Everyday Dagaz: Chemists

"Well, I'll be."

Michael heard surprise, anger, and a hint of fear in Fiona's voice. He turned, followed her gaze. "What?"

"Keith O'Connor, in the flesh."

Irish name. Michael scanned the crowd. He didn't see anyone who looked like a former IRA compatriot of Fiona's, but she didn't look like a former IRA figther herself. No one looked particularly combat-ready, either. Fiona was always combat ready. Even in bed.

"He hasn't aged a day."

Michael scanned the crowd again. There, at the shaved ice shack, were two teenage boys. One had light brown skin and tightly-curled back hair, a guitar slung over his back. The other hand pale, freckled skin, glossy red hair, and an electric five-string bass slung over his back. He threw his head back, laughed at something the other boy said, and he had classic Irish features, the high cheekbones and thin lips. 

"The wannabe emo rockers?"

Fiona nodded. She reached up, tugged her shades down to perch on her nose to cover her opportunity to stare. "The ginger. I'd know him anywhere."

The kid was slender, wearing a faded punk-rock t-shirt, with the sort of wiriness Michael associated with running or swimming. "What was he?"

"A chemistry student," Fiona said.

Improvised explosives expert, she meant. 

"What's he doing in Miami?"

"I have no idea. Last I checked, he was dead."

The teenage girl at the shaved ice shack handed both boys their treats, and they pocketed their change, turned to go. Fiona had stared too long and too hard. The redhead turned toward them and paused. Recognition crossed his face, and he caught his friend's shoulder, shoved, hurried him toward the sidewalk where a couple of skateboards were propped up against the low wall of a planter.

Michael called out, "Hey Keith, long time no see."

If looks could kill, Keith would have been dead, and his friend would have been a murderer.

But Keith bit his lip and sighed, shook out his shoulders, and started toward them.

"I don't know you, sir, but I do know you." He lifted his chin at Fiona.

"Keith," Fiona said. She looked him up and down, lip curled in disdain. "Still so...juvenile."

Keith winced. "Still so acrimonious."

"No one likes a traitor."

Keith lifted his chin. "Family first, wasn't that our motto? Turned out half of my family was on the other side of the barricade."

"Really," Fiona said, "you haven't aged a day."

"Aye. And neither have you."

Up close, Keith and his friend were definitely teenagers. 

Michael said, "What brings you to Miami?"

Keith tugged on the strap of his electric bass. "Battle of the bands."

"I didn't realize you liked music," Fiona said.

Keith shrugged. "There was a lot we didn't know about each other. I played cello in the school orchestra and me mam was a Prod. You fell in love with an undercover CIA agent."

Michael raised his eyebrows. "I thought you didn't know me."

"Knowing of someone isn't the same as knowing them." Keith shrugged. "So...we have to be at soundcheck. No snitching, ho foul, right?"

"Wrong," Fiona said. "My brother's dead because of you."

"On the contrary - your brother's dead because a British soldier shot him. My own brother is alive because of me - no thanks to you." Keith raised his snow cone in salute. "You had a gun at his head."

"He was a Prod."

"He was eleven," Keith said flatly. He leaned in, his voice low and dangerous. "If you want to play the 'who was worse game', I can defeat you roundly. Believe me." And he said something in rapid, rolling Irish.

Fiona went pale. "I didn't mean to. I was sorry. I didn't know --"

"And I did. You'd have done the same in my place." Keith straightened up. "So...enjoy your stroll along the beach. We're going to win a battle." He turned and walked away, toed his skateboard flat, and hopped on. His friend did the same, and they quickly vanished into the crowd.

"What was that about?" Michael said.

"I was wrong. He's not a teenager anymore." Fiona sighed, tossed her head. "Call Sam. I want mojitos."

Hallelujah - Rufus Wainwright

If Silas had paid more attention in music theory, he'd have figured out how to play the song sooner. The chord progression - at least part of it - was in the first verse, "The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift". Chords had numbers. Pretty much every song could be broken down into a chord progression. Most pop songs were I-V-vi-IV. And if Silas had listened to Ms. Dempsey and learned which chords corresponded with which numbers, he'd have had the song figured out weeks ago instead of the night before his performance in front of the entire class.

