All art is quite useless (open!)

[sabrina27ize]

Sam walked into the library, and looked around in admiration. She had never really gotten over how huge it was. The thing she liked most about the Mayview Academy library was the fact that she could read without her mother disturbing her. When she was younger, whenever she read at home, Mrs Crawley would sigh exasperatedly, shaking her long blonde hair out of her face, blinking her pretty blue eyes.

"Really", she would say. "Anyone would think you're not my daughter. First the tomboy clothes, then those books...look at you, just reading all the time. Why don't you come shopping with me? Get you some decent clothes, maybe a dress..." Sam would either make a scathing remark or flatly refuse.

That was the old days, though. Now she barely talked to her. It was like she had given up on everything altogether, including her daughter. Sam shook her head, trying to shake the thoughts from her mind too. She walked over to the shelves, searching for a good book to read.

Finally, she came across "The Picture Of Dorian Grey", by Oscar Wilde. She had read it about a thousand times, and seemed to never get tired of it. Taking it out of the shelf, she walked over to the nearest chair and sat down, opening the book and skimming over the first words of the preface.

"The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

Pure genius, from the very first sentence of the preface to the last word in the book. Sam longed to be able to write a classic like that, someday.

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[TEAGAN NEALA TEUISKI]

Books didn’t judge you. They weren’t there to ridicule or tear you down. Teagan had grown up seeming like she had one of those hard external shells living in an orphanage in Ireland until she was ten years old. Kids came and went some of them having that idea that if they showed the rest of the kids who was boss they wouldn’t get walked on themselves. Needless to say Teagan had kept to herself a lot of the time and most importantly kept out of the way doing her best to be as invisible as possible to the others. It was a benefit and a hindrance. People wanted those children that they could be proud of, someone that would stand out in the crowd. That was a perk of adopting, wasn’t it? Being able to pick the qualities that you wanted in a child? The only thing that Teagan really ever had going for her was she was moderately smart.

As much as she loved the leisure of the library it hadn’t been her purpose there. Her physics class was particularly demanding that week and while she could have been searching the internet for all the information that she needed, she was nostalgic preferring to still retain knowledge the old fashion way, from books. They were becoming obsolete and Teagan wanted to appreciate them the way that they should have been. She understood that it was better for the environment in some ways in minimizing trees for paper but at the same time there was something incredible about being able to hold something in your hands, smells the leather binding and feel the texture of the pages against your fingertips that she would trade in for some high tech gadget.

Moving through the stacks Teagan looked for a table to sit at with the intention of having a quiet place to do her work. Instead she spotted Sam. Sometimes the other girl could be a lot to handle but over all they seemed to like each other and get along. Though Teagan might have been primarily a solitary creature, having little need to be in a crowd or have any attention on her, even she had a tendency to want company from time to time. ”Hey.” Teagan uttered the single word readjusting her stack of books in her arms and shrugging her shoulder to hitch her bag up a notch. ”Mind if I join you?” Gazing at the book that Sam was reading she didn’t want to really interrupt but it seemed a good idea to work in silent company than deafening loneliness.

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She read on and on, absorbed in her book. How was it that some books managed to completely draw you in, even if you’ve read them millions of times already? After a while, the real world seemed to stop existing; it was only when she heard a voice speaking to her that she was drawn back into it again.
Sam looked up as she heard the familiar female voice to come face to face with Teagan, a fellow junior who she had talked to a number of times throughout the year. She was an Irish girl, quite shy; Sam sometimes got the impression Teagan got fed up with Sam’s sarcastic remarks and opinionated ideas, so she tried to tone it down a bit whenever she talked to her. After all, she was a nice girl, and they got along well.

“Terribly. How dare you.” she replied jokingly, snapping her book shut and smiling her signature smile, something between a smirk and a sneer. Usually, she would try to refrain from smiling altogether, since she knew that her smile looked rather arrogant and unfriendly to some people; but having known Teagan for some time, she decided the other girl must be used to it by now, and would know it was genuinely just the way she smiled, and that she wasn’t sneering at her.

“Need some help with those?” she asked, nodding towards the stack of books the other girl was holding as she stood up, arms outstretched to receive them. She looked at the physics books and groaned. She had completely forgotten about the insane amount of physics they had to do.

"Oh, god. I forgot about all that. How could I forget? I never forget stuff, I'm perfect, you know that." She said it as a joke but it really was weird for Sam to forget anything, let alone schoolwork. She was usually a very organized person, planning everything weeks if not months in advance. She hadn't been sleeping very well as of late; the nightmares had started all over again.

