winnifreda

[winnifreda]

She gave him a small warm smile "Hmm, I guess you have a point there. I'm sure she'd love to see that her teaching skills were passed down along with everything else." She smoothed out the square piece of paper on the ground, trying to get it as smooth as possible. The flowers hadn't wrinkled it too much, but she still wanted it to be as close to paper as possible. Now this was more than just another crane for a festival. It was proof of something. That she could be a happy person despite the environment and situation, that she could overlook what's going on with her, and try to teach someone else something knew. Her mother would be proud of her if she could pull this off, it would show how much they were alike. How much they both pushed through and put on a smile to 'help' other people when they needed it most. Her mother didn’t know she could tell, but there were many times when she’d come home upset because she lost a patient or there was a complication, small or large, and she seriously considered quitting her job. But somehow, Winifred was always there to re-assure and help her to realize that sometimes it’s more important to focus on the small things in life that are going well. And that’s what the curly blonde-haired girl sitting in front of her mother’s grave with crinkled tissue paper needed to do now.

She made sure not to put too much pressure on the paper, for it was much more delicate than what she was sued to working with. She folded it in half so that it created a diagonal crease, and then folded it in have so that they were two equal rectangles. She continued lifting various corners, verbalizing each fold she made hoping that he would catch along as she went. It took her a while to get it down packed, and the first few times she often ended up throwing the towel in all together. You’d think that Mitica watching her would make her nervous, more prone to messing up, but she folded it like a pro. Maybe it was the thought that if she pulled this off successfully not only would she impress Mitica, but she’d prove something to herself and her mother. Mostly herself. Maybe this was what she needed, a confidence boost from inside of herself, to prove someone wrong that was constantly putting her down. Well, maybe Mitica didn’t constantly put her down, at least he didn’t make an effort to, because everyone knew that he didn’t care.  It was most likely just the fact that Winnifred let the little things that he said every now and then get to her head and took them to heart.  But she had a feeling that after tonight, she wouldn’t be nearly as intimidated by him anymore. She also hoped that this would get him to back off a bit as well. Besides the pity factor, which she wasn’t even sure, would work, she made an effort to be nice to him, and help him to something he wanted to do but didn’t know how to or didn’t have time to do. Maybe he didn’t care about it at all, but she wasn’t a mind reader, and at least he couldn’t make comments about her being pissy and mean.

She folded the head, neck, and tail, pulled the wings a bit to make the body ‘puff out’, and held it up to Mitica. “Pick it up carefully, or else it might tear, or worse, crumble.” Letting those words flow from her mouth so naturally, she finally had some sort of grasp on what the crane symbolized. She knew from watching too much television, that it typically symbolized balance, but had never really stopped to ask why.  Looking at it now and thinking of the festival, it started making some kind of sense. You’d choose paper to make something that’s supposed to represent strength in a sense, to show that the foundation isn’t necessarily strong to begin with. In comparison to the folded paper crane particularly, it takes a lot of folds and creases to build the strength, and all it takes is a bit of patience. That’s how she had to start approaching things when it came to people like Mitica. Be patient and calm until you learn how to find a happy balance.  If it rained while the cranes were hanging from the tree, maybe they’d become weaker, but they’d still and from the tree; and when the sun came up and dried the again, they’d be just as strong as they were before the storm hit, maybe even stronger.

Cranes and Graves || Freddy and Mitica

  Chuckling, Mitica rolled himself to sit between the two stones and looked out over the smooth stone. Each stone held a different color which family members must have picked out to represent their loved ones. A color to remember them by forever. How quant. All the colors seemed to fall under the duller than life version. There was a beige color that was next to him that stood as proudly as the colored down red on his other side. A sickly blue color was in front of him with some pastel looking colors.  Who decided wanted muted colors?  If he died he wanted something bright and inviting, something to make him stand out in a sea of muted colors. Maybe a blue the same shade as the sea. That would really get noticed. But a neon pink stone would be the attention getter in the graveyard. “I would have badgered you for four more dates until we got to five. Then it would have been expected by then.” If we ever got to five he added to himself silently. He never imagined doing anything with her again yet here he was at her mother’s grave.

