Activity

@sam-m @emberynus-the-dragonslayer @melodyjoy @claire-h @anne_the_noob14 @joshuapior

Sam, you just go right ahead and write your story. Don’t worry about where I take mine!! 😉 That being said, here’s the next part. There’s some clarity about theme and purpose now, but it’s still more of an as-I-go project. ☺️

—————

Liz stared at herself in her bathroom mirror. She wondered what other people saw when they looked into her eyes. Eyes were important. Dirk always said they were the windows to the soul, that people could tell who you were just by making eye contact. Pretty sure that’s not true in my case, she thought. You have taught me well, my friend. 

She pushed her hair back with a band and washed her face slowly. The water felt good against her skin. Refreshing. She threw the towel into the waiting laundry basket and began brushing her teeth, running through her to-do list in her mind.

Practice her new chamber orchestra piece: the Shostakovich  Chamber Symphony. She’d heard it a million times but never played it. She was excited for this upcoming tour. She and her friends, making music for the world. Bringing a bit of happiness into miserable lives. It was important, especially now, and especially when those lives were their own.

Check on the bees and tend her flower garden. It’d be nice to do those first, but she needed to get in some kind of accomplishment before relaxing.

Check in on the Viper database and update her status as available. That last one was optional, but she never really thought twice about it. It was just what she did. Dirk knew her itinerary and was careful in assigning targets to her. This last assignment was risky, really, using her real-life job instead of a fabricated cover and having to remain within the investigation radius. It worked well, though, better than she had imagined. It wouldn’t happen again for a while, she knew. Dirk would make sure that no suspicion would arise from assassinations and the orchestra’s performances coinciding too often.

Liz stared at the face in the mirror. It was pretty, her friends said. Young and innocent. She smiled at it, and it smiled back. She was glad it was happy. People don’t really notice happy people. They just sort of blend in, like being happy is normal. Funny how people don’t realize happiness is really just a forced emotion, Liz thought as she exited her little washroom.

She got out her violin and laid it on the living room rug. She heard Mrs. Donavan’s voice screeching in her mind never to do that, but it wasn’t like she was at a music school with a million other kids bouncing around to Tigger’s song anymore.

Weird, she thought, How I never imagined how my life would turn out. She stared at the satin-lined interior of her case. It was a clever design, one Dirk had made. She didn’t know exactly how, but it fooled airport scanners and x-rays, revealing only the violin and not the gun. Sure, it was a little heavier and bulkier, but that was the benefit of being a musician. People expect you to be weird about your instrument and how you protect it during travel. Dirk always said one of the best ways to detract attention was to attract attention in a completely different way and for a completely different reason. Her violin made that possible.