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The Endless Collective shakes with activity. Shakes, because a few power tools have something to do with transforming lumber into a sculpture of questionable renown. Banging hammers drive home nails of varied length. Three artists work to the direction of a scrawny ginger kid in oversized coveralls, all of them liberally streaked in sawdust. Sadie, being quite small, straddles a top beam. Her feet dangle midair as she smacks a hammer into a row of nails with considerable gusto. Any concern about toppling off her makeshift seesaw is terribly misplaced. For one, a thick wire wraps around a rafter to help secure the beam.
"Ooh!" she calls. "Maybe we can elevate the other side and paint it."
The orchestra of madness is rather distracting, but productive. So perhaps they balance out.
Sometimes Dead Girl is just drawn places- today is one of those days. She's got her guitar with her- just worn like it were some kind of weapon against some ancient evil. Her glowing red eyes like pin-pricks from across the void of Death- like some far distant watcher of life. "Oh, hey, it's you!" Dead Girl says as she notices Sadie.
"So, what's all this?" She wonders as she pulls out a cigarette. "Mind if I smoke?" She wonders with a smile.
Never know when a guitar might come in handy calming a spirit or entertaining a plethora of bored college students. Guitars spell money and intelligence in some parts of the city. SoHo is close enough to Greenwich Village for a decent paycheck at the end of the night for a halfway skilled musician.
Sadie has a good vantage to spot someone new coming in. The gallery isn't so cavernous to let crowds sneak in and out without some effort. Dead Girl's cheery greeting helps. The ginger still jumps, knocking into a toolbox. The other two artists keep working, unperturbed. At least not enough to show it.
"Yes, I'm still me!" Sadie calls. "That's a good thing, right? Oh, we're building a take on the demise of forests for places to park cars. A sad problem all over. You can smoke. It's not very good for you, but if it makes you happy, be my guest."
"What's it going to do? Kill me?" Dead Girl wonders as she lights up a cigarette. It's something to do with her hands- a place to throw energy. It doesn't affect Dead Girl whatsoever- her lungs don't actually do anything except store air for smoking these days. "I guess it's a good thing, though. I mean, I like you. I'm not sure why, but, I don't know. Calming presence, I guess?" Dead Girl wonders as she starts to walk and look at the art as it's being installed.
"Yeah man, the clear cutting of forests is a travesty!" Dead Girl offers with her chipper enthusiasm. "I've seen it! The mountains over on this side of the country should be green!"
"Foul your clothes, more than not. The chemicals in there hang in the most persistent way, don't they? The smell can be ghastly." Sadie nods with about as much solemnity as a lawn gnome. She brings down the hammer, rat-a-tat-tat. Two nails driven deep into the wood leave only their flat round heads visible, a tidy row. Once more her feet swing while she scoots back, closer to the wire anchorage. "That's so sweet of you to say. Calming. That's a groovy thing to be, isn't it? You're like a current of electricity but in the good kind of way."
Summoning a little courage, the ginger dismisses one of his fellow artists. "Let's go get coffee." The pot is stowed in a backroom, easily smelled.
"It's pretty sad when the trees ends up chopped down. Some of those forests were around during the Revolution," the petite, dark-haired waif agrees.
"Oh yeah, for sure. I don't know. You just feel like someone I know somehow. I'm really not sure how to explain it- anyways, it is totally groovy." Dead Girl says, grinning still as she steps- just one step. Then watching from a lightly different angle to soak in as much of the actual installation of an art installation as she's able to do. Just enjoying it with quiet interest.
"Oh, Coffee! I love the smell." She admits, randomly to those going for Coffee, still mostly focused on Sadie and the art. "That's far out, wow." she says, "Trees that are almost two hundred years old. That's way out there- oh man, I wish I could talk to a tree that old. I'm sure they'd have something interesting to say. A lot of time to think being a tree, I think."
"It's something that happens in the city. You get to feel like you know everyone, even if you only met yesterday riding on the train. Isn't that a lovely sensation? Nothing harder than getting over loneliness or discovering you haven't got any connections to another soul anywhere." Sadie tries not to bounce the wood around too much. Two more good whacks of that hammer, and she apparently completes whatever task was assigned to her. She doesn't need to slither down, merely swinging her leg over the side of the beam. There, she jumps down from.
"Talking to trees would be lovely. Or the rocks. I'm dedicated to hearing whatever the rocks have to share, but their timeframe would be awfully long."
"Oh yeah, I can't imagine what the mountains have seen!" Dead Girl says with a wide grin as Sadie kumps down.
"Oh man, I feel that way with a lot of people who are alive. Like we're world's apart or something, you know? I mean, everything feels like a memory. Its a little off-putting at first." Dead Girl offers some of her own take on the world- "AT least, it has been since I died, you know? But you don't feel like a memory. It's nice."
"A great many clouds and birds, confidently I can say that much. They probably have a good deal to say about snow and ice, too." Sadie nods as she stands up, brushing off some of the sawdust. More stains her legs, no help for that. The best she can do is push away the shavings, and hope to look relatively put together.
Curious, bird-bright eyes trace after the other young woman. It's impossible not to be curious. Dead Girl is rather different, after all. "Do you want some coffee? We can have a cup. There are something like twenty cups on a shelf in there. I just like to wash mine after I use it. Disconnection can be a painful experience, and one that people who move here seem to talk about a lot. Anything I can do to make that easier, you just say."
"Well, I like the smell, but I don't really eat or drink anymore. I just sort of.. Be. It's very curious, really. Never tired, or hungry, or thirsty. I never need air- it's all very curious. It's opened up a lot of new experiences, though. Things I always wanted to do, but couldn't, because the situation would have been difficult or dangerous to set up." she explains.
"Like sitting under water in a pond for a week and not moving- just sort of.. Being with the water. Being with the fish. It's really cool."
"Yeah, I never felt that really, before I died. Only after." Dead Girl says, with a bit of an introspective tone, "Hrm. Like, I don't know. I haven't really thought about that." Dead Girl remarks. "I've been spending most of my time at parties."
"You could reasonably walk along the bottom of the ocean if you wanted?" Sadie sucks on her lower lip, just enough to impress her teeth into the curve. "I suppose that might leave something to be desired. A light source would be the key problem. The darkness down there is pretty much absolute after a certain point, and the debris kicked up by moving would block out sight well enough. Patience, though, that counts for something. Fish aren't exactly talkative."
She would know, though how, that's up to the beholder.
Parties, though, perk Sadie right up. "Oh, very good. Do you go to the ones around here, or the private ones people hold at their houses?"
"They mostly just float around all day." Dead Girl says, on fish. "They're pretty chill like that, you know?" she says next, smiling still- friendly and chipper despite the ventures into heavier conversation.
"Oh, yeah, I go to both! You know, first one- then the other. I get invited a lot of places, I think it's the weird factor, you know? Hey, did you go to that party with the dead girl? Hey, it's Dead Girl! You know, it's a lot of fun, though. Everyone wants to Dance with the Dead Girl. At least, at the right kind of parties." She offers with a playful grin.
"They're pretty cool. Fish are smarter and have deeper lives than most people give credit to. I mean, look at how sailfish and swordfish work, and all the kinds that live in schools operate." Sadie stifles a yawn with her hand, blinking at the reaction. Ooh, that's new, sleepiness.
"People do like the weird angle, which is important. Being square and closed-minded? That's just trouble, you know?" Her smile widens. "That said, I should probably go help clean up this stuff." A hammer, notably.