Character Memorial

His straw sandals scratched against the granite path. Behind him, the street was being roused from sleep by the earliest commuters, of which there were few. Protected from the chilly, early morning air with their cars' heaters, they largely ignored his cloaked appearance, perhaps giving him little more than a passing glance, and continued on their way. Just as he expected, even though the kimono and long cloak that he was clothed in, tied and assembled just as one would've seen centuries ago, left him looking rather out of place. His bony, frail build hidden within its folds, they had the appearance of having been draped over top of him. Strange, determined blue eyes stayed looking ahead from a rather gaunt, worn face as he strode to his destination.

The previous night left the strips of grass on either side of the path dusted with frost. The morning was still; no wind was there to move the frozen, brown leaves that laid on the grass' surface or his graying jet-black hair. He gazed up at the arch that stood before him as he advanced closer and closer to its entrance. The word 'Atlantic', representative of the Second World War's Atlantic Theatre, greeted him. Once inside, before his feet, a bronze seal centered on the arch's floor bore the World War II Victory Medal, with the goddess of victory bearing a broken sword of armistice. A pair of bronze eagles perched inside the square arch, bearing bronze ribbons in their beaks, suspended a massive laurel wreath above his head.

They were symbols of valor, of war in what he considered his nation's greatest time.

Granite ramps on either side of him led down into the oval-shaped plaza area. He selected the one on his left. Watching the pillars on the outside wall of the path, the names of states at the time of the war were engraved upon each. He held onto the black railing on his way down, allowing the cold metal to bite into his pale, work-worn hand. The splashing of arcs and foamy pillars of water into the sprawling fountain that dominated the plaza permeated through the memorial, erasing all ambient noise within the walls. Small ducks, some with garish, green feathers covering their heads; some with drab, mottled brown feathers paddled lazily through the outskirts of the massive fountain with webbed feet colored like fresh carrots. He stopped a moment to watch them.

Though the splashing water left their arrival indiscernible, he still turned in the figure's direction as they entered the same way he came.

edited 12th Nov '11 2:15:58 PM by CrystalGlacia

A dark blue car had pulled up by the street, and had made it's stop. Inside the car was two, one male, the other female, both of which appearing to be in their mid-twenties. It was the woman who was driving, and upon making her stop, she pulled a mirror from the bag she had lying at her feet, and begun to attempt to adjust her worn, tangled light brown hair, into something much more presentable. It was clear that the woman was tired and drained, and considering the broken down, and spluttering stop the car had came to, it seemed the two had been travelling for quite some time. Strangely, the man did not give out the same impression has his counterpart did. He appeared to be well-rested, and while his hair certainly wasn't in perfect condition, it was clear that he wasn't suffering from the same level of exhaustion as the woman. They both got out of the car from their respective sides, as the man began stretching his arms, and getting a whiff of the cool air. The woman scrambled to stand alongside him, the two close, but keeping a safe distance from each other, as if to inform every passerby that the two were not romantically involved. Placing her hand on the back of her neck and thoroughly rubbing it, the woman asked;

"Noah, remind me again why you brought me here."

Noah, giving a smile, produced a notepad which appeared to have Several names written down on it, with all but one crossed out.

"Well, it was pretty much process of elimination. I couldn't bring Charlie, because he and Christine are trying for a baby and need as much time as possible together... that rules Christine out as well..."

Taking out a pen, Noah drew a second line over the names, as if to emphasise his reasons for not bringing them.

"...And Peter is too busy with his training, while Marcus is in charge of making sure Peter doesn't blow himself up... and Billy is making sure Marcus doesn't do anything stupid..."

The woman gave a gesture to Noah, urging him to continue. She had to admit that she found some amusement in the fact that he actually drew up a list. She was imagining him holding a conference meeting in a room empty all but himself working out who to bring with him... then she remembered that Noah was crazy enough for that to actually be the case.

"... And Jason, well... Jason's being going through a lot of trouble right now, so I didn't think it right to drag him to a war memorial... so that leaves you, Britt."

Brittany gave a smile towards Noah, but then decided she should have made herself clearer.