Leaning back on his hands, Mitica looked up at the sky as he listened to her continue to talk. Seeing her mother’s grave in return to learning how to make a crane. He thought back to the piece of paper that was still on his desk that begged to be folding into a shape but he never did. Directions sat next to the paper and he had ignored it throughout the entire event like the plague. Instead he focused more on school and graduating on time and now that he was done with everything, here he was, still ignoring the paper that was supposed to inspire peace. Peace for who? He was happy where he was and there were no wars in his life. For someone else then? Who did he care enough about to want to help inspire peace in their life? No one was generally the answer he came too. Sure he had friends at school but like everything else, he knew once they left the University most of them wouldn’t stay in contact as they started on with their own jobs. It was the cycle of life. People needed things to go wrong in their life in order for the good to mean something yet no one wanted to feel the bad. How was a paper crane supposed to stop the bad? It was just a distraction from an issue. Yet as he criticized the idea, he knew that this girl needed a distraction and somehow making a paper crane would help herself even if it was for a few seconds.

“We can stay here” he said quietly. “This place could use some living residents for a few moments. Someone who isn’t completely depressed by the sight but relaxed. After all, isn’t that was this place supposed to be? Relaxing for those who visit? I’m sure your mom would love to see you try to teach me how to fold paper.” A small smirk formed on his lips as he looked over at her. “That is if you want to stay here for a while longer. I’m sure this place could use a mix of what people actually do here.” Mitica honestly had no idea what people actually did at a grave site. He assumed a lot of crying and dropping off flowers. Was that really what people wanted when they were dead or was it something that made the people still living feel better? Were they not supposed to move on and try to do normal things. He was certain the dead would rather do normal things with their loved ones when they visited rather than see them hurt at every visit.

#cag #screams this too long for me to respond #jay is deeply sorry #and half of this makes no sense #blame fuckign writers block

[winnifreda]

My younger cousin Alex and I.

#fif

[winnifreda]

Winnifred kept her eyes glued to the ground as he pushed her hair back. She stayed quiet as the blood rushed to her cheeks. It was a mixture of nervousness, and embarrassment, and fury altogether. No one ever touched her hair besides her older family members, and her of course. And if they did, it was to mess it up, only so they could ridicule it some more. She'd expect him to pat her on the head and patronize her, not move her hair out of her face. She immediately thought back to the diner 'date' and what he said about her curls. Did her hair really bother him that much that he had to fix it now? Right now?  If it were her, she'd let it bother her for the rest of the night rather than trying to fix someone up at a time like this. At least have some respect. She hovering over her dead mother, and you fix her hair. Really?

She didn’t let the mix of strange emotions show when she lifted her gaze from the ground to look at him. Returning the small smile, she spoke with a soft voice. “Well, I feared that if I didn’t tell you soon, I’d never hear the end of it.” She let out a short quick laugh that caught in the back of her mouth. She knew in the back of her mind how unnatural that sounded, but hey, things weren’t really normal tonight at all. Clearing her throat before speaking again, she found herself surprised that she wasn’t holding back tears as well. Now Winifred was starting to question herself. Why did she really invite him here? To scare him a bit? Did she hope that a close dead family member would keep him away? Because she certainly didn’t invite him for company sake. If she had, she’d be going about her business, talking to her mother, and ignoring Mitica’s presence completely. But instead, she was sitting here with rosy cheeks, a pale aching hand, and hair that was pushed behind her ear, not by her doing. Instead of focusing on her mother, she was focused on the boy next to her who she could have sworn she hated the day she met him, and now they were being civil, making jokes, in a graveyard. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

The silence was starting to get a bit creepy, although the sound of nature around Adelaide over the bustle of cars was quite common.  She stopped herself from over thinking the situation, putting herself through all the trouble of trying to figure out was different than all the other times, because she already knew the answer. The just didn’t want to think why that or he was the answer. So, she decided to distract herself and fill the silence instead. She realized she had been staring in his direction, and turned her gaze back to the ground. “So uh.. I thought it wouldn’t be too nice of me to drag you here to listen to me ramble about my mother and not offer you anything in return so I figured I’d try to teach you how to make a crane. You know, the ones you never got around to making for the festival. But I see you forgot the paper..” She slowly reached over towards the flowers, unwrapping them, pulling out the tissue paper and placing it flat in front of her.  “Maybe we should find a table, it’s be easier to fold on one than on the ground.. or I could always teach you another time.”

