9.29.2006

On a Request...

I have been most kindly commanded to give a little background on Jennifer Quell (look, I've already told you something new!). She is one of the few people to truly have a unique life literally from birth, since her father insisted that before they even wrapped a blanket around the screaming newborn, she had to be see the world through the retro glasses worn by the infamous Mickey from Natural Born Killers. Not the actual pair used of course, but replicas her father snagged as a promo way back when the film premiered. You could almost say she always had her own special tint of the world from that point on. After the trip home from the hospital, Jen was introduced to a snug 1-level house on the West Coast. Her childhood consisted mainly of childish things, except she would never, ever play with dolls.

"They're just such a poor representation of humanity," she told Tucker on the one occasion that she ever mentioned anything about her past to him. "I mean, they're supposed to be this model of a human, but they're so still. So dead. And people just aren't like that. Not real people at least; people who are actually awake."

She never used the term "alive" when referring to her "real" people, it was always awake. Tucker remembered the shock in her face when he showed signs of confusion as to how someone could be asleep all the time but alive. "Oh, you could sleep through your entire life if you wanted to. Well, I guess really you either do or don't from the start, but you can wake up in life. But it's rare. And I've never met anyone who was awake and then went to sleep."

He had laughed at that, because it was said just as he was yawning. He also remember what happened next quite well.

She had jumped up with no discernable reason or purpose, and started dancing. Not a fancy dance or even a party dance. In fact, Tucker couldn't tell if she had any technical involvement in it besides spinning in circles. He remembered bursting out laughing, then trying to mute himself. She stopped to face him, seemingly more from his concealment than the laughter. He had instinctively appologized.

"I'm not embarrassed. It feels like there is someone else doing this same thing somewhere else right now. It's a way to connect."


Author's Note: I feel as if I may have failed in my task of deciphering more about her, but I think this last bit summarized Jennifer as best I can at the moment. Yes I know it ties in with the other story, but I think that may mean that Jennifer is something bigger in my head than I first thought. As it is for now though, Jennifer is a simple thing:

Jennifer is a dance.

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