Current Date: June 12, 2024
Character: Jaeden Raynes
Race: Human
Age: 33
Current residence: Spirit Falls, Wisconsin
I cherish every moment of sleep that I manage to get. I spent months after the fog had lifted being unable to properly sleep. There was this one nightmare that clung to the edges of my mind and would sneak its way in any time I so much as closed my eyes while not in the absolute daytime. Even then, my sleep was not comfortable, and rest was elusive.
Jonah has made me promise to stop trying to make it up to him. I have stopped but I still try to get a few things for him at the store now and again when I spot one of his favourites. They’re fairly hard to get, they’re a certain type of mushroom that only grows in certain conditions and it seems as though only one person in the community has managed to get these conditions right.
Some months ago, nearly a year at this point, I approached the person in particular. I had seen them drop off the mushrooms—some dried, some in a sort of pickling mix—and I figured that I could ask them if, just maybe, they were willing to tell me how it was they were managing to grow these mushrooms. Thinking back on the event, I would like to believe that I wasn’t rough with them, I didn’t demand, and I didn’t raise my voice. I just quietly asked if I could know how they managed.
They turned my way—I’ve never been able to tell if they were a man or a woman, they often even looked homeless from the way they dressed more than anything else to me but, what do I know, really—and just sneered at me. Now, mind you, I’d never even talked to them before. I might have crossed paths with them and did the thing where you nod your head a little in greeting but that’s been it.
I’m not one to say hello to every single person I cross, I’m not that outgoing, though of the two of us, I might still be a bit more outgoing than my twin. I don’t mind nodding a greeting to others in the community if they don’t look like they might try ripping my head off, but that’s about it.
Hell, I was even ready to offer to make them a pair of gloves. I checked more than once at the store and around, and I’ve asked, I managed to get my hands on a lot of cloth from abandoned places. I left plenty behind, but I still have more than I would need, so I’ve made stuff, and the gloves are easy to make. That sneer, though? That threw the idea right out the window.
Let’s just say that I was told by that person that I was at the very top of the list of people who had the most potential to ruin their day. And I’m just, well, okay then. What do you want me to say? I don’t know you. I don’t know what you think you know about me that could somehow ruin your day but it’s whatever at this point. I behaved. I bit my tongue, I didn’t offer any sharp retort though I know Ashley wouldn’t have been so kind, and just went on my way.
I would love to be able to know how to grow those mushrooms. I was tempted to even ask someone else to maybe ask the person in question. Maybe if it was someone else, they would get a better answer than I did. I didn’t ask anyone else, though. I figured I was better off just not taking any chances. I mean, if they dropped off fresh mushrooms, maybe I could have tried once or twice, at least, I figure I might know how to manage from there, they might not grow, but I could try, but everything that gets dropped off is either pickled or dried.
So, I just keep on bringing those in to Jonah whenever they’re at the store. I never take them all, since I figure that others might want them, but if they’re still there a week or so after I first dropped in, you can bet that I’m not going to waste an opportunity. I love how Jonah just rolls his eyes in exasperation at me when I bring them to him, but he eats them like they’re the best thing in the world ever and I’m glad to be able to do something like that for him.
It doesn’t feel like much, and I know it’s been years at this point, but he’s my twin and he was patience incarnate with me while I struggled with my sleep issues, so he deserves these treats as often as I can get my hands on them. It’s not as though he doesn’t do similar for me, but my own cravings are sort of harder to fulfill when it comes to food, and I’ve told him as such. I’m fine with not getting anything special.
Works of JD Beckett 