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[TEAGAN NEALA TEUISKI]

When with Sam you learned a few things about the girl, at least Teagan had and despite their differences they had seemed to come to a sort of level ground to stand on. They accepted on another for the things that others tended to shy away from, like Teagan being so introverted and Sam’s sarcasm. It was a bit of an odd friendship but it worked for them and most of the time Teagan didn’t mind that Sam was so blunt about things. In fact at times it could even be refreshing sort of a vicarious deal that Sam said the things that Teagan wished she had the courage to say herself. She knew that the smirk on Sam’s face didn’t really hold any ill will and that her words weren’t really meant harshly, it was merely her way of joking.

”Sure,” Passing off some of the text that burdened her load Teagan took a seat on the opposite side of the table letting her bag slide off of her shoulder and onto the ground, gently. Teagan had always liked school. It was something constructive to focus on rather than wasting away in boredom or whatever other negative condition that might crop up. Indulging in knowledge kept her mind busy too, which prevented Teagan from thinking on things that she had no control over. The majority of the what ifs tended to be academic theories rather than anything in her own life. Though, lately, she’d been slipping in that area. It was something that she desperately wanted to remedy.

Physics was as good a way to do that as any. That science happened to be mostly about theories, extremes that other sciences wouldn’t touch because they were too psuedo. As much as Teagan wanted to dive into it she wasn’t without her manners and there was something stopping her from it as well, other than that. ”Think of it as a paradox. If perfection is imperfection it allows for progression and as human beings we constantly strive to improve therefore you’re, essentially, still perfect.” Teagan offered reaching into her bag to pull out a notebook to write notes in.

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Sam raised an eyebrow thoughtfully as she considered Teagan's theory, cocking her head to one side.

"True, true. Greatest perfection is imperfection, after all. At least according to Vanini." she replied. She spaced out for a few seconds, lost in thought. The greatest perfection is imperfection. That line resonated in her mind, like a faint echo. Did that make her a perfect daughter, then? Sam snorted slightly. Somebody would have to update her mother on that.

"Then again, I'm pretty sure Vanini wouldn't have forgotten that he had a shitload of physics homework to do" she added, groaned again, stretching and reaching for her schoolbag. She knew she shouldn't be particularly worried; she could do schoolwork really fast whenever she wanted to, thanks to the fact that she was smart, and very rarely found things to be particularly difficult. But she prided herself in being a hard-working, dedicated student; it was the one thing she could be perfect at, the one thing where she didn't feel like such a dissappointment. And if she wasn't perfect at that then she wasn't perfect at all, not even in an imperfect, paradox way. God, she was overthinking stuff again; one simple comment and she somehow managed to relate it to her family problems. She shook her head free of thoughts.

"Well, I guess I'd better do some of this stuff too, then." Sighing, she pulled out her notebook and searched for the ridiculously long questions they had to answer. She found the paper and read them quickly, in mock horror. They weren't particularly hard, just LONG.

"When do we have to do all this for again?" she asked, looking up at Teagan. She had grown to quite like the girl; they had spent some time together in classes, and they had some sort of semblance to a friendship. Sam was always to hidden behind her hard shell of sarcasm to form a true friendship with anyone; she didn't really like talking about herself and rarely opened up to people. However, she felt sort of protective towards Teagan, as she usually did with the shy, soft-spoken kind of person.

[TEAGAN NEALA TEUISKI]

Teagan let out a soft laugh making sure to mind her volume as they were, in fact, in a library. ”I suppose not but then Vanini’s area of expertise was philosophy so that wouldn’t have posed a problem.” Sure, the Italian was known for other things like astronomy and being a polygenist but the good thing about being a free-thinker by name was that you generally didn’t have to worry about those things that were supposed to get you further in life like this physics homework. It was a shame that one couldn’t really make a career out of being a free-thinker anymore. It wasn’t like back in the day with Aristotle and Plato but it would have been pretty cool if you could be held in high regard simply for having strong opinions.

Everything that they needed could be found in the books that Teagan had so it wasn’t a particularly difficult assignment just a tedious one. It would have been quicker to simple type the answers into a search engine and have it automatically generate the answers for you, but that wasn’t the way that Teagan liked to do things. Besides it chewed up time that she would have had to otherwise be bored or waste away in front of the television or something equally as unproductive. It was one of the downfalls of not being all that social. Having to entertain yourself with things could become difficult from time to time. ”It shouldn’t be too hard.” Teagan encouraged.

”By week’s end I believe.” Pulling one of the books toward her searching through the index for the name Heike Onnes. She had always been interested in soaking up as much knowledge as she could. Teagan liked having all those facts and tidbits roaming around in her mind even if there were mostly useless. Sometimes whenever she was getting especially nervous she would go over things that she knew in her mind to help calm her down. Like when she was on the high dive during gym class, it helped distract her fear so she could do what needed to be done. Small blessings, right?

