare without her pillow. Secondly, with her blouse pried open, a mere centimeter of her bra peaks out. Harry sitting next to her is the third basis of her discomfort, intense concentration on his part with the upmost awareness. The fourth, the icing on the cake, is like literal icing. While the doctor had told her to prepare for the cool gel, it doesn’t make it any less frosty on her skin.

Despite it all, her minds swivels around a haze. The doctor’s equipment runs along her stomach, eager to discover. Her hands clench without her noticing. She feels as if her lungs run out of oxygen – she forgets to breathe! Nothing is important to her other than what the doctor has to say about what can be seen on that unreadable screen, the one where she strains her neck to catch even a glimpse of meaningless motion.

She looks to the doctor, taking in every feature that may indicate something, anything. She momentarily forgets about Harry, who leans forward in his seat, risking everything by placing a hand over her knuckles. She doesn’t notice. All she can focus on is the doctor’s smile.

“Found them,” she announces, continuing her movement with more confidence than before.

“You...” the pregnant woman’s chest deflates. Her breath hitches, needing more than two words to convince her that everything is okay. “...You found?”

“Yes. There’s the head,” the doctor points to the screen, brown muck never more beautiful. “the body...” The woman listens, matching up the body part with the picture on the screen. A wave of newfound contentment vanishes every worry away – almost, because really, she can’t help herself. “Everything looks great, mama.”

“Mom...” she stumbles out, swallowing thickly as her fingers fall loose. She shakes her head, overcome with every emotion she’s ever known on top of those that are entirely new to her.

Harry smiles at her, noticing the light drips swaying down her cheeks. “That’s your baby,” he says, disregarding the possibility of destroying his cover as Halpert. He himself begins to empathize with this woman, this calm of a storm that he’s only known for a few short weeks. “Congratulations.”

“C—” She can’t seem to tear her eyes away from the screen, the ache in her neck multiplying, but she just doesn’t care. “My baby...” she speaks softly, the room almost entirely silent, but still it feels like there are a million things going on at once. And yes, she is smiling. She is over the moon, over this entire universe and the next. It is dangerous territories to be so elevated, and she knows this to be true when she begins to feel the low.

A bitter California sun never truly settles. When she walks out of the imaging center, heels scraping against the dry and jagged sidewalk, she winces and sighs. Her blouse now intact, her skirt lifted again, but the residue of the gel makes it stick to her skin more than any perspiration. In her hands, she holds onto the envelope with the printed pictures of her son or daughter – she doesn’t know yet. With the baby’s position, it had been a little hard to tell. She’s relieved for it though. There had only been so much that she could absorb in such a short, life-changing moment.

Harry follows after her, already with his shaded sunglasses scooted close to his face. He mimics her position as she leans against the side of the Toyota, staring down at an enclosed envelope. Very steadily, she lifts the flap open and slides the picture out, running a thumb over the body of her child.

“Sorry you couldn’t find out the gender today,” he speaks up, observing the way she cradles the print. It is natural, the way she possesses that tender quality of a mother. “Must have ... must be—”

“It’s fine,” she says, not wanting to hear the end of his sentence. “It’s not like I’ll never know.”

“Right.”

“Good. Still a beautiful moment, eh?”

“Yeah...”

“Thank you for letting me be a part of it.”

She looks up at him, but the connection is blocked by his sunglasses. She smiles either way. “You’re welcome. That sounds weird to be saying.”

He looks down, ankles crossed, hands in his pocket. “I know I can’t, um ... ever know what you’re feeling, but ... how are you feeling?”

“...Good?”

“What I mean is ... I’ve never been to an ultrasound. I’ve been friends with lots of pregnant women, and I know that doesn’t mean I have a clue about ... I just, for the moments like these, I imagine the woman to be happy. Happier than happy, and I just ... I don’t know. How are you feeling?”

A period of elongated seconds pass as the pregnant woman considers his talk. Birds chirp, an ambulance sounds in the near distance, and the faintest wind kisses her face with the leaves of the rustling trees. “I’m ... happy,” she answers truthfully, closing her eyes as the burn in her chest rises up her throat and to her nose.

“And...” Harry presses on, noticing how her answer hangs off the edge of a cliff.

She swallows, face molding like a ceramic statue on which the rain pours. “...And scared.” Her voice quivers. She doesn’t want to open her eyes. She’s far too cowardly to envision the colors.