Cranes and Graves || Freddy and Mitica

  The silence was eerie to Mitica as he followed her. His eyes were trained on the flowers that she kept in front of her as she walked. He realized that he should have brought something for the gravesite as she had done. Was that what people were supposed to do? The realization that he was under prepared and undereducated made him anxious but there was nothing he could do about it. He was never a flower person and the dead never interested him. Yet for this girl, the dead interested her very much. It was her mother. Mitica could not imagine what his life would be like without his mother. Would he be just as upset and hung up about the death of his mother or would he ignore it like he did everything else in his life? The thoughts seemed to go on for miles in his mind and was only broken by her voice. She was the reason he was here and now having these thoughts about his mother dying. Everything seemed strange and unreal to him. It was a dream and he somehow was still walking and following her without much of a thought.

“You showed up” he repeated more on autopilot than really there. A small smile crossed his face. Everything seemed to be alluding to something in his mind. It could have been from his major and now an over active imagination being in a grave yard. Somehow Edger Allen Poe or Emily Dickinson seemed appropriate yet nothing was coming to mind. Everything he had memorized left him as she seemed to slow down once they reached the place she had been going towards. The red of the marble made him sick to his stomach as he looked at it. The knot in his stomach became tighter as he looked over the carving and the marble and out over the landscape. Laurie Anderson. He had only seen a glimpse of the name but that was all he needed to see. They could have done this a million other places but yet she had picked this place and Mitica wished she hadn’t. No story was worth how this place made him feel.  He hesitated to look down at stone again and saw Freddy on the ground with the flowers she had brought. The feeling of unknown continued to fill him as he looked down at her. He felt helpless and unsure what or if there was something he could do to help her. Or even if he should.

Mitica shifted his weight unconsciously as she started to talk. The words out of her mouth made less and less sense and Mitica was not sure he even wanted to understand what she was saying. People did not just die from working in the hospital. He knew that there had to be more to the story yet he was no longer sure he wanted to ask the questions. The words seemed caught in the back of his throat as he bent down next to her and looked at her, confused from what she had said in the past to what was going on now. He reached out moved part of her hair out of her face and onto her back. “And here I thought that was fifth date material” he said lightly, giving her a small smile.

#cag

[winnifreda]

Winnifred walked through the gate with both of her hands gripping the flowers. She was tense meeting Mitica, but had to find a way to control it before it was evident. the first thing she heard out of his mouth made her want to smack herself in the face with the flowers, but she stopped herself. "Sorry about that, I had to run and get these." she held up the flowers in her hand as she approached him. She stopped a few feet away from the boy a few years younger than her, and stopped to take a few breaths. He was right, she was late. But she didn't realize it until she was a few blocks away from the gates and she glanced at her watch, which was when she started running. She pushed a few curls back behind her left ear with a pale achy hand from gripping the flowers so hard, and looked to her right where the graves were all lined up. 

Walking ahead of him, not saying to follow her, but hoping he'd catch a drift, she walked down the row of graves, looking for her mother's. "You seem to look way too into things, I lost track of time, but I showed up, right?" She stopped in front of the marble headstone and read her mothers name in her head. 'Laurie Anderson.' Her grandmother had a lot of money left over from retirement, sand payed for most, if not all of the funeral arrangements. Since she payed for it all, no one else really had much say and what was going to be chosen. Her headstone was a strange shade of red, a color that Winnifred really didn't favor, but she tired to remain respectful by not saying anything at all. She crouched down, placing her knees on the soft earth in front of the headstone, and felt the shivers run through her body as she took it into consideration that she was basically on top of her mothers dead body, between the dirt and all. She released her grip on the flowers and let them fall onto the ground in one hesitated movement. when she used to visit, she'd fall into a trance, thinking about everything and anything, all the possibilities and 'what if's', and she'd get lost for hours. The rest of the family usually left and came back to find her in the same position she was in when she left. But she couldn't do that with Mitica here. She's have to come back and talk to her mother another time.