He hated math. He wanted to be an artist and musician because they were the opposite of science, which required math. Lots of math. Math was awful.

And apparently math had invaded his music.

Silas stared at the chart at the back of his mother's dance journal (she was a lawyer and had a freakin' journal for her dance notes) and wondered if she'd taken great pains to memorize the strings of numbers (four-chord pop, five-chord doo-wop, twelve-bar blues). Mom was amazing at memorizing things, which was why she'd survived law school and still made other lawyers cry. But she was a good musician, too. Dad would pick up his bass, Mom would sit at the piano, and she'd just...play the blues. Or a pop song. Or an old-school doo-wop song. She and Dad would switch chords effortlessly, grinning at each other, bobbing to the beat, but keeping in perfect synch. How did Dad know when to switch? How did he know what to switch to? Dad was a scientist. Had he also memorized the numbers?

Silas stared at the various offerings of chord progressions and sheet music that Google had splashed across his tablet screen. Four chords. That was all. If he'd figured out the first chord and listened to the lyrics in the first verse...bam. He'd have figured the song out weeks ago.

Silas sighed and placed his hands on the keys, hoping his tablet would stay propped up against all the books of sheet music Mom left piled on the piano stand. Then he began to play.

Half an hour later, Mom swept in through the front door. Her keys jangled as she tossed them into the basket on the counter just inside the kitchen door. Silas kept playing doggedly, determined not to lose the chord progression (thank heavens it was so repetitive).

Mom began to sing along, but it wasn't a verse Silas had ever heard before. She sang as she roamed the house, performing her daily after-work ritual (shoes kicked under the table in the mini-foyer, purse on the table, jacket hung up), her voice fading and rising as she moved from room to room.

She stepped into the den and paused.

"Oh. I thought you were Dad home from the lab early."

"I need to know this for school tomorrow. It's the recital," Silas said.

Mom patted him on the shoulder. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Silas kept playing, fumbled a chord transition. Sighed. "How did you figure this song out?"

"Dad did it by ear, years ago. We used to sing it together all the time. You could've asked him for help." Mom smiled fondly at the memory.

"It's a four-chord song. Did you have to do the math, too?"

"Math? No." Mom huffed. "We go to law school because we're bad at math. Dad was always better at musical theory than me. I play what sounds good to me. Turns out what sounds good can be expressed mathematically, which is handy when you're doing improv with a group of strangers. But don't think you're stuck with the math." She ruffled Silas's hair and sang another verse.

Even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before The Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but...Hallelujah.

Reflection 1

"As a rule, I can't stand books written in first person. Present tense is a deal-breaker for me." I sipped my tea.

Coby raised her eyebrows. "And yet you read Divergent."

"I wanted to give it a try before the movie. Borrowed it from the library. I heard the third book alternates POVs and they're virtually indistinguishable from each other. Sign of less-than-stellar writing."

"The Fault in our Stars wasn't written in present tense."

I nodded. "I was really hesitant when I flipped to the middle - like I do, to see if I like the style regardless of the hook of the opening line - and it was first person."

"What is it about first person that annoys you so?"

"Usually the person has no personality. I get it - the author wants her young readers to project themselves onto the tabula rasa of the protagonist. Not my thing." I sipped some more tea, winced when it scalded the roof of my mouth. "But I liked the dialogue, so I flipped back to the beginning and, well, the narrator was a person. Had a personality. I cared about her as well as the people she cared about. The voice was alive. If I ran into that girl on the street, I'd know her as soon as she opened her mouth. That's how I like first person writing. And I don't feel like I see it enough. Not to mention, my preferred young adult authors tend to stick to third person limited."

"Did it ever occur to you that you hate first person because you hate writing about yourself?"

"Yes, and I'm working on that."

"Fault in Our Stars. Would you read it again?"

"I would."

Lake of Fire - Nirvana

Dying on the Third of July was key, or so Lupe had heard. At least, it was key if she had to spend her time in the lake of fire known as purgatory, floating in an endless haze of burning agony. After all, people got to come back on the Fourth of July, watch the fireworks, and saunter heavenward. Rehabilitation complete. Burning for a day or a few hours or a year - a year on earth, if not a year in the lake - was adequate punishment for anything a smart, determined, creative, and gleeful girl could get up to in one lifetime.