"Nice presentation, but I want to know why you even wanted to come here in the first place."

Noah threw his hands behind his head in what seemed like a rather care-free stance.

"Why else? To pay respects."

"No, I got that, but why come straight here? Did you serve in the War?"

Noah gave a glance towards Brittany.

"I'm 54, Britt. Do the math, and you'll realise that I'm too young to have served."

Britt shook her head, displeased with herself for making the mistake.

"Sorry Noah, I sometimes forget your real age..."

Noah placed his hand on Brittany's shoulder, in a way of saying that he didn't take offence... of course, Noah wasn't the kind of person to take offence easily. Using his hand to lead Brittany further, the two walked around the Memorial, with Noah examining it, as though it was something completely new to him.

An old man walked down the sidewalk, maybe in his mid-seventies. He still had a full head of hair, although it was completely white. He limped slightly and partially supported himself with a cane. His clothes, though well-made, were slightly damaged, with a few small cuts in them.

Cornelius Thorndyke glanced around himself, slightly confused. Barely five seconds ago, he had been surrounded in the base of the Liberation Front, waiting for the Archer to strike him down, and now he was... here. He didn't recognize any of the landmarks, not even the one that looked like it would stand out the most: a massive stone obelisk, stretching to the heavens. He snorted at that. Someone was compensating for something.

Just across the street from the obelisk was a memorial of some sort. A small plaza, with a line of pillars around it and a fountain in the middle. It was slightly lower than street level. Curious, Cornelius walked down the stairs to it. Wreaths hung from the pillars and, on closer inspection, he saw a name carved into each pillar. Unfortunately, they were all meaningless to him: Hawaii, District of Colombia, New Mexico... He counted the pillars: one, two... fifty-six. Symbolic of something? Cornelius sighed and continued on.

At one end of the plaza, just before a massive reflecting pool, lay another, smaller pool, with a stone with a message engraved on it. "Here we mark the price of freedom." Cornelius peered closely at the wall on the other side of the pool: gold stars. Tens of hundreds of them. Each of them representing... what? He wasn't completely sure, but Cornelius would bet money that this was a war memorial. It had all the right aspects. Most importantly, it had the right feel to it. One of solemnity and respect. He could relate.

His bad leg twinged. Cornelius winced and sat down on a bench, leaning back against the wall and laying his cane over his legs.

A problem Alex had always had was that he had little understanding of the differences between "lost" and "found" things. At this time, many would consider Alex to be "lost," having wandered away from the field-trip group — far away from the field-trip group, as the group of middle-schoolers he was supposed to be a part of was nowhere in sight — but he did not feel that way. In this place, Alex felt that he knew exactly where he was going, and with this wide open space, it was impossible to ever be truly "lost."

This place — he knew it was supposed to be about a war, a war his family was not even in the country for, yet he was supposed to care about it anyway. He wasn't exactly sure how to do that. Feelings often did not come naturally, and naturally occurring feelings were often the wrong ones for the time.

It was supposed to be in memory of things past, but the only thing he could think of, when he saw the pillars in a circle like this, was Stonehenge. He imagined what these pillars would look like after thousands of years of tear (he decided that they were probably too cheaply made to last that long, but he could imagine), tried to calculate when and where the sun would line up with the pillars, the fountain, the pool, and found it inferior to Stonehenge that way.

Alex walked to the center pool and sat by the edge, sticking his hand in the water, watching the ducks. This was a memorial, a place to remember the dead, but there weren't any dead people here, only living people. They were like zombies, the dead, always trying to claw back into the living peoples' space... and it wasn't fair, either, thought Alex, because there were so many more dead than living. It just wasn't fair.

Noticing the old man at the bench, Brittany, a regular Good Samaritan, couldn't help but think he may have needed some kind of assistance. He looked frail, and frankly, lost. She signalled that she was going to go over and speak to him, and urged Noah to do the same, but he was far too involved with all the pillars and engravings that he paid little attention. Walking over to the bench, Britt took out a chocolate bar she was holding in he coat pocket as a snack, offering it to the old man.