"We're here to visit my mother. You wanted to know more about her, so what other place would be more appropriate to talk about her than her own grave? You don't have to kneel if you don't want to, I should have asked how you felt about dead people before I invited you, but you're here now and you don't seem too freaked out. So, where should I start.. oh. how she died. Well, I don't know if you knew her, but she was a nurse at the local hospital. It's a pretty simple story actually, she caught one of the lethal diseases one of the patients had, and it killed her. Any other questions?" She could feel herself rambling and ended off with a big grin to try and seem less nervous, which probably only ended up making her seem creepy. She should probably feel more calm than she was feeling, after all she was with her mother, well, in a way. but something about his presence just.. made everything feel a lot more closed in and un-pleasant.

Cranes and Graves || Freddy and Mitica

  Mitica ran his hand through his hair and rustled it out. The exhale of air that was meant to be calming did nothing to settle his nerves while he waited for her to show up. The stones that decorated the landscape shined dully in the sun. Nothing would ever sit right with him as he shuffled his feet in the gravel. Each pass as he waited seemed like an eternity as rocks moved out of his way when they were kicked.  

“Freddy” he sighed, “hurry up.”

The idea of just disappearing crossed his mind briefly but he had already berated her for running away. He couldn’t do the same to her. Last thing he needed was someone to start spreading that he lied. That was the last thing he needed. Somehow he had managed escape clean from his last relationship but he had a feeling Freddy wouldn’t allow him to escape clean with the lies he told so quickly. The fact that he did not know what he could get away irritated him. She acted so high and mighty on her horse yet something about her was tragic. He had to know in order for his mind to be satisfied with this game.

Through the gates he finally saw her enter with what looked like to be flowers. He felt his stomach drop as he realized they were probably going to be visiting a grave, the last thing he wanted to do. He did not need emotion right now. He did not need to deal with crying. He wanted to avoid it as much as possible.

“Your late” he said when she was in earshot. “And left me waiting in a cemetery. How…foreshadowing of a relationship” he finally said. “Why are we here?”

#cag

[winnifreda]

"Thank you!", Freddie called over her shoulder as she left the flower shop. She was heading over to her mother's grave and didn't want to go empty handed.She was supposed to go on Mother's day, but she got dragged to a party, which was quite uneventful in Winnifred's eyes, which is saying something, although she should have put her mother first. She wasn't sure if her dad had stopped by already, he was doing a lot better ever since she forced him to come out of the house, so maybe he's be able to handle visiting her grave.But at the same time, he's spent so much time distracting himself, trying to keep busy, that just sitting in front of a grave and talking to someone who ins't there and blood and flesh, might just make him fall back into his 'I don't care about anything anymore' state. Now that she thought about it, she hoped that he spent the day with her grandmother or something, helping her run errands and being a gentleman.

She walked down the sidewalk towards the black iron gates which fenced in the headstones. These gates didn't help rid of the stereotypes about graveyards, it just added to the suspicion. Maybe she should talk to someone about that, even though white picket fences wouldn't be too appropriate either. She was meeting Mitica there, but didn't have to question her invitation this time around, which she was proud of. NO, she didn't want to spend more time with him. He made fun of her, and did not make her a happy person at all. He was like a pseudo bug bite. He was there once, then he left, but she still felt the need to itch where the bite once was, and she hated that about him. That someone so irrelevant to her could make her feel so uncomfortable in her own skin  but regardless, she'd watched way too many television shows to know that going to a cemetery alone was never okay. So she invited him along. He didn't like talking to her, unless it involved some ridiculing, so he'd kind of just be there. The story of her mother was a short and simple one, so to tell him that she died from one of patients wasn't too much information for a bit of safety while she was visiting her mother.

