Mimi's Demons

Chapter 75: Bystander Effect

Which was why, after lunch, she found herself sitting in front of the biggest window at the end of that hall she liked for no particular reason, staring out into the gray and rustling trees with a sketchbook in her lap. She had one of her blankets over her shoulders, even though the indoor heating was top notch.

Juli had followed her there since this was their appointed time to hang out. He had the Switch in hand, but he'd look out at the storm with her, enjoying it as pre-street-wise Mimi had.

"Oo, that was a big one," he said at a lightning flashed. "One...two...three..."

He got up to six before the boom rumbled across them, like a giant rolling a barrel down stairs.

"Not far now." He grinned and looked back down at the Switch. He was playing some sort of paint shooting game. It had looked stupid as heck so Mimi hadn't been interested.

Mimi kept her eyes to the sky, pencil poised over the blank paper.

Mrs. Bloomington told her art was a way to express feelings we didn't understand and look at them from a different angle. Mimi could feel that want in her, that 'inspiration' as Mrs. Bloomington called it. She wanted to understand what was happening to her. She was still Mimi who denned in the parking garage. She was still Mimi who wanted to be a doctor to make money so her mom wouldn't be so stressed. But now she was Mimi who lived like a princess with a minion, sitting at the end of a lavish hallway behind watched over by a quiet Omen sipping tea from a funky ceramic cup.

The rain started not too long later. Fat rain drops hit the window like tiny pebbles that gave up being rocks half-way. Mimi could somehow feel them splatting on her head and face, as though she were still outside, scrambling to dig out her scavenged plastic poncho from her pocket.

She looked away from the rain and started to draw.

At some point, Juli lost so thoroughly in his paintgun nightmare that he disconnected from the Switch to whine and got a look at what his mistress was doing.

"Dang, I didn't know you could draw. Is your teacher that good at teaching?"

Mimi gave him a look.

"Shouldn't you know everything about your master?"

"In what kind of rulebook is that?" Juli wrinkled his nose. "And why do you think we hang out every day? Knowledge takes time, boss. But seriously, that monster is wicked, is that a demon?"

Mimi looked back at her drawing, grimacing.

A horned street demon hunched on the edge of a cloud like a gargoyle, it's mouth stretched open large enough to swallow a car, highly out of proportion to its little body clinging to the cloud. Spittle rained down from its mouth on the earth below.

"Is that supposed to be some sort of weird interpretation of the rain or something?" Juli leaned closer. "Kinda gross. You not like the rain?"

"It's alright." And it was. She had her blanket, it was warm, a nice big window to watch it from. It was good again. And yet the excitement wasn't quite there anymore.

"I bet it sucked while you were living on the street, though," said Juli, showing unexpected perception. "Huh. Guess it's weird to feel all safe from it now. What was the worst it ever got for you?"

Mimi had been considering tearing up the drawing the moment Juli started commenting, but seeing that he had somehow been able to infer her exact thoughts from it alone, she found herself satisfied in a surprised sort of way that the art had done exactly what Mrs. Bloomingfield had said it could, and that Mimi had succeeded in making it do so. Maybe Mimi really was good at this.