Harry stands still, watching as she unravels the rawest parts of her. He doesn’t want to ask why – it should be obvious to everyone. She is a single mother-to-be. Her life is moving quicker than she could have ever imagined. Of course, she is scared. It would be strange of her not to be. Therefore, he doesn’t ask, but instead calls to her. In a faint second, she breathes in, coming alive to the world again. Her shaky hands wipe frantically at her blinking eyes, a sorry attempt to erase the remnants of her weakness.

“God...” she scoffs. “I can’t – why am I crying? This is so dumb.”

Harry shakes his head, his entire body now turning to her. “No, it’s not. So, you’re scared. Everyone is. I am. Why wouldn’t you want to be scared?”

“Because I don’t know what I’m doing!” she bellows, entirely turning to him. As her words sink in and flow on, he slides off his glasses, letting them hang from the fine stitch of his t-shirt collar. “Or – or what I’m going to do. I’m ... I was a child yesterday. That’s what it felt like. I was ... searching for independence and purpose and now I’m...” A breath trickles out. “I don’t want to ruin this child, Harry. But I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing.”

“No,” Harry argues. “No, you won’t. I know you won’t. You’re going to do everything you possibly can for your child. That alone makes you an incredible mum.” By now, his hands are on her shoulders, thumbs absentmindedly smoothening her nerves. “And incredible mums don’t know the answer to everything, that’s what makes them so incredible. They don’t know anything!”

She sniffles at the sidewalk. “Yours does,” she mumbles, indicating how well-rounded she sees this kind man. The manner in which he had been raised ... he is a foundation for reckless excellence.

“To be fair, I’m her second child,” he reasons, even tittering a little. “When she had my sister, she didn’t know what she was doing ... but she learned. Even after all these years, she’s still learning. You can’t expect yourself to be perfect ... at least, perfect without any flaws. You’re scared, that’s ... it’s important. You can’t skip that stage, alright?”

She reluctantly nods, but she has to admit to herself that his charisma is magical. To be a mother at her age – perhaps it is not uncommon. Yet, it is a vague new-coming of an experience. This growth that she possesses, her body ever-changing in the autumn to spring, the little person that will resemble parts of her and no one else. If that is not a future more uncertain...

“You’re going to be excellent. An excellent mum. And you’re not alone. You have Aaron. Maybe Cindy Sydney Sierra, if her aunt’s not visiting ... and you always have a friend in me.”

...but how sad it would be to plan every waking moment and every dying night. How safe it would feel to stumble upon no surprise. In the end, a future without uncertainty is no future at all. She doesn’t know what she will do when her baby fusses and whines and drives their mother to insanity. Previously oblivious of the happiness it will bring, the overwhelming flutter in her chest is a euphoric feeling like no other. To love another person unconditionally, entirely – to be loved in return – that is the greatest and only certainty she will never need.

#honeytryst

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chrtzvonbrtz · 7 years

Text

How does UI/UX can help to develop an instruction/manual framework?

Index:

1. What is UI/UX?

1.1 What can be achieved with UI/UX?

2. What is a framework?

3. Short history of instructions

4. First conclusions

1. What is UI/UX?

UI (User Interface) describes a (mostly) virtual surface the user can interact with probably software like apps, programs, websites, …

In addition to this, there is UX (User Experience) which relates to the behaviour how the user can interact with the interface. Mostly the interactions are attended by visual feedback. So it mostly suggests a real interaction. (e.g. a pressed button - if the user clicks on the button, the button seemed to be virtually pressed. In addition to the 2D surface a virtual 3rd dimension (eventually created to virtual light and shadow) illustrates the interaction.

1.1 What can be achieved with UI/UX?

Good UI/UX can achieve to make it easier to interact with software. It can behaves like guidelines or animate like real world interactions. So the user receives a virtual feedback to their actions.

2. What is a framework?

A framework is mostly build in a modular way. Specific aspects are covered by specific code snippets. Therefore, a framework can provide e.g. which feedback the user receives through an action, it can also provide virtual components (like f.g. how to deal with images, inputs, which fonts and colors are used, etc..) It structures things and is mostly used as a base for software, apps, websites.

3. Short history of instructions

Instructions not included

In the late 17th century, the printer Joseph Moxon published Mechanick Exercises, the first guide to printing in any language. It had been nearly 240 years since the debut of Gutenberg’s press, and books had proliferated. There were Bibles, of course, along with lots of schlocky literature, some porn, and guides to everyday topics—how to polish jewels, how to cast a spell against your enemy. But Moxon’s manual was subtly different. It rang with a decidedly DIY tone and suggested that readers could learn a new trade, at home, in their spare time.