"Hello sir, I couldn't help but notice that you seemed a little lost."

Niloufar stood before the fountain with her hands concealed in the pockets of her large coat. She thought of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the people who were killed. American or Iraqi, or Afghanistani, it didn't matter to her. A nation is just a nation.

She scratched an itch under her scarf.

Her thoughts turned to the Iraqi-Persian war, the war that claimed the lives of so many people and children fooled into throwing away their lives for a better death.

Niloufar tired of martyrdom.

Then she thought of her own war, the hidden war that feeds many families including her own, yet enslaves and eventually kills so many others, including herself.

She remembered why she arrived in DC.

The old guilt dropped in her stomach.

edited 12th Nov '11 11:46:32 AM by annebeeche

Noah, eventually taking his attention away from the podiums, decided to make his way over to the fountain, where he saw a woman standing there. She seemed to be reflecting on something, and Noah made his way over to her, trying to strike up a conversation. He took a deep breath, savouring the cool air, and said to her;

"It's quite beautiful, isn't it?"

Cornelius looked over at the girl and smiled, taking the chocolate. "Thanks. Quite frankly, I'm not sure where I am. I don't recognize any of the areas around here, and I consider myself to be well-traveled. But..." He sighed and took a bite out of the chocolate bar. "Just a few seconds before I was here, I was about to die. Maybe I am dead," he mused.

He nodded to her. "Cornelius Thorndyke. But if Cornelius is too long, feel free to call me Lee."

edited 12th Nov '11 12:38:02 PM by TeraChimera

Alex snorted as he heard what the old man had said. Yes, he wasn't supposed to be listening in on other people's conversations, it was rude, he knew on a meta-level, but also, he thought, that if people didn't want others to listen into others, if it was meant to be that way, then everyone would have telepathic powers and communicate that way. As it was, not everyone had telepathic powers, and many who did have them chose not to use them all of the time, so didn't that mean that people were actually meant to be overheard?

"If you're dead," said Alex to the old man, from his space still on the fountain, probably the only 'living' part of the monument with the ducks, "Then you shouldn't be here." This may have seemed obvious, but he continued, "Especially if you're a zombie. Zombies piss me off."

Britt patted the old man on the shoulder, and decided to comfort his thoughts.

"Don't worry... Lee, You're not dead. Because me and my friend are here, and we can't die. You're safe."

Brittany looked around, noticing the boy. He was speaking nonsense, so she decided to disregard him for now.

"My name's Brittany Lewis, but my friends call me Britt. Pleased to meet you."

Cornelius shrugged. "I was ready to die anyway. It would have been a relief. No, I wasn't depressed, just... everything was so stressful and hectic. It was almost too much to take. And Tamara was ready to head out on her own anyway. But now I'm here, and everything's peaceful, for now, so either way, I don't completely mind."

He watched some birds flutter by in the cool autumn air. "Tell me, Britt, do you know where we are? It would help set my mind at ease, at least a little."

Cornelius paid no heed to the boy. He was young, and wouldn't fully understand the world around him or what Cornelius did.

"Don't you realise?" Brittany answered. "We're at a memorial for World War II... Unless, you've never heard of World War II... I wouldn't be that surprised if you hadn't. I've met far too many people who look human... but aren't." It was true. Britt herself wasn't completely human anymore... she could thank... or blame Noah for that.

"As far as I can tell," said Cornelius with some mild amusement, "I'm human through and through. Had DNA tests, scanning, the whole nine yards done when I joined the Liberation Front, and they all came out human. I'm not always human, but that's a matter of choice."

He looked over at Britt. "You say you can't die. How do you know that you're not dead already? That this is some kind of afterlife?" He looked around at the occasional car passing on the nearby street. "Although," he snorted, "I figured it wouldn't be quite so... backwards. The present, at least, not thirty years in the past."

edited 12th Nov '11 4:06:06 PM by TeraChimera

As usual, adults did not want to talk to Alex. That was all right. He was labeled as 'disturbed' by too many of them, though he could not tell disturbed by what.