So when Lupe stood atop the space needle, Seattle spread out below her, a bowl of glittering starlight shot through with the illuminated arteries of city traffic, she knew that 11:59 PM on the Third of July was a really, really good idea. Just thirty more seconds, she'd step forward, and there.

Only one minute on the lake.

She hadn't accounted for her little sister Maria, tenacious and earnest-faced, scrambling after her.

"Lupe, no, don't do it. A girl like Sylvia? She's not worth it. Spoiled white girl didn't know how good she had it with you." Maria inched across the slippery surface. Her hair and skirt billowed in the wind. Everything was windy so high up. Everything was flowing, moving. Peaceful.

Lupe curled her hands into fists. "What are you doing here? It's dangerous up here."

"You're up here, and you're fine." Maria sat down a safe distance from the edge, knees pulled up to her chest, and gazed at Lupe with wide brown eyes. "You're fine, right?"

Lupe thought of Sylvia, spread out on her red satin sheets, golden blonde hair mussed from passion. Lupe thought of the skinny redheaded girl beside her, one hand curled over her, possessive. Smug.

Fireworks shot skyward beside her, and she started violently. The world beneath her feet swayed. She yelped, arms pinwheeling, and her heart skipped several beats.

But she regained her balance, stepped back. Eased down beside her little sister. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just wanted a good spot to watch the fireworks."

"It's higher here," Maria said, "but not as good a spot as that one table next to the basketball court. There's a snow cone shack there. And a taco truck."

Lupe wrapped her arm around Maria's shoulders. "Yeah. You need to eat all the tacos you can get, or you'll end up a shrimp like me."

Maria laughed and nuzzled against her. "Happy Fourth of July."

Living on the Fourth of July. That was key.

Everyday Dagaz: Linguists

The thing about working in a close-knit community like Stargate Command was that people got to know each other. Jack recognized the faces of the low-level guards who kept an eye on the elevator on the first floor (they had no clearance and no clue what went on so far down below). Jack recognized the marines who came in and out, the scientists and support staff. He recognized them all because he was a nice guy, because he was observant, and because he wanted to be sure there wasn't a foothold situation going down in his base. Given how close-knit Stargate Command was, it wasn't uncommon to run into comrades while out on the streets in Colorado Springs. Admittedly, recognizing the girl in the fluffy white tennis skirt as the sergeant who always brought Jack his paperwork was a little difficult, but Jack learned to smile and wave. He was a commanding officer. It improved troop morale if the lower ranks felt known and recognized by their commanding officer. Jack was pretty sure he'd recognize that little white skirt anywhere.

 So when Jack was standing in line at a Starbucks trying to remember the name of that fruity concoction Sam liked, he wasn't too surprised when someone said, "Hey, surprise seeing you here." 

He turned around, ready with a morale-boosting smile and wave, and then he froze. He was pretty sure the supermodel pretty boy standing in front of him wasn't one of the troops at Stargate Command. In fact, the way he was wearing his platinum-blond hair long and parted down the middle like some throwback to a nineties boyband guaranteed he wasn't from Stargate Command, because that haircut certainly wasn't regulation. Jack liked to think he'd remember someone with such electric blue eyes, too.

 But then Daniel said, "Hey! Dylan! What brings you to Colorado Springs?"

 Dylan shrugged. "On my way to Fashion Week in LA. Just got done in New York. Thought I'd drive myself, take the scenic route." 

Hah. Jack was right. Kid was a supermodel. Or maybe a designer?

 Daniel's face lit up. "That's wonderful. Still modeling, huh?"

"Still working on my dissertation about functional Enochian." Dylan smiled.

 Several women in the vicinity sighed. Jack resisted the urge to sigh for an entirely different reason. "What brings you to Colorado Springs, though?" Dylan looked Daniel up and down. "And what's this - hitting the gym? Military haircut? What happened to the geek I know and love?"

"Working as a civilian contractor with the military, actually. Analyzing artefacts accidentally disturbed during foreign operations," Daniel said, and wow, guy was a smooth liar. Jack narrowed his eyes. Had Daniel lied to him about something in the recent past? Like remembering when he was ascended?

"I heard a crazy rumor that you'd died," Dylan said. 