To someone in 17th-century Europe, this was a deeply subversive notion. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the dawn of the Renaissance, age-old social hierarchies held firm. You were born into a station, whether peasantry or trade work or aristocracy, and you and your family remained there for generations. But then came science and technology, and with them new trades and opportunities. With no established guild system in place for many of these new professions (printer, navigator, and so on), readers could, with the help of a manual, circumvent years of apprenticeship and change the course of their lives, at least in theory.

Mechanick Exercises was not the first manual. Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture is one of the only true manuals to survive from antiquity. It offers clear and concise instructions for how and where to construct a house (not in a dell, for instance), where to orient your summer and winter rooms, and many other useful matters. Scribes in the Middle Ages produced their shared guides too. One of the most consistently produced titles in the entire history of writing, the 15th-century Aristotle’s Masterpiece, is a sex manual. But where those early books served as compendia of sorts—the compiled wisdom on any given subject—Moxon’s manual and others like it promised something more: systematic treatments for solving complex problems, such as how to lift a horse with your little pinkie (and a pulley system), how to survey land and on building a fortification. These were books filled with ingenious methods, and they offered something new and relatively democratic: agency, skill, and command for anyone who could read.

And so it went. As manuals explained more complex systems, they grew in size, developing into the heavy, barely penetrable and largely unread books that most people think of today. But then in the 1980s, the manual began to change. Instead of growing, it began to shrink and even disappear. Instead of mastery, it promised competence. My new iPhone, for instance, came with a “manual” that was about as brief as a Christmas card (and I did not read it). A recent rental car did not come with a manual at all, making its nonreading a snap (but finding out how to pop the trunk rather difficult).

The manuals of old, it turns out, have shape-shifted inward, into the devices themselves. That, or their information has been off-loaded to help-desk support or a parallel, Internet FAQ universe: a searchable realm often filled with answers to almost every question but the one you are asking. Change is the way of the universe, but what does it say that most of us now live our lives using tools that are, practically speaking, beyond our understanding or ability to fix? Have we traded away something important, perhaps even defining, about ourselves—a sense of our own autonomy and control over our tools—for the dubious benefit of convenience?

The Man Who Killed The Manual

If the era of minimalist manual design in which we live could be traced back to one person, it would be John Carroll. In 1976, Carroll, a linguistic psychologist, was finishing his Ph.D. at Columbia University and took a job at IBM’s Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. His job was to help make computer programmers more efficient, but that quickly changed to a new focus—making computers more usable for average people. That was a big shift in thinking. “You have to remember,” Carroll says, “IBM was probably the richest computer research facility in the world, but at the time, the idea of focusing on the average everyday user was sort of off the radar.”

Carroll was doing, in essence, dissident research. He set up a lab, gave secretaries computers and manuals, and then studied them as they tried to accomplish regular office tasks. He tracked “frustration episodes,” observing as subjects became progressively more flummoxed by their manuals. “People would look at me, shaking, and they’d say, ‘I can’t do this.’ And then they’d get up and put their coat on. One person literally had to flee the building,” he says.

Though Carroll had worked at IBM for more than a decade, his quiet revolution—a culture-wide shift not just in the shape of manuals but in how we learn to use technology—didn’t coalesce until one day while he was on a vacation in Germany. He had just finished a manuscript that would become his groundbreaking minimalist opus, but he had no title for it. Then, in the basement of a castle in Nurnberg, he saw a postcard of a painting depicting an old German folktale: two professorial-looking gentlemen in a library standing over a young student who had a funnel affixed to the top of his head. The teachers are busily choosing potions from the library shelves and pouring knowledge down the funnel and into the boy. For Carroll, the image clearly represented the dominant paradigm in most scientific fields—the “systems approach,” a way of dividing the world into taxonomic orders and protocols of action. In computer science, that meant learning an arcane and exacting “command language” and typing directives precisely as prescribed by the system. Carroll’s book, The Nurnberg Funnel, outlined a new philosophy. Instead of focusing on the needs and values of the system designers, it shifted attention onto the end-user, the secretary in the office who needs to hyphenate a compound word.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, among others, quickly adopted a similar approach and more would soon follow. Writing a manual from a minimalist point of view, Carroll says, proved enormously successful because it harnessed the true source of all learning—active engagement. Short, succinct manuals allow the user to dive into many different tasks and to accomplish them quickly, thereby gaining a sense of control and autonomy that inspires further learning. "Skeptics would say we weren't providing the user with any theoretical foundation," Carroll says, “but we found that people got through their initial learning faster, and that later on, when they needed to learn more complex tasks, the users were also better at doing that, too.”

