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The night's hailstorm had nothing on the one ping!-ing from his phone.
For every combative clunk! and clank! ricocheting through his windowpane and rattling the siding at least three pings!, grinning like someone tapping you on the shoulder with a joke to share, burst from his phone. Even though they were objectively quieter than the cacophony outside, they still drowned out the elemental bombardment, volume amplified above anything the icy artillery fire could hope to achieve by the sender's sheer enthusiasm.
Pushing himself up on his elbows, Player grinned as he reached for his phone. It woke up at the motion, a notification popping up on the screen.
Messages now
He chuckled as he unplugged the device. The cord dangled limply off the bedside table as he flopped onto his back, mattress bouncing with the motion. Better get comfy, he thought as he settled into the pillows.This was going to take awhile.
When Black Sheep- well, Carmen now- escaped the Island, Player had learned several things about her that were surprising, the fact that she'd literally pulled her name out of a hat only being the beginning.
One: she didn't know how to use an oven, microwave, or even hotplate.
Two: it was in everyone's best interest she not use an oven, microwave, or (God forbid) hotplate.
Three: she was a polyglot to an impossible degree ("You speak URDU?!?" "Only for functional purposes." "'ONLY?!?'").
Four: she didn't have any idea what a reasonable price was for, well, anything but could appraise a knickknack (accurately!) at a glance.
And five: she was a shutterbug.
He didn't know how she knew how to use a phone camera, especially since he had to walk her through saving his contact information and navigating the Internet (starting with opening the app, which took...way too long; “I’m still not seeing where to type anything, just that it’s thirty-five and sunny.” “…Red, that’s the weather app.”), but she apparently did. When her boat docked in a nondescript port between Casablanca and Azemmour, the first thing she did was follow his directions to the motel he'd selected for her to camp out in (nondescript enough to skirt VILE's notice, cheap enough to not make much of a dent in the roll of bills Carmen had found in her coat's pocket) while they both figured out their next moves and he set to work forging her a passport (a minor an necessary crime; good thing he didn’t get hung up on rules); the second thing was to send him a selfie of her in the motel room.
("You know what a selfie is?" "Uh, yeah? How is that surprising?" "I just had to explain a crosswalk to you.")
It hadn't been much of a picture. The few lights in the room that worked were dim, the colors drab, and the furnishings looking more tired than the guests they were meant to accommodate (there was a reason, he had just then realized, that there hadn't been any pictures of rooms on the place's Google listing). But Black- er, Carmen's face was bright with exhilaration, so of course he texted back a thumbs-up.
(“How did you do that?” “What, the emoji?” “Okay, one: what’s an emoji? Two: can my phone do that?”)
That had been the first of many, many photos ping!-ed to his phone (along with strings of those modern hieroglyphs known as emojis; at this point he was surprised she used any words at all in her texts). The selfies fast became interspersed with sweeping calendar-worthy landscapes, shots of cultural curiosities penned in by velvet ropes and pushing crowds that pushed her humble zoom lens to its grainy limit, and still-lifes whose pedestrian subjects ranged from traffic lights to vending machines to random fire hydrants (all of which she’d actually never seen before; at this point he was convinced VILE was less 'criminal empire' and more 'evil cult'). It was clear that he could see her pursuing a career in photojournalism one they got VILE sufficiently pulverized.
Because she had a knack for photography: no matter how humble or conventionally dull her subject matter, the photo splashed across the screen of his phone was a work of art in and of itself. Even during the earliest weeks of her liberation, when days were spent holed up in the motel room with curtains pulled tight as she waited for the heat of her escape to cool and for him to finish with the passport (it was his first time forging something! Sue him if he was slow!), the photos she sent his way were oddly artful. Radiators or electrical outlets were painted in tangles of light and shadow that gave them an oddly sophisticated air, gasping beams of light that fought through the curtains shimmered with dust motes as they fell across the floor, and the objectively bad brownish-green color of the bedspread actually looked tasteful when her coat was splashed across it, a scarlet bloom in an brackish sea.
Maybe all those lessons on fine art had rubbed off on her, or maybe there was an International Photography Award winner in her family tree; either way, no matter where the wellspring of her talent sprung from, Red's photographs were good, so he was always eager to thumb through the newest batch sent to his phone no matter the hour.
But even if her albums were filled exclusively with blurry images and shots where her thumb covered half the lens, he'd still be dropping everything to browse. He liked seeing what she'd been up to, where she'd been, what she found interesting and worth immortalizing. Not just out of curiosity; the knowledge that Red was choosing to let him into her world this way made something pulse in his chest, like the flash of a stamina bar when you continued collecting HP after the bar was full.
Was this what having a best friend was like?
The rioting of the hailstones had tapered off into a less violent but equally enthusiastic rain as he tapped the message icon so the album sixty-four strong popped up on his phone. As if on cue his phone buzzed with an incoming call, Red's contact appearing on screen.
