"Hey.  You've reached Cal.  Leave a message."

*BEEP*

....there's a war!" Then I told her I had cramps and that I'd be right over.

With that final dancing of fingers on the keys of his Underwood, Cal let out a long, heavy sigh, collapsing under the weight of his bony shoulders. He looked at the last bits of the next part of his story, eyes roaming over the white paper sprinkled with all those typed black words, and decided it was good. He carefully retracted it from the machine, set it on the stack with all the others, and then rubbed his face with his hands. He stretched his arms up high over his head, interlinking fingers, and then let them fall with a tired, but satisfied kind of groan.

There. The next part. He'd give it to Amber at rehearsal tomorrow. He reached for the string to bind them all together, wondering what he really thought about sharing this part. Some of it, he wondered, might be unnecessary, but it was also important. This introduced a lot of things, and he was curious about others. What would she think of Rex? Jerome? Would she notice the things that he shared with the Obscure Object that rang eerily familiar alongside the things he'd share with her, or was that all in his head? Writing it had surprised himself a little bit, too. He still felt a hot, burning loathing for Rex. Oddly, he didn't feel much when writing about Jerome. He thought he would feel something similar there, but, no. Nothing. Regret, maybe, but not the kind he expected.

Jerome...

Cal tapped his fingers in distracted thought on the stack of papers, shook his head, and went back to binding them.

[[ door and post are open, although I don't have much longer before crashing, so sp would be love ]]

With his sleep schedule still feeling like it had been blown all the way to left field by staying up all night, Cal, careful to remain quiet and working by minimal light so that he didn't disturb his roommate, gathered together the stack of papers, the typed product of his hours slaving away at the Underwood, and glanced them over. The story that he told Amber he'd write, the rambling weaving tale that he was going to pass off as fiction. He shifted through the pages, reading them over, doubting how the inclusion of certain details would be received. But it was supposedly fiction, right? So what did it matter? Sucking in a breath, realizing that she was sleeping now, anyway, which worked since he'd rather not be around when she saw it or read it, or anything until she'd gotten through it, he bundled the papers up, tied them with a string, and included a small note.

He slipped out of his room, took the few steps to the door of room 409, and left the stack there, where it was sure to be found in the morning before she went to work.

He slipped back into the room feeling like he'd left a lot more weight than just a stack of papers behind, stretched out on his bed with his arm tucked up behind his head, and stared at the ceiling, knowing that sleep would elude him for a good while now.

[[ Establishy, as I'm going to bed soon, although if you don't mind waiting until tomorrow for pings, by all means... ]]

Sing, O Muse, on an utter and complete lack of foresight. He'd spent the morning feeling quite good about his planning that landed all of his workshops at the end of the week, but Cal was now discovering a fatal flaw in this after all, and that was that he was bored out of his mind. Of course, with a workout all morning, this time was supposed to be used for his writing. He'd already had a lot of it typed up, but there was definitely still more of it to be told, and he thought he'd have the inspiration for it, but there he was, staring at a blank sheet of paper sticking out of his Underwood, waiting, staring back.

Come on, Muse! Go! G--

He held his hands out over the keys, imploring them for inspiration.

--o.

Nothing. He sighed, and dropped his head roughly on the keys. A few times. Clunk, clunk, the clatter of random keys. He blinked wearily as he lifted his head to see if anything came out of that, monkeys randomly typing out the works of Shakespeare.

bhn jg jgbhngbhn y gbvhn.

...Nope. Cal sighed again.

[[ yeah, door, post, they're open, come on in. This is me making a good, productive time of my day off! *thumbs up!* ]]

There was no workout this morning for Cal. Not a physical one for his body, at any rate, as he woke up, showered, and then went to the common room to find the biggest mug he could and fill it with half coffee, half milk and sugar, approximately. He knew that the sugar and cream probably dispelled the whole effect he was going for as he returned to his room, placing it beside his old typewriter, but he didn't really care because he could not drink the stuff black. Just couldn't. He ran a hand through his hair a moment, scratching at the scalp through still damp hair (he should cut it soon; if he didn't, it was going to start getting all wiry and tangly again), pulled out his chair, and had a seat. A sip of his coffee and he stared at the raised, button-like keys, the alphabet all scrambled for the purposes of typing, and thought. He thought maybe he should grab a cigarette, too, but he was still uncertain as to whether or not smoking in the rooms was really not allowed, so he didn't, and, besides, he should save them. He had the coffee, and, soon enough, as soon as he got going, he'd have the rhythmic clatter of the keys.