Manual As Mirror

So manuals began to slip from view. They still exist, sure. Highly complex things, like jet planes or nuclear plants, rely on big integrated enterprise resource planning systems, into which an army of sensors and engineers log the status and service history of every part in order to maintain standards. Many think that BP’s failure, in effect, to update the manual of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig led to the spill in the Gulf. But for most consumer products, the manual has become less an object or a thing and more a verb, a service, a response to the statement most likely uttered (or yelled at the top of one’s lungs) by someone stymied by a gadget: Help.

According to Carroll, the help we once sought from a manual is now mostly embedded into the apps we use every day. It could also be crowdsourced, with users contributing Q&As or uploading how-to videos to YouTube, or it could programmed into a weak artificial intelligence such as Siri or Cortana. Help can even be predictive, tracking our keystrokes or vocal cues to steer us away from trouble before we find it. Xerox is already using predictive analytics to manage calls from Medicare and Medicaid recipients more effectively. And IBM’s Watson Engagement Advisor, part of a new generation of cognitive assistants, can analyze large sets of customer service problems to more efficiently answer (or even anticipate) problems during a purchase. Help may soon arrive in the form of augmented reality. Carroll suggests that technology like Google Glass might one day offer a “task intelligence” visual overlay to help users figure out objects in their field of view.

For most of us, the transition from physical manuals to embedded help has been slow, steady, and apparently benign, like the proverbial tide that lifts all boats—who would argue against help after all? The disappearance of the manual-as-book coincides, moreover, with documented realities about how people actually learn to use new tools and devices. Studies published by the Society for Technical Communication, which regularly reports on “human-machine interaction,” suggest that even when manuals are available, people tend not to read or use them.

Yet even as we gladly cede more and more control of our tools, a growing chorus is calling attention to the costs. In his book Who Owns the Future?, computer scientist and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier uses the analogy of the Sirens from Homer’s Odyssey. The creatures would lull sailors into complacency with their beautiful songs, only to have their boats wreck on the rocks. Lured by the convenience of the Internet, search engines, and all that they promise, most consumers are, in Lanier’s estimation, similar to those doomed sailors: a little too ready to give “the sirens control of the interaction.” Kimberly Nasief, president and co-founder of Measure Consumer Perspectives, a consumer monitoring and customer service consultancy based in Louisville, Kentucky, wrote about how Apple’s ease-of-use might be making her a dumber user. She tried out an Android tablet, and the greater complexity of the operating system actually forced her to learn more: “It made me develop some critical thinking on how the system I was using worked. With Apple, I don’t have to do that. It does it for me. And that just might be dangerous. Dangerous in that if I no longer am learning, or if it’s done for me, then I might just get technologically left behind,” she wrote.

Today the hazards of being left behind seem ever more real. Even Carroll notes that research has suggested an unforeseen consequence of the minimalist approach. Furnished only with a manual of one or two pages, users soon reach a comfort zone, a knowledge plateau from which they tend not to wander. The aggregate effect, culturally, may be that less is less. The less we’re inclined to know about our devices, the more beholden we are to the manufacturers that make them, and the more we offer control to those who, for good or for ill, know more than we do. If manuals began as great equalizers, then their disappearance should at least give us pause. By dispensing with them, we could, consciously or no, be setting the stage for something few would relish: a society divided.

Author unknown, 2015, Instructions Not Included, “Popular Sciences - Issue Alert: Have We Found Alien Life?”, February 2015 issue, Page numbers unknown - readable at: http://www.popsci.com/instructions-not-included (7th March 2017)

4. First conclusions

As instructions are old as the human technical inventions, they are somehow connected how we - as mankind - interact with technology over hundreds of years.

This is how we spread our knowledge to new users and following generations.

But in comparison to f.g. old software - our current instruction manuals aren’t made to last forever, too. There are computers and software which still works but can’t used anymore because nobody knows how to use them anymore (f.g. old NASA computers).

This will even come worse if the lack of instructions continue. Or if there is a handbook it’s hundred pages and only professionals have the ability to read and understand them.

In the “real world” we use pictograms, signs, etc… to guide us to our daily life. But in the digital world a consistent equivalent is missing. There are so many different interfaces (like in the windows world each program used to have it’s own), so many different good or bad written instructions (IKEA vs. tape recorder manual). The goal to achieve is to develop a framework for easy to use introduction manuals (it won’t make current instructions useless). Like an additional overlay layer for programs and apps which can be implemented in any software.

The framework itself should have an consistent design and use remarkable and easy to understand layout (use of icons, colours, pictograms, text templates, visual interactions and feedback) which still have to be simple to not interrupt the used software in a visual way.

Chris Mertinat

March 2017

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