But of course she'd never tell Mitica that. It would only give him another silly reason to make fun of her, and that was just what she needed. She hadn't come up with an excuse yet, what she would tell Mitica, but she'd cross that bridge when she reached it. And at the end, it was a win-win situation, because even though Mitica may be entirely stone underneath the skin, Winnifred was a nice person no matter how much someone made her mad, and she planned on helping him make a crane, since he missed the festival.

Cranes and Graves || Freddy and Mitica

Fifteen minutes. That was all the time that was given to him by a certain curly haired individual to meet her at the cemetery. Why she wanted to meet at the place where dead people could be found was lost on him. Then again they had been talking about her mother and how she was not deceased. He shuffled the bag across his chest uneasy as he walked. Mitica was no where near wanting to get that close to anyone yet he was curious about what had happened. She was not willing to talk about her mother but the topic made him want to talk about her mother all the more.

Ten minutes. Was this date number two or would this be considered date number one? Her mother was apparently a fifth date so if this was about her mother this would be considered a fifth date. He hated guessing where he stood and the more dates she went with him, the more she would actually think he liked her, or worse, cared. The last thing he wanted was another relationship. The first one was bad enough, he could never imagine himself in another relationship with another human.

Five minutes. His footsteps hit the pavement quietly until they found the gravel of the cemetery. Before him laid across the yard various stones that were placed in the ground to mark where passed loved ones were laid. Mitica hated the feeling that standing there gave him. Goosebumps rose across him arms as he crossed his arms across his chest. He never had any reason to visit a cemetery and he started to remember why he never visited these hallow places.

#there i changed it #i hope you don't mind #you can change it back and we'll just have different titles for our paras #cag

[winnifreda]

Well then..

If it makes you feel any better I usually go by Fred, and people say I'm rather friendly.

Well hello there

[winnifreda]

No.. I don't think so. Why?

Well hello there

[winnifreda]

I'm Winnifred, and you are?

Well hello there

[winnifreda]

No.. but you can meet me in the cemetery in about 15 minutes. Prince a piece of paper.

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  …Can I spray paint you gold?

[winnifreda]

That not my problem, now is it? You could go and spray paint something of your liking.. or disliking.

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  Well I wouldn’t be happy. I would be bored. What else am I supposed to do?

[winnifreda]

You say that as if ending a conversation with you wouldn't bring me joy.

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  What fun will that be? We have nothing else to talk about.

[winnifreda]

So let's drop it here and now.

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  Don’t care but I am interested. But not enough to bother pushing it.

[winnifreda]

You don't care. At all.

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  You seriously doubt me and how much I care.

#dont worry #be happy

[winnifreda]

Well than I guess you'll never find out what happened to her.

Although I'm sure not knowing won't bother you at all.

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  That there is.

Wouldn’t know. Only dated one girl for two years. Never got past a second date with any girl after that.

#it would probably similar to her interaction with anthony now that i thnk about it #except mitica would have better arguments #no offense oj

[winnifreda]

Well, there's always next year, and the years after.

Just my luck. That's more like date number 5 material, isn't it?

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  I could. But I rather be doing other things for a while.

Not really. So what happen to your mother?

#it couldn't hurt to ask >.> #i wonder how he and aryana would interact

[winnifreda]

Well you can still make one now,

Because deep down I'm hoping that you can be a really nice person and care about people's feelings?

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  Congratulations you have done more than me. I thought I would at least make one crane and I’ve made none.

Now if you think I don’t take requests, why make one? I’m interested now.

[winnifreda]

Today actually. I took some time to make cranes and hang them around.

The latter. I know you probably don't consider requests, but can we just not talk about her?

Never will I ever take tea for granted.

  Sure. Keep telling yourself that. When was the last time you ever did something for yourself?

Most people still say they look like their parent. Present tense. Either she is estranged or she is dead. But I might be wrong. After all, I’m only Mitica the boy that got stood up by Freddy.