Daniel ducked his head, blushed. "Just a rumor." And there - he was a terrible liar. Dylan furrowed his brow, and then he stepped closer, said something totally gibberish. Except it wasn't gibberish, because Daniel replied in the same gibberish. Dylan arched an eyebrow and tried another language, which Daniel matched. Jack wasn't much of a linguist, really only had a little Arabic and Spanish to his name, but for the next five minutes, Daniel and Dylan chased each other through at least a dozen different languages. The game finally ended when Dylan gave up on a language Jack strongly suspected Daniel had picked up on an alien planet, and both men laughed.

"You've picked up some new ones since we spoke last," Daniel said.

"So have you." Dylan clapped Daniel on the shoulder. "It's so good to see you again, especially after those horrible rumors. I'm in town for two more nights. We should have dinner. Bring your friend." Dylan turned his dazzling Hollywood smile on Jack.

 Jack raised his eyebrows. "Who, me? Sorry. I'm pretty limited to English."

"We'll speak English just for you," Dylan promised.

"I'd love to," Daniel said, "but I'm probably going out of the country to visit a dig site."

Dylan pouted. The women in the vicinity cooed. "Next time we cross paths, then. Dinner's on me. I know government pay is crap."

"Next time," Daniel agreed. The girl at the cash register called for Jack to place his order, and the prospect of imminent caffeine distracted him from Daniel and his suspiciously pretty friend. By the time Jack had ordered for himself and fumbled through Sam's order - soy milk, caramel - Daniel had ordered his coffee and Dylan was gone.

On the way out to the truck, Jack had to ask. "Who was that guy?"

"Old friend of mine from LA. We did linguistics together. Guy's a natural. Mother was Norwegian, so he grew up bilingual. Gave him a crazy head start over the other kids in the program."

"You were in college together?" Jack called the boy's face back up in his memory. "How old was he?"

"Regular college student age, actually," Daniel said. "It was uncanny. He hasn't aged a day."

"I'll say." Jack fished into his pocket with his pinkie and dragged out his keys. "You drive. Sam'll kill me if I spill her drink."

Daniel nodded. "Sure thing." He accepted the keys and trotted around to the driver's side door. Jack hovered beside the passenger door, waiting for Daniel to unlock it. Daniel had gone to college with a supermodel. Who knew.

Everyday Dagaz: teachers

The new biology teacher, Mr. Basanov, was hopeless. Amelia sat at the front of the classroom and watched him duck his head, avoiding students' gazes while he pretended to rifle through his stack of notes. Amelia was by no means a queen bee, but she was popular for a reason. She was good at reading people. And she heard, loud and clear, the tale told by every twitch of his hands, bunch of his shoulders.

After the bell rang and the door was closed, the students settled down. There were several new teachers this year. Amelia had heard that Mr. O'Neill, the new teacher, was smokin' hot. 

Mr. Basanov lifted his head, cleared his throat. "Good morning. This is ninth grade biology." He paused. "Since none of you have bolted from the room, I presume you are all in the right place."

"Don't you mean assume?" That was Trevor Conley. He walked the fine like between class clown and class bully. "You know what they say about assuming."

Mr. Basanov blinked, taken aback, then averted his gaze. "Let's start with roll call."

He was tentative with the pronunciations but did better than some teachers, accepted nicknames a little too passively. Then he scooped up the stack of syllabi. It was the first of many for Amelia. 

They were blue and photocopied and stapled neatly. Mr. Basanov had worried the edges of the first one with his nervous fidgeting and the sides were curled and creased. 

He thrust the stack at Trevor, who grinned and leaned back, didn't take it. 

"Take one and pass it on, please," Mr. Basanov said. He held the papers out again. 

Trevor reached out. Mr. Basanov tried to hand the papers to him, but Trevor closed his hand into a fist at the last second and the papers hit the floor. Mr. Basanov flinched and knelt, started scooping them up. 

Trevor kicked some papers out of his reach. "You know our names, but we don't know yours. That's not fair."

"I'm Tobias - I mean. You probably shouldn't call me that. I'm Mr. Basanov." He scooped up some more papers. He might have been cute, if Amelia were into skinny, pale men with sharp features, vulpine dark eyes and fluffy, disheveled dark hair. He looked too young to be a teacher. That was probably because he was the same age as actors who played teenagers on TV. 