He said he'd write something, anything, for Amber, because she asked and because he should try to write something anyway, even if he wasn't sure writing was something he wanted to do. He wouldn't know until he tried, but there were buzzes of inspiration in his head. But, before he wrote anything for Amber, he had to write something for himself, first.

( Carefully, he slowly slipped the first crisp, white sheet of clean paper into the machine... )

He stared at the finished letter for a long moment before slowly pulling it away from the typewriter. Cal's eyes scanned over it again, picking up words, phrases, and he lightly shook his head a moment. His foot brought the small wastepaper basket out from under his desk to catch the tiny, torn pieces of the typed letter as it ripped it apart into small shreds, drifting like fat, lazy snowflakes. The final tear and he sighed, he put a new sheet of paper again, and started to type something new.

She was the type of girl I'd never talk to because she would never talk to me...

Write what you know. The truth was stranger than fiction.

[[ door and post are both very muchly ooooopen! ]]

Completely unaware of any interesting, bizarre, or potentially frightening things going on outside the dorms, Cal had settled in front of his typewriter on his desk, reached out his hands, interlocked, to crack his knuckles and then looked at the fresh piece of paper nestled in the device with determination. He figured he could stand to try that writing thing again, really, and was feeling inspired...

...unfortunately, his inspiration, it would seem, was rather misdirected. He had, perhaps erroneously, thought to put his growing collection of animal-shaped soaps flanking his Underwood.

And now they were in the midsts of a great battle across his keys. At first, it was the monkey and the koala joining forces against the butterfly, mammal and marsupial against...insect, he supposed, but then, with a declaration that Cal himself released in a voice he thought appropriate for a soap animal, the koala declared himself to betray the monkey and joined forces with butterfly, and the war that ensued was truly epic, complete with sound effects and, somehow, explosions.

And, yes, while the colorful battle raged on, Cal had completely forgotten about his open door.


[[ this is what happens when you spend six hours in a mind-numbing hospital and have an eight hour opening shift to look forward to the next day. That said, post is like door: OPEN, although I may be a tad on the slowish side ]]

Cal had told Jaina that he wanted to write, but he didn't know what. Yesterday changed all of that. Sing, O Muse, of the catch of inspiration, clinging to the edge of thought and distress like the dog-eared page of a well-read book. Cal, suddenly, knew what it was he wanted to write, and, since his roommate seemed out, he figured he could get a decent amount done. Fingers flying over the keys of his Underwood, which seemed even more vintage than it even had when he got it, he wrote. He wrote about fingers through hair, about drawing close for a deep inhalation of scent, of skin against skin and the faint aroma of sweat. Of the faint curve of a body as it stretched to tie hair back, hair of different colors, brown, blonde, red. Of the taste of tobacco and smoke and how he hated the way it filled his lungs and filled his eyes and filled his head with memories. Of the bitter taste of cheap beer and persistent mouths. He wrote of things he'd experienced, but mostly thing that he probably never would again. He wrote of closeness and passion and the elusive fulfillment of longing and desire.

And when he finished a page, he pulled it lightly out of the typewriter. He laid it carefully, face down, on the desk, beside him, and then threaded in the next paper, quickly, to not lose his steam.

Tomorrow, he'd read through them again. Tomorrow, he'd probably burn every single page.

But for now, tonight, he wrote.

[[ door and post are open! ]]

Closing his eyes for a moment, Cal took in a deep breath. He stood at the center of the new-old room; he didn't know whether or not this really helped with anything, helped him grow more attached or comfortable or whatever, but he did it. It seemed like something that he should do to get acquainted with the new-old space. He had slept in today, slept in late, considered a workout, changed his mind, and then simply moved what few things he had to move back into room 407. He drew in another breath; he opened his eyes. Nothing had changed, but he figured that was a good thing.

