Watching the fish (Penelope, open)

[Erik Jones]

DATE Saturday 13 of April 2012
TIME 7:45 pm
WEATHER Hot and clouded with no wind

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It was getting late. Most people had already left the aquarium and it was about to close. But Erik stayed, It had a calming effect on him to be around all the sea creatures. One of the only things that Erik felt lacked with his new home, was the ocean. He always felt more at ease when he was near the sea. So today he had taken his car and driven to a place that at least had some of the same feel. Erik had been sitting on a bench for quite a long time, looking at a huge tank. Inside the tank was a lot of different fish, but Erik had been studying the shark swimming around. It was constantly moving, pacing around the tank as if it was restless. In some way it reminded Erik of himself. He had been sitting so long on the bench and in the back that most people had just overlooked him. Now he was wondering how long before someone would come and ask him to leave.

He was sitting in some old jeans and a baggy shirt so it wasn’t really obvious who he was. Now it was only him left, at least in this room. Perhaps the aquarium had already started to close, and he had just been overlooked. He looked at his watch, no there were still fifteen minutes left until the place closed. He really should head towards the exit though. Earlier there had been a show with trained animals. Erik hadn’t really liked it. It wasn’t that it was a bad show, it was just that he felt that the whole idea of training sea creatures was, not bad, but not good either. He couldn’t help thinking that they should be free, not trained like pets. He was just about to leave when he heard someone come in, and he stayed a bit on the bench to see who would come. Most likely it would be a gourd telling him to leave.

[Penelope Hernandéz]

Phoebe was walking around in the aquarium, something she did quite often, for a rich man’s daughter anyway, and as she walked past the well-known aquariums, with fish in them that she had all ‘met’ due to her close friend Daren, as he had introduced them to her, though it was more the dolphins, manatees and whales that seemed to be okay with communicating with her – through of him of course.
It was weird, waiting here for when Daren got off of work, while everything was closing down, had of course been something she had gotten used to, but it still gave her the chills. She couldn’t but to think about what if the tanks broke, she’d be swimming in a tunnel, with no options for air, with a lot of fish… some even deadly.

A sigh escaped her lips as she walked down and turned a corner, walking towards a small hall with a few benches where she had agreed to meet with the big guy, and ran her fingers through her long black hair that hung lose and straight down her back and a bit over her shoulders. She heard her heels clack gently and elegantly against the stone floor, making a soft echo through the hall. She remembered last time she passed through these halls… it had been no longer than last week, but it felt like it had been a month ago. She had been filling the hall with her soft laughter as her friend… Daren’s friend… her… well, her whatever-friend Toby, a guy she had to admit, she really, really liked, but didn’t seem to really bother with her if Daren wasn’t around, had told a joke.

She turned the corner and looked at the hall, spotting a person sitting there alone, what was he doing there? The Latina girl looked at her wrist watch and wrinkled her nose slightly, it was almost closing time. She ran her hand over her black skirt that went down to right above her knees, making sure it looked representable – after all, she had an image to maintain in order to help her father’s reputation, and spotted her looks in the tank, seeing that her white shirt matched beautifully with the black skirt, her black hair and heels and her tanned skin. She then turned her glace to the person, and smiled “Hello, shouldn’t you be-“ she looked at the guy and blinked “Erik?” she asked and stepped towards him.

[Erik Jones]

Erik heard her before he saw her. In the now very silent aquarium the unmistakable sound of footsteps could be heard very clearly. He could even tell that it was a her by the very characteristic sound of heels against the stone floor. That made him doubt that it was one of the guards coming to kick him out, even though this was LA, he hadn’t seen any security guards wearing heels yet. But if it wasn’t a guard then who could it be? Erik didn’t want to go, just a moment ago he had felt something that seemed like a pull. At least he thought he had felt it, like the water in the huge tank in front of him was pulling him towards it. But that was of course silly, and yet he had stayed, trying to see if the feeling would come back. Also there where the strange feeling of calmness that he felt with this much water around him.

As to who the owner of the heels where, his curiosity was quickly sated as she came around the corner. His eyes quickly ran over her and recognized her as Phoebe, or rather Penelope the daughter of one of the people financing the show he was doing. He had meet her once or twice with her farther when he meet with the financers, but it was more common for him to meet her at many of the different parties he went to. He saw as she noticed him and quickly ran her hand over her skirt and looked in the glass as if to see how she looked, not that she had to bother, she looked very nice in the black skirt and white shirt. And he wasn’t really dressed for the occasion anyway. In a way he didn’t think she would recognize him. But she did, after having started to ask him something that properly would have ended in ‘shouldn’t you be leaving’ He felt a little like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have, which was of course ridiculers. “Hey Phoebe, fancy meeting you here at a time like this” he let the greeting be accompanied by a confident smile