"Tobias," Trevor said, emphasizing the sibilance of the last syllable. "You were a nerdy, unpopular kid in high school, weren't you?"

Mr. Basanov's response was muffled from below desk level. "I was."

"How did that work out for you?"

"Well --" Mr. Basanov popped up onto his feet, mess of papers in hand. He began straightening them with long, graceful fingers. "One day after school a group of football players attacked me with a baseball bat. Terribly cliché. Put me in the hospital. And then one day after school they were torn apart by a pack of wolves and now here I am, your biology teacher." He handed the stack of syllabi to Trevor, whose mouth was hanging open. "Take one, pass them on."

Trevor obeyed. 

Amelia watched Mr. Basanov for the rest of class, the don't-look-at-me hunch to his shoulders, the don't-notice-me dart of his gaze, the don't-hit-me of his posture, and wondered if there wasn't something else beneath. 

At lunch, she saw him with Mr. O'Neill, supervising the chaos of the cafeteria. Amelia and her friends had staked out the table closest to the teachers' regular post so she could get her fill of looking at Mr. O'Neill. Tall, lean, ice-blond, blue-eyed, with a face Pygmalion would have died to carve and died again to animate, the new art teacher was stunning. 

He was, also, apparently friends with Mr. Basanov. 

"You actually told them that?"

"I told you, I was never meant to be a teacher, or any other authority figure."

"What did they say?"

"Nothing."

"Man, if you get reported on the first day --"

"I won't get reported. It's not like I told them I can turn into a wolf and I took the first chunk out of the running back."

"Good point."

Verdi

The most disconcerting thing about humans was the way they consumed nutrients. Opening their gaping mouths and shoveling in food, sucking noisily at water, their throats constricting - it was quite appalling to witness. 

Verdi knew she was in the minority about her opinion, given that she was one of only a handful non-humans in her high school, but she found lunch time disturbing and would rather spend it outside. 

She liked to sit behind the school on the bleachers, head tipped back and leaves unfurled to capture as much sun as possible, and revel in the quiet. She also had a basin full of water into which to dip her feet, and she could relax, free of others' staring.

The one human whose company she could bear for extended periods of time was Asa. He was blind, dark-haired, and golden-eyed, like a flower himself. 

Verdi reached up and ran her fingers through her leaves experimentally. With summer coming on she'd start getting petals in. She'd have to ask Asa for his advice as to colors. He knew the names of many colors. 

"Hey, you're the alien chick, right?"

Verdi opened her eyes. A girl stood at the bottom of the bleachers where Asa usually sat. The girl was broad and stocky, dressed head-to-toe in black. Black was most efficient for absorbing sunlight. Verdi's leaves were black in winter. 

"If by 'alien chick' you mean extra-terrestrial, yes. Otherwise, no."

"Your name is Verdi, right? Even though you're not green at all."

"Verdi wrote very pleasing music," Verdi said of her human namesake. "You are incapable of expressing my personal identifier."

"What kind of language do plants even speak?"

"You cannot pronounce or hear colors, I am told." Verdi shrugged. "What is your name, human chick?"

"Austin," she said. "My name is Austin."

"Hello, Austin."

"I see you sitting out here every day. Don't you get lonely?"

"I am obtaining nutrients, the same as the rest of you. And I am not always alone."

"I've never seen you eat." Austin shifted from foot to foot. "I thought you might need someone to talk to. About your problem."

"Problem?"

"With not eating."

Verdi sighed. "I find eating repulsive, if you must know. It does not mean I find all humans repulsive. But that one act is quite unpleasant to observe."

"But you need to have some food, right?"

"Why, when I have sunlight and water?" Verdi lifted one foot and wiggled her toes to demonstrate.

Bright red spread across Austin's face. "Oh! Um. I didn't realize -- I was really bad at biology. I'll leave you to your, um, absorbing."

"Thank you for speaking to me, Austin," Verdi said. "Perhaps we shall speak again." She watched Austin hurry back into the school building and, as an afterthought, turned one of her petals the same color as Austin's face had been. It was a pleasing shade. Humans were more like flowers than they knew.