Forgotten Friday #201 - 広衣リク / Hiroi Riku
Who is Riku Hiroi?
 |
| art from nicopedia |
Previously on A Spectrum of Apple Skins, I was still really stuck on the story of Cricket. I really like Jeanette as a character, but I don't think I'd like her as a person.
"Wow." Cricket stared in shock as Jeanette flipped a light switch and closed the door behind them.
The room was massive compared to the facade of a broken down shack. Logically, Cricket knew that the cramped space was small. There were just two desks with two cheap office chairs. It was all so clustered together, pulling out both chairs would mean that there was no room for a person. One desk was empty, but the other had a strange, silver box on it. Next to the box was a set of headphones and a black object on three legs that he assumed was a microphone.
"This is how we paid for everyone's braces," Jeanette chuckled to herself before pulling out her chair and pressing her thumb on top of the box. Like magic, a washed out blue screen appeared.
He had never seen anything like it. Franz the Science Man was the only "modern" show he had seen, and that was cancelled five hundred years prior. For some strange, aesthetic reason, all of the technology allowed in their town had to look like it was frozen in time in the 1990s. Seeing a computer designed within the last century made him feel overwhelmed.
As Jeanette waved her hand around in front of the projection, the images on the screen moved around. She looked over at Cricket and asked, "Do you like school?" She looked back at the screen before tapping the side of the box. A physical keyboard popped out of the front as if it were a cash register.
"I want to," Cricket sighed. "But for everything I learn, someone whoops me. I'm such an easy target, all the boys agreed only girls could whoop me… so they do every chance they get."
"Franz taught you what Mars is, right?" Jeanette asked as she typed away on the keyboard. Before Cricket could answer, a picture of Mars appeared on the screen. She leaned back and crossed her arms. "That'll be your new home."
------
Okay so, Jeanette ends up having the most dope life possible after this, but it's way too adult and heavy for this blog. I really hope I have it in me to write a full novel on her life. But, to sum it up to move back to Mars so we can move back to Earth, so we can go to Atlanta and see Apple Bloom again…
Jeanette and Cricket spent almost all of their time together. He convinced her to start a podcast, and she ended up being really good at it! When Cricket legally changed his name to Franz Feldman, she became Jennifer Feldman in solidarity. She lied to her family and said that Cricket was being drafted into the military, because they would burn them both at the stake if they knew that they were going along with science.
After Franz left, she met her new best friend online and they worked hard on their podcast together. After Finch passed due to a heart attack, her eldest daughter, Jolly Sue, caught her making her podcast. Jen, as Jeanette then called herself, had said very adult things on the podcast. Jolly Sue demanded she stop and repent before the church, but Jen peaced out and went to live with her friend in New Angels.
In New Angels, she learned that West Coast, Best Coast. While "The City" had been a grey nightmare where mediocrity was punished, New Angels was A Brave New World. Your value was determined by your beauty and your bank account… and after her friend helped her with some surgery, she was stunning.
She began modeling and acting. She met her new husband through her work. She kept climbing and climbing. She came to New Angels as a widow with nothing but the clothes on her back, and she became one of the highest paid actresses in New Angels and had her own talk show.
It really proves that you can't just Bloom where you're planted.
And now, we will never visit Appalachia again.
No comments:
Post a Comment