He retreats to his modest estate hiding in the mountain side. Modest meaning it looked a lot bigger on the outside. There weren't nearly as many bedrooms as you would expect, but there was an impressive personal library. The hardwood floors were dark walnut and a foyer, a massive circle with entry archways that broke the house up into two wings.
The house was completed with a jagged mountain ledge stone exterior and brick driveway that loops into a semi-circle. The air is thick with the freshly mulched beds. Forty foot trees envelop the back of the property. There's roughly flat terrain for Sonny (the brown curly-coated retriever AI) to run around and chase the occasional goat that wanders this far. Pierce can't help but lay his body along one of the many outside steps leading to the house's front entrance as he waits for Mísol. He has an arm thrown over his eyes and can feel both the hot bricks on his back and Sonny poking him with a Frisbee.
She soundlessly arrives in a chocolate-red jeep. She throws her sunglass in the passenger seat before unloading her furry babies. She looks around the grounds of the estate and how it was tucked away from the rest of the world. Sonny seems to understand that Mondrian is like him. Janie is unaffected either way. Sonny is just another playmate for her to bully before she ultimately tires herself out.
After the doggie recess and multiple games of fetch Mísol is given a proper tour of Pierce's house. The tour ends with his work workspace. Not the outdoors one with welding equipment and spare parts but where the sketching and computer coding happens. The real reason Mísol was invited over apart from play date exposure was to show her what he had been modifying in his spare time.
Her hands are on her knees as she leans down to see what he's tinkering with; something tiny. "I remember when you first came out with the line of large koi fish. Then your company disappeared for years. There was just enough time to miss fantastical things, and then that's when all the domestic pet started showing up." After that the world wanted more and more from you. Mísol doesn't remind him about these things; how demand skyrocketed and with it came a distinctive lack of peace. A gross amount of praise. And Pierce shrouding himself in needed quietness. Mísol continued to be a welcomed distraction from the very things that made it hard for Pierce to separate his life from his work.
Although his solidarity was his own doing he still experienced how lonely being at the top was. Those who knew Pierce Velden-Wal, truly, only besieged him with offers of business transactions. No one attempted to keep up with his line of thinking or reasoning or work. Semantics were the farthest thing on the minds of those who blindly threw money at him and his research. The men and women in suits didn't want the explanation of the process. The problem, everyone was too willing to play dumb. The woman beside him was a reminder that people can be people and he could be wanted for more than signatures and interviews.
He presents the smallest and oldest model he's ever made.
He convinced the facility and even the government (when it stepped in) that more intricate, smaller pieces were impossible. The objects he was showing Mísol now were part of his private collection. Not to be utilized or taken advantage of in any way. They weren't to be used as tools to spy. "The wings are made of glass as thin as a candy wrapper."
The object in question is being marveled at by someone who can truly appreciate art in all its many forms. "How old is he or she?"
"Eleven and a half."
"Could I hold him/her?"
He stands from his chair and she moves with him. Preparing herself to have the butterfly crawl along her fingers. Though she's reinforcing one hand with the other he holds her bottom hand to steady it. Once he places the butterfly in the middle of her palm it starts to roam around. "I call him/ her Point Three-Three. This was the third monarch, the other two were failures." She looks to him, signaling that she's listening. "What I make...they never have complete lives and what's around them may not understand that... they won't live completely." Not what we consider full lives, he thinks. He can feel himself start to ramble but as if to prove his point, the monarch hadn't showed any interest in the vase of wilting flowers on his desk (that were either congratulatory or obligatory from a new partnership).
Mísol understood this about Mondrian. Unlike Janie the artificial collie wouldn't whine at the bathroom door the entire time Mísol was taking a shower. Mondrian had bouts of wants but was equally contempt not needing.
"-but I don't think they'll ever be lonely. They seem to prefer companionship."
"That's the most normal thing they could do," is the reply he receives.
Comments (0)
See all