RW: Guardians of the Arts

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Chapter 1... Muses and Masks

     I sat down by the fountain at the Outlet Mall in Ellenton with my laptop at my side, about a mile from my house. Not exactly walking distance but it's close enough for me to fly there via my ghost powers.
     It was a hot Saturday afternoon and I had some time to kill so I thought I'd look for some possible characters for a future story to post on the net. The Outlet Mall was the perfect setting for such an activity.
     The heat and sun light reflected from the concrete into my eyes and through my green Flogging Molly t-shirt. I wasn't wearing shorts though, we never got along. I at least was wearing a pair of old holey jeans and my newly bought motorcycle boots. Of course I was wearing my grandfather's dogtags, I never leave home without them on my person.
     I picked a tape recorder from my pocket and hit the record button. "Save as character sketches." I recorded in the microphone as people sat down all around me at the food court. I catch a clique of high school students, not much older than me. One of them was a girl in make-up and wearing jewelry all over her. "A girl hides behind a mask to get people to like her." Girls like that always boiled my blood. Not that I'm homosexual, it's just they hide behind make-up and jewelry afraid to show their true colors. It's cowardice to me, but a turn-off most importantly.
     I see a tall skinny college student with a short pretty girl of equal age. "A nerd climbs up the social ladder stepping over his friends." I've actually done that before, and let me tell you, it ain't fun. It wasn't until I finally came to terms with who I was did my social status become 'acceptable'.
     That's a pattern I've noticed in my characters and myself. Some of them don't like who they are, so they try to be someone else entirely to look cool in front of others. In my case, I figured out that it's not who you really are that defines your place on the social food-chain. It's more about how you use it to your advantage, how you carry it and wheather or not you're proud of who you are, or who you've grown into. That's real character.
     After looking around for some more walking talking templates for about thirty seconds, I caught a glimpse of a girl wearing a white t-shirt and blue denim vest with black jeans and high-heeled sandles. Her hair was short and dark and her stature was tall and straight, not the kind of walking about the mall as if she owned the place but more of a floating curiosity blending into the crowd, rendering her nearly invisible.
     I couldn't take my eyes off her. It was as if someone dug into my deepest dreams and created the girl out of a childhood memory.
     I raised my recorder. "A young woman from another land is drawn to a new world in search for the object of a long lost memory." Wow that was corny. As soon as I recorded my next sketch, her head turned and her intense blue eyes stopped on me and a shiver from my lungs worked its way up my throat. I held in a belch of ghost sense and the girl continued on her merry way.
     My eyes didn't leave her. They only followed her as she blended in with the crowd. I shook my head and blinked. Get it together, Slezak, you already have a girlfrind. It may have not have been love at first sight but reguardless of some stupid childhood fantasy Marisa was still your girlfriend. "Oh don't do this, Robert." I told myself as I stood up to follow the girl from a distance. "Now I'm stalking women, great."