This place was disturbing. "This place is astonishingly ugly," he said to no one in particular, though obviously to someone, because he had said it out loud. The set up of the obelisks almost looked like a gaping mouth, with the fountain being the tongue, ready to swallow up ducks.

Brittany gave an odd look to Cornelius. He was beginning to scare her with those kinds of thoughts. Maybe she did die whenever Virgil stabbed her through the heart. Maybe Noah wasn't able to save her in time. Quickly trying to change the subject, Brittany asked;

"30 Years in the past? Does that mean you're from the year 2040?"

"2040?" asked Cornelius, surprised. "Why, no. Where I'm from, the year is 2214." That made him stop and think for a moment. Places he'd never heard of... The wrong year... This might be interesting.

"I didn't consider the possibility before," said Cornelius, "but I suppose I could be in an alternate universe of some sort. But why..." He shook his head. "Bah. It doesn't matter right now. Britt, have you ever heard of the Carthian Empire? If not..." A faint smile played on his lips. "...you can most likely rest assured in your immortality."

The Carthian Empire? What was he talking about? He claimed to be from the future, she supposed, but he didn't look the part.

"Can't say that I have heard of them, no..." she answered.

"Hmm," said Cornelius, scratching his chin. "Interesting. And if what you said earlier was true, this is the year 2010 or so here..." He turned to Britt. "From what I can tell, I was pulled from my universe into this one. It looks like your year zero, for whatever reason, came later than mine; even though I'm from apparently almost two hundred years in the future, your technology level is comparable to mine thirty years ago."

He gazed off into the distance, thinking. "So maybe our year zero is your 200 BA... assuming you use the same time scale, which is unlikely." Turning back to Britt, Cornelius asked, "What country is this, and what kind of government does it have?"

"This is the United States of America, and its government is a representative democracy. You're in its capital city, Washington, D.C."

Cornelius and Britt were interrupted by the kimono-wearing man. He had initially stopped by for some quiet reflection, but that was jossed almost the moment he arrived.

This- relatively new, at any rate -memorial plaza held a special place in his heart, to say the least.

Alex turned to the man wearing a kimono. He had never seen anyone actually wearing one before, though he had seen them before in cartoons.

"Hey," said Alex, looking over to him, "You a time traveler?" Time travelers only worked in one direction, so in that case, this man would likely be horribly "lost," in the traditional meaning of the word.

I guess I'll participate

Zachary Williams walked along the memorial, silent as to pay respect. He eventually came to the fountain, sitting down and breathing out. He had his Wani on his shoulder, sleeping from the lack of sunlight. He got up as he noticed the other people at the memorial, soon walking toward them.

"You guys know where I can find some food for my little guy here?" he pointed toward the Wani on his shoulder.

He turned towards the young man who addressed them, his one good eye instantly going to the little serpent napping on his shoulder.

D'aww. It's a little wani. A little smaller than what he thought, but still an interesting sight.

"Well, son, what does it eat?"

Alex was beginning to think he was invisible.

Invisible, no, that was not the word. It was not that people could not see him, it was that they could not hear him. He tried out his voice with a little shriek, and then when that went unnoticed, he hopped into the fountain. He'd always wanted to wade around in a fountain. The always painted the bottoms black to make them look like neverending pools of nothingness, but they weren't exactly that deep. The water maybe went up to his knees, and he was scaring ducks away.

Zack turned toward the old man in the kimono, "Well, he generally eats fish, but I haven't seen any place that I can buy some, save for some restaurants that probably wouldn't let him in," Zack thought for a minute, "Well, he'll really generally eat anything, but I'd think I'd get in trouble for chasing after a duck to feed him." he pointed at the kid chasing after the ducks, "I imagine he'll get in trouble soon enough."

The NWWIIM's fountain bottom is white; the Reflecting Pool behind it it black.

He watched the boy. As much as he wanted to scold him, he decided against it, believing him to have a problem of some sort. Maybe ADHD, but who was he to judge. He turned back to the young man with the wani.

"The park personnel just left, and there aren't any tourists around, so I see nothing wrong with it." He shrugged. "But... you could've just instructed it to hide somewhere while you go to a supermarket."