poison sumac || open

[cisco]

speech
thoughts
action

The heat was suffocating.

Each breath filled Ayesha's lungs with hot pain. Of course, the impassable heat wave had to strike at the close of the semester, when classes were winding down and being fresh and alert was most important. Exams. The word clung to her skull like her sweaty hair stuck to the back of her neck. Ayesha pinned her hair up away from her neck and shoulders and tried to concentrate on her notes. Poison Sumac and its properties... But it just wasn't happening. It was to hot, and of course, the air conditioner was broken, and there was no way it could be fixed before her parents got their paychecks the following week.

The pressure of doing well on the exams (and impressing the "evil overlords" of the Capitol) and the oppressive heat seemed to crushing her brain and draining her resolve. She might have to do what she had avoided for most of the semester: Studying in the library. The library was populated with fools from the campus. Wannabe scientists and doctors. And surely someone would approach Ayesha so she could explain the properties of poison sumac or what have you.

Knowing that the only way she would be able to finish her review was inside the temperature-controlled library, Ayesha packed some books, threw her notes under her arm, and stalked in the direction of the library. She was so irritated and sweaty she didn't even bother to say bye to Sita or her mother.

The streets were choked by dusty wind. Even though Ayesha did not live far from the college (she was the daughter of two accomplished minds) the walk through the heat was exhausting. She somehow managed to brace herself and make just to the steps of the library. A misstep- and she barely caught herself. Her notes however, did not make it. The loosely-packed folder tumbled to the ground and a dusty wind blew its contents across the steps.

Ayesha, hair frizzyand smattered with dust , her eyes squinting in misery, glared hopelessly at her scattered notes.

[TAYLOR lives here]

Mercury was safe, inside of the air-conditioned and beautifully decorated library. He was hidden between two shelves, overflowing with books. On his lap, around his self-proclaimed area, he had about twenty. All of them were open to some page he found fascinating. He would read a paragraph of one, and then jump to another. Why? Well today he found that he was too jittery to read just one book. Exams were coming up and he wasn't sure if he was excited or nervous, although he was sure of one emotion. He was conflicted.

None of the books in front of Mercury were particularly fascinating him now, none of them spoke to him like he wished they would. They were all, boring, with too little facts and too little story. They were simply words on a page, he was lingering over them now only because he had nothing better to do. As he accidentally re-read one of the many paragraphs, he realized that he had better things to be doing. There was studying for one. But he wasn't in the mood for that, and the brain he was born with guaranteed him a good grade anyway.

He didn't clean up the clear mess he had created. He just left. Slowly and innocently he headed out the doors of the library where he witnessed an older girl clumsily dropping papers over the library steps. And although he was not going to clean up his own mess, without thinking he dropped to knees and helped with hers.

After grabbing and in the process wrinkling a few of the papers he handed them over to her with a, "here you go." Mercury had never seen the girl before but did not think anything of her. She was older, darker, and being the hopeless romantic he was, he refused to think she was pretty. But he saw the small of her back as she was bent over picking up the last of her papers and he saw her windswept dark hair wiping perfectly over her face. He couldn't not blush.