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#Post#: 22--------------------------------------------------
A String of Beads and More (Walker-Ferrante Penthouse)
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: November 28, 2019, 5:54 pm
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The elevator door opened at Floor 13. For Zia, who had endured
over an hour of ice breaker, that was a cross between Simon Says
and True Confessions she wasn't quite sure to what to make of
the tables staffed by various Suite Advisors and recreation
staff, and music playing songs that were not quite familiar. The
beading tables, as Miella called them were crowded. A Suite
Advisor with long, blonde hair streaked with seal brown and skin
tight velvet leggings offered to cut lengths of beading thread
in one of over a dozen colors. There was a line to get the
thread. At another table, kids made lanyards from plastic.The
beads were laid out buffet style.This lavish world of choices
was what passed for luxury or trying to impress or overawe.
"Just like WalMart," Zia thought, "or perhaps one of those awful
American-style supermarkets." There was one like that in town
near St.Anne's, and two or three in Nairobi. Of course there was
no style to the bead table, because this was America.
It was bad enough to have to wear a plastic rfid card around
your neck all the time, but to make it part of a necklace with
cheap, plastic beads.... Zia told herself that in the great
scheme of things, a custom beaded necklace with an rfid card
with her badly taken photo and a Dodo on it was better than
wearing a uniform, well maybe less restrictive if not better.
Zia selected black beading thread and found her way to the bead
buffet. Yes, that is what it was, a bead buffet. The beads were
of course, big, American beads, but they still reminded her of
the rosaries the Sisters at St. Anne carried and sometimes
prayed. The younger sisters dressed in stiff gray dresses and
huge, clunky black shoes, and gray head scarf. The whole outfit
made even a small, skinny Sister, someone like Miella, the Suite
Advisor, look old and substantial. Miella did not wear a habit,
so she made her voice boom instead. Of course the rosaries gave
Zia an inspiration. She counted off the letters in her head and
selected the appropriate letter beads. "Who's name are you
spelling?" asked a male Suite Advisor with a scraggly beard. "No
one's name, just words," Zia replied.
When Zia was one the left side of her necklace said F-A-I-T-H
with a black, red, and green bead for a three bead spacer and
then N-E-M-S-I. Then came her D-Card, followed by N-G-O-R-O a
three bead spacer and the word, F-A-I-T-H again. "If I ever feel
tempted, I'll touch my beads," Zia told herself. Nemsi was
Swahili for honor. Ngoro was Kikuyu for courage. Even something
as pointless as stringing beads could have a purpose.
#Post#: 23--------------------------------------------------
Re: A String of Beads and More (Walker-Ferrante Penthouse)
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: November 29, 2019, 9:10 am
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Marion did not care about bead stringing being a little kid
thing, though adults strung fancy beads for a hobby. Marion knew
wearing a credential around her neck all the time was both
humiliating and pointlessly stupid, but she knew that when she
left her aunt and uncle's house in Malta, New York before
sunrise.
Marion instead focused on the beads. There were so many of them.
How did you make a choice? The ones neatly sorted in square
plastic boxes, looked pretty much the same, though sorted by
color or shape. One could stare at those boxes forever. There
was, however, also a pile of larger, assorted beads, some
beautiful, some ugly. This pile was in two shoe boxes and
completely unsorted. Marion wondered if every bead in the pile
was unique. Marion waited patiently in line for the bead table,
and when she received her bead tray, she made a bee-line for the
unsorted pile.
There were long, skinny beads, twisted beads, transparent and
translucent beads, beads in tertiary hues, and wooden beads, as
well as beads with stripes, flowers, and sports team logos on
them. It would take Marion forever to select twenty or so beads.
That was the numbers the staff in charge of bead stringing told
her to get. Marion did not care.
Once Marion had all her beads, and a bright red piece of bead
thread, she went to the assembly table and after four or five,
fumble-fingered tries, tied a needle to her thread. Then she
lined up her stash of unique and special beads in two rows of
ten. And then anticlimactically, she strung her first ten beads,
threaded on her credential and then strung the last ten. She
tied the required knot, and slipped her new fashion find around
her neck. The credential felt heavy. "Wherever you go you will
be weighted down," Marion told herself. She remembered she had
to return her bead tray to the first table. A plump Suite
Advisor with long, brown streaked, blonde hair thanked her.
Marion looked around for Miella or Zia, the only two people she
really knew in the room, but found neither of them. A male Suite
Advisor suggested she go into one of the smaller lounges where
there was music and line dancing lessons. There were only a
couple of lines of girls dancing while the rest of the kids
stood around bored and watching. The music sounded familiar but
wasn't. Zia stood behind a couch, her arms folded and her
credential hidden behind them.
Marion was glad not to be all alone, way too glad, she realized.
She tried to figure out the song.
This is a case of passion over reason
This is a case where your shoes don't need a shine.
Just give me some space
To practice my profession.
I've got the ace man,
And what's yours is mine.
In theory, I abhor violence.
In practice... they sometimes freak.
You honor me.
I feel unique.
It's National Crime Awareness Week.
Wow, thought Marion. That is one weird song. Only a clueless
adult would like it.
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