He’d have to ask her how she did that some day, the eerily good timing.
"Did you get them?" she asked the second he picked up, like she’d combust if she waited for pleasantries. Ambient sounds of chatter and the rumble of an engine drifted through his speakers along with her voice, so even with the rain drumming a tattoo on his window it felt like he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with her on the bus ride back to the hotel.
He grinned (how could he not?) and started rummaging on his table for earbuds. "Just opened up the album. Know you're not really a fan of the whole island deal, but how're you liking Jeju?"
"This one might change my mind. There's apparently a world heritage site here?"
"The Geomunoreum Lava Tube System." Fisting the earbuds, Player popped over to the Internet and pulled up a webpage to text her a link. "It’s comprised of a bunch of tubes, including some that have been designated natural monuments, like the Mangjanggul Lava Tube. And while lava tubes are inherently cool, these are considered some of the most impressive in the world, thanks to features like multicolored floors and stalactite formations."
Her text tone was the first thing Player heard as he turned on the earbuds, followed by happy humming as she perused the link. "Looks like I have tomorrow planned. But back to today. Yakcheonsa Temple. Thoughts?”
Player whistled low as he started swiping through the album. One image showed a towering golden buddha statue, guarded by a pair of carved dragons coiling around floor-to-ceiling columns; another a galaxy of lanterns hanging so thick the ceiling was barely visible; still another the Dharma Drum, sitting like a proud emperor in its tower as it waited to be struck; a solid dozen of the statues of disciples in The Hall of 500 Arahan (he was honestly surprised she refrained from shooting all five-hundred). Whoever said pictures couldn't do a place justice hadn't seen Red's. "That Hyein really did dream big when he planned for an actual temple on that site.” Knowing that it was one of- if not the- largest Buddhist temples in Asia and actually seeing the sheer size of the place were two completely different things.
"It is pretty impressive,” Carmen agreed. "Architecture’s a little contemporary for my tastes, though."
"1996 could be historic," Player grinned even though she couldn't see. "Like my aunt’s Gateway desktop."
"A relic." He hadn’t known before meeting Red that you could hear someone roll their eyes. "You know what I mean."
"Yup." He swiped nonchalantly to reveal a photo of a row of elephant statues, each about the size of a house cat, marching along a sidewalk. "Only the oldest, most decrepit locales for our world traveler. I'll keep that in mind when booking your next hotel." He bit his lip, waiting for her response.
"Someday I'll swing by Ontario; see how funny that is when I’m sitting right next to you."
The gilded glow of the buddha smiling from his phone flooded through Player's chest. "Looking forward to the day." Really. "Now c'mon. Any other thoughts on today's excursion other than its not being old enough for the senior discount?"
The public transit ambience was the only sound for a beat, then: "What's a 'senior discount?"
Player chuckled. "Never change, Red."
Once she was in possession of the knowledge that the traditional dictate to 'respect one's elders' now manifested in lower prices for museum admissions and dinner specials (at least, in Player's corner of the world), Carmen launched into a travelogue of her day exploring first Yakcheonsa, then Jeongbang Waterfall. Player nodded along, making the occasional comment but otherwise staying silent, swiping through images and saving them to the 'Red's Photos' album, subfolder 'Asia' as he went.
He had to get up for study group in approximately three hours, but he didn't set down the phone or ask Carmen to hang up. Rather, he settled back on his pillows and continued to thumb through Jeju as Carmen talked, occasionally (or more than occasionally) contributing commentary and fun facts of his own. The rain and middle-of-the-night dark of his room, the mess on the floor his mom was getting on his case about and the battered package with first-class postage concealing their key to taking down VILE sitting on his desk, faded around him so he was standing inside the modern wonder that was Yakcheonsa or at the base of an admittedly mid waterfall (everything was mid compared to Niagara; no, he wasn't biased that was a fact). Awe washed over him as he swiped through the album and the wonders of Jeju were beamed into his room.
He'd seen Yakcheonsa and Jeongbang before, of course, but looking at them on his computer monitor or the pages of a book they felt...flat. Distant. As unreachable and far-removed from the world he lived in as Narnia or Middle-Earth or Mario's Mushroom Kingdom. With Carmen's photos, though...it was like the difference between a taxidermied platypus versus a living breathing monotreme; they made the wonders of the world come alive, like he was really there. He couldn't put his finger on why; maybe it was her artistic eye or the sound of her voice talking over the images that his brain automatically attached to them. He wasn't sure, but it honestly didn't matter. Not to him; not with temples and waterfalls, museums and cathedrals, scenic vistas that hardly seemed real and street corners so nondescript no guidebook would deem them worthy of mention alike breathing in his palm, all noticed by Red's expert eye and captured so he could see them too.
Definitely worth missing out on a few hours of sleep.
Slowly, the sky lightened behind the clouds as Player traveled the world, Red right at his side.