Mimi's Demons

Chapter 74: The Muse Loves Shelter

 Mimi was still delighted to see Mrs. Bloomington in class the next day. She returned Mimi's smile in all her beautiful, wrinkly glory. The very air of the classroom, done up for Thanksgiving (really Papa?) seemed lighter.

"Hello, Miss Mimi. It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too!" Mimi chirped, hopping to the petite little lady in her flowery blue and yellow dress. "It's weird to see you before I've finished classes with Mr. Shacketts. Is he okay?"

"Oh, he's called in sick, so I offered to take up an extra hour for him. It's flu season so you be on your guard to not end up like him."

"How do you know he has the flu? Are you friends?"

Mrs. Bloomington flapped her hand. "Tut, acquaintances. We got you to talk about and that's about it. But some men are such whiners so he told me anyway when he called me up to ask me to substitute, all hacking and crying. Baby."

Mimi giggled, totally agreeing. She wanted to hear Mrs. Bloomington call grown men babies more often. It was funny coming from her, as delicate and wrinkly as she was.

Turns out, Mrs. Bloomington knew a good deal about Chemistry, or, well, enough to read the lesson plan and be able to go through with it. She had to sit down more than Mr. Shacketts did and was more fond of drawing pictures of what was happening with the elements than going into the stories of how such and such was discovered. Mimi didn't mind at all. She copied the pictures the best she could and added explosion sounds when cued by Mrs. Bloomington's knobbly finger.

When the blue bird popped out of the cuckoo clock to announce the end of that hour, Mimi got up to help Mrs. Bloomington ready their art class. Her hands were a little more shaky then they had been at the beginning of their chemistry class.

"Are you okay?" Mimi asked.

"Of course. Just old. My arms get tired easily. It's annoying, really."

"Are you up to art class?"

Mrs. Bloomington waved her off. "Art is invigorating. If anything it will get me my energy back."

"But I assume a snack won't hurt?" said a familiar smooth voice from the doorway.

"Hi, Kavya!" cheeped Mimi.

Kavya smiled, looking more gorgeous than ever in turquoise and yellow silk. Though Mimi noticed it was a bit different than her usual long saris. It ended as a sort of tunic and had loose genie like pants underneath it. Per usual, Kavya looked great in it and now Mimi wanted her own genie clothes too.

Mrs. Bloomington and Mimi had a snack of mango chunks and cheese on fancy little fork-like toothpicks before setting to work on their drawings. Today Mrs. Bloomington had her work on more complicated, inorganic shapes that couldn't be worked out with just square, circles, and triangles. It was a lumpy pillow and blanket draped over a chair with a rather threadbare stuffed rabbit nestled in the folds.

The rabbit turned out to be Mrs. Bloomington's own from when she was a little girl, which explained why it looked so worn out. Mimi was impressed it wasn't fossilized, which made Mrs. Bloomington laugh when she told her.

Mimi found it was a tougher than their usual sketches. Fabric did whatever it wanted and Mimi doubted she could just...come up with where the fabric would fold out of her head like Mrs. Bloomington said she would be able to if she practiced enough like this. She also showed Mimi pictures of classical Roman sculptures where the artist had been able to make stone look like soft cloth. Super impressive, though Mimi didn't know why they had to make half their people naked. No one wants to look at naked people. That's just gross.

A soft boom echoed from outside.

"Oh, that must be the storm they've been predicting," said Mrs. Bloomington. "It's supposed to be a big one."

Mimi paused to tilt her head to listen for more.

"I want to draw a storm," Mimi said without much thinking.

"Oh? Is this the muse?" asked Mrs. Bloomington, her hand zipping away on the cloth like the pro she was.

"Maybe. But it would just be a bunch of wiggly clouds and lines for rain, wouldn't it?"

"Is that how you see storms?"

It was a common question Mrs. Bloomington presented in their art lessons. Art was to convey how Mimi saw things, not always as they were. Photographs could do that. Occasionally they had a free day where Mimi was suppose to use her skills practiced from still life to try and convey whatever came up in her head.

So it got Mimi thinking as she painfully tried to get the drapes of the cloth and the sags and wrinkles of the old bunny and pillow just right.

Once upon a time, Mimi had absolutely LOVED storms. The bigger the boom, the better. The harder the rain, the more glorious.

But then she spent a year in an empty parking garage storage room where there wasn't any heating or electricity and storms came to mean something else. Instead of exciting flashes and bangs out her windows while she felt sheltered and safe in her blankets, storms meant cold weather and getting wet if she wanted to get any food. A kind of wet which would make her cold to her core even after she peeled off all her clothes and crawled beneath her blankets. Storms mean possible flooding past her storage room. Storms meant the beginning of winter where Mimi would always be fighting to find things to burn, batteries for her scavenged heater, or sleeping bags to pile on her old mattresses till it wasn't so much a bed as it was a den.

But, once again, Mimi was warm and safe inside, allowed to watch nature throw a fit the comfort of being indoors.

It felt strange to her. She fingered through her memories, letting them sting her mental fingers, considering the contrast. 

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I think the callous on my right big toe that keeps growing back has an ego, because it's fighting back. Just, you know, TMI. For you.