Inktober: Sanctuary
Original tweet:
https://twitter.com/tealbrigade/status/786054414628945922
At 3:57pm, Max Callahan all but collapsed into her favorite bar stool at Higher Grounds, her favorite coffee shop in Flagstaff, hoping to avoid all responsibilities for about an hour.
Her phone went off the second she pulled her laptop out of her nondescript grey backpack, the lid covered with bumper stickers from the different places she lived growing up. Circular badge from Nashville, a banner from Providence, an Alamo-shaped sticker from San Antonio, a star from Sacramento, a fancily-designed script rendition of Portland, a snowflake embossed with Fargo. A small Northern Arizona University emblem graced the top right corner.
Perhaps that was the only good thing about her childhood-- she saw a lot of the country, which helped her immensely in her off-campus work.
Not that Max planned on completing any of it at the moment. The OSInstitute could ask her to solve all of their problems after she finished her chai latte and strawberry scone, not before.
Max plugged her teal headphones into the jack, cranked her favorite playlist, and laid out her sketchbook, a few pens, and her lucky mechanical pencil.
Her phone buzzed yet again, A message in all-caps proved to be from Theta, frantically asking about part of her next mission and for help with Political Science homework in one continuous thought with no punctuation.
Max sighed.
Theta, can I get back to you in an hour?
She didn't bother waiting for a response before she turned her phone all the way off, tucking it inside a pocket in her faded jeans.
Storm clouds gathered outside of the window Max stared out of, congregating over the red mountains in the distance. Lightning shot out of nowhere as rain began to fall, cutting visibility in half. A sudden tinge of gratefulness for her favorite blue sweatshirt ticked in the back of her head.
Epsilon wouldn't be happy about that. Max laughed at the mental image of her tall friend dashing around HQ's perimeter, attempting to cover all of his technology, clean the rain off his hipster-esque glasses, and avoid cursing up a storm. Of course, he'd drag Phi into the rain with him, the short indigo-haired girl moving at double Epsilon's speed solely to irk him.
Normally, she'd be right there with them, dragging covers over survey equipment and watching the radar for a paranoid Epsilon for hours afterward. Instead, Max finished her scone and began to sketch across the three sheets of paper, humming along to the shifting songs on her playlist.
At 4:49pm, Max looked down at her papers, sipping the last dregs of latte from her still-warm paper cup.
Her three closest friends looked back at her, profiles sketched and inked into the sketchbook she brought with her. Phi's indigo pixie, perfect eyeliner, and triple-pierced right ear played off of Theta's golden curls, freckles, and doe eyes, contrasting with Epsilon's unruly chestnut bedhead, tortoiseshell frames, and lopsided grin.
She turned her phone back on to a barrage of messages and emails from the OSI, inquiring of her tactical ideas to rescue a few important products and people from a warehouse in Phoenix.
Max spent twenty years of her life searching for some sort of solitude or sanctuary all around the United States.
Her greatest discovery was that sanctuary comes in bits and pieces-- a shared laugh with friends, a roof over her head, or a mostly-deserted coffee shop in the middle of a March rainstorm-- in places least expected.