Cal made a failed attempt to crack his knuckles before shaking out his hands, and then pulled out the chair to his desk. He sat down in front of his typewriter, centered a piece of paper, and started to write:

( Dear Dr. Luce: )

Finishing that final stroke of keys, Cal frowned at the paper in front of him, at the name at the bottom of the fake letter. Why had he written this? To hone his creative writing, he could say, but he couldn't help but wonder why he bothered. He could just as easily had written the fake letter in his own voice, but he had, instead, insisted on clinging onto Calliope for this practice. He sighed, reading over the letter again, and then slowly pulled the paper out. He set it beside the typewriter, face down, on the desk, and reached for another sheet, threading it through, and began to type something else entirely.


[[ door and post are very open! ]]

As if his remorse over not have checked out Greece while he had the chance weren't enough, Cal was realizing that the weather alone seemed a lot better before the island moved again. France, as it turned out, was mostly really wet. It at least inspired Cal to be quick about picking a place for himself and Ned to test the boundaries of obnoxious American-ness, not wanting to get caught in one of those intermittant showers that had been going on all day.

He cocked his head toward some restaurant they passed by that seemed doable. "This work for you?" he asked his partner in hopefully not crime.


[[ for that one guy with the pie skillz. Also, NFB for distance and all that ]]

Despite his best efforts to the contrary and yet another shower after his adventure in kicking fake ducks, Cal still had a slight sheen of pink glitter bringing shine and color to his skin. On one hand, it definitely helped him decide on what his plans for the evening would be. On the other...

"Stupid Fan Butt," he muttered, shaking his head as he turned a page of the book he was reading with more force than strictly necessary, and then leaned back a little, tapping the cigarette in his other hand lightly against the rim of the ashtray beside him. He figured it was probably against some sort of regulation to be smoking in the cabins, but he didn't care. He'd been doing fairly well about smoking lately, so he was splurging and if he got into some sort of trouble, whatever. He had the window open, carefully to get the smoke to drift out rather than cluttering up the alcove and probably the one next to his as well, and trying to focus on the pages of his book, but he kept drifting off a lot, just staring at the smoke in the air, thinking about the smoke in his lungs, of how he was more addicted to what the taste of tobacco meant rather than what the taste of tobacco does.

[[ oh, yes, certainly open to fellow Virgos, or hell, even people passing by the window ;) ]]

It could not have gone without notice that, since arriving at Fandom, Cal had found himself in a whirlwind of oddly uncharacteristic socialization. He did things. He talked to people. He went places that didn't leave him, like the last time he went to summer camp what felt like eons ago, sitting in the middle of a lake with a book where barely anyone could get to him. He might have even continued to be this way tonight if it hadn't been for one particular encounter that morning.

He tried to walk it off. He tried to read through some overblown play about some other fictional character's greater tragedies. It hadn't worked too terribly well, and so he'd settled in his little alcove, where the quiet would eventually start to get to him. Pity his Underwood was still in the dorms, in his room, because the clicking of the keys would have been perfect to fill it. Instead, though, he had a fountain pen that he was pretty sure he'd absently stolen from Milton's never used office desk and a yellow legal pad, so he sprawled out on his stomach, on his bed, to write a letter that he knew he would never send.

( 05/13. Dear Dr. Luce: )

The words trailed off there, and Cal stopped, tapping his pen, looking at the words thoughtfully. Fake letters to Dr. Luce, who, after everything that had happened since those session in his office, would probably shit himself over the expanse of studies he'd lost in the figure of Calliope Stephanides, but the narrative stopped, for a moment, and then started again:

"Sing, O Muse, of the tragic events that lead good old Milton to a watery grave, a story that, really, could be entirely your fault, Dr. Luce, or perhaps it is mine, because I lied. Sing of..."

His pen scritched away, its rhythm suddenly easy and quick and flowing, likely to carry him through the night.


[[ might be linkdroppy if I get bored tonight; curtain's a bit open if any fellow Virgos wanna say hiiiii ]]