watcher.
@hunsr; 11:37pm, in remi's boss's car, east iri residential area
remi has always had a goal in mind.
it starts when she's young, finds comfort in books while her mother promises fortunes, expels sickness, exorcises angry ancestors. she distracts herself with fictional worlds, where she can learn the rules, understand the universe laid out with utmost certainty. then comes her love of history, delving into the wonders of the past, civilizations expunged from the face of the earth, leaving only trace remnants in their art, their words, their stories. she reads voraciously, studies furiously, painstaking efforts to recreate the lives of the long-dead, to understand the hows and the whys and the wheres and the whats. when she sees the program listed in a pamphlet at the school guidance counselors office her freshman year, she knows its her future. a program to obtain a dual masters in library sciences and anthropology, with a focus in special collections and curation. she could hold history in her hands, preserve it for the future. it was perfect. she works toward that goal insatiably, unstoppably.
until he dies.
it tilts her world on its axis. she'd met him at sixteen. she'd loved him at seventeen. they lived together, breathed together. at twenty two she'd spent more of her adult life with him than anyone else. five years in without a hiccup or hitch, he should have been it. it should have been the end, a team, the two of them, against the world, forever. and then he was gone. the apartment felt huge and echoing. she could barely remember who she was without him. her entire brain had developed and matured to completion in the duration of her relationship. she'd gone from wide-eyed high schooler to graduating college, was in the process of applying for graduate school when it happened. she felt like her arm had been cut off, set adrift.
she ends up an apprentice to a local private investigator. you have to be, to get a license. but she has to know. there's so much in this town that goes undiscussed. people die, go missing, go mad, and everyone writes it off as the strangenesses of iri. why delve into the past when the present is so ignored, in their strange town? she can't let herself rest. can't think to focus on books and classes when her whole world has been upended. she gives herself a break to pursue this path instead - and its not that different, not really.
she's still pulling all nighters - now, for instance - though it happens in her boss's car, staked out across from a bar on the edge of a residential area in iri. someone thinks their husband is cheating, and she's here to find out, a bag of gummy worms in her lap and the music on low, a companion at her side. she glances to her right to catch his gaze, grins - it slants, twists, her expressions always tinged with something sadder than she intends, like the world has left its mark on her now. maybe its just the depression - clinical, thanks, a mix of chemical mess ups in her brain. "you want some?" she offers, quite generously, offering the bag to him, giggles quiet at the panorama of sloppy drunks before them, playing out the tableau of human indecency and misguided mating rituals. "god, she's a mess." she notes, nods her head towards a stumbling girl in six inch heels. she still can't believe she's being paid fu ll time to people watch and go to the library. its pretty ideal.