As she glanced back up at Sam a soft smile parted her lips. ”Anything new with you?” Most of the time when they were around one another it was in class lately and Teagan hadn’t had to opportunity to check up with Sam on a more personal level. For the friends that she did have Teagan liked keeping up with the things in their lives so she could be supportive toward them. That sort of thing, she’d always thought, was why people needed others in their lives in the first place. That need to know that there were people out there that thought you mattered.

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Sam let out a small laugh.

"True. Kind of ironic how ancient philosophers are considered to be the greatest achievement of civilization, yet there are so few job opportunities for philosophy students nowadays, and they're so often stereotyped as being lazy. Philosophy's really undervalued" she remarked, playing with the corner of the piece of paper she was holding. Sam had always been interested in philosophy and the ancient freethinkers; then again, most things related to science were interesting to Sam. "How do you see me as a professional freethinker?" she joked, posing thoughtfully. “I think I’d be good. Seeing as I’m so tolerant and all that” she added, poking fun at herself. It was no secret Sam was not tolerant and rather close-minded with people who thought differently than herself on any given subject.

Sighing, she turned back to physics and smiled wryly. “Hmm, no, it’s not hard; it’s more the length that concerns me.” She replied, before letting out a slight snort immediately after. “That’s what she said. Sorry, sorry, immature thirteen year old boy moment” she added, laughing and shaking her head at her own stupidity. “I think I’ve been hanging out to much with my younger cousin” she laughed, thinking about Gabe. God, that kid’s annoying, thought Sam affectionately. To be truthful, he was one of the few members of her family who didn’t ignore her or act insanely awkward around her nowadays.

“Anyway, now I’ve come back to my mature self, do you mind if I borrow this?” she asked, reaching for one of the books that Teagan had put on the table. “I’d better get started if I want to get this done.”

They worked in silence for a while. Sam looked up at Teagan.
Anything new? Where to start. Actually, nothing was new, come to think of it. Everything was basically the same as it had been a year ago, really. And everything had come to equal crap, an Sam still hadn’t become accustomed to crap.
“Oh, nothing much. Just being my usual charming, bright, outgoing self.” She replied smiling her arrogant-looking smile again, speaking in the lazy, breezy, joking tone she used whenever she tried to avoid speaking about personal matters. Joking always seemed to be so much easier. “What about you?”

[TEAGAN NEALA TEUISKI]

Teagan couldn’t help but to snicker into her hand as Sam posed reminisce of The Thinker by Rodin. ”I think you’d make a great philosopher.” There were all different types and though Sam’s personality might not have fit into the class of Socrates that didn’t mean that the profession wasn’t meant for her. ”You could be like Diogenes.” The teachings of Diogenes were pretty close to the type of humor and blunt behavior that Sam had herself. Though back in his day he had been viewed as a dog, his teachings were revered today and much easier for their generation to understand and learn from, at least if cynical sarcasm was your forte.

That sort of humor tended to make Teagan blush. She had never been all that comfortable about the idea of boy’s private parts and though she was pretty innocent she had brothers and they could be immature and gross and all that other stuff so Teagan wasn’t offended by it or anything. She gave a slight smile hoping to display that to Sam. ”It’s okay. Hanging out with your family can be good.” She should know, she hung out with her brother Liam a lot of the time and he wasn’t always the most appropriate of people. All boys had their moments and to be honest there had been an occasion or two where Teagan herself had slipped up and said something that she normally wouldn’t have. Sometimes you just got in the moment and your mouth opened to speak before you knew what hit you.

”Not at all.” There was no sense why they couldn’t share. It wasn’t like Teagan was using all of them at the same time. It was then that a thought occurred to her, which probably should have happened when Sam first mentioned that she needed to do the work too. ”Why don’t we split the work? It wasn’t really cheating because Teagan and Sam would still have to read the information and copy it onto their own papers, it was just cutting the work in half, which was fair considering the way they were doing it- at least that was what Teagan told herself.

The major thing new with Teagan was her crush on Mr. Pivet. But telling anyone that, even someone that she trusted like Sam would mean that she had to admit it to herself. It was one thing to have it on your mind but once you said it out loud you were in a whole other territory and Teagan wasn’t sure if she could go there. Arthur seemed to like her well enough but Teagan knew that she wasn’t something special and if there were ever to be some student/teacher affair wouldn’t it be with some gorgeous senior girl that was irresistible rather than little nobody her? ”About the same. I’ve been trying to get faster for track, we’ve got a meet coming up soon.”

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Sam grinned. "Diogenes was such a jerk. He's my freaking idol" she laughed, remembering reading about him as a young child. She had been highly amused by his cynical nature and she had had a long snorting fit after reading that Diogenes envied dogs and wanted to live like them, so he would urinate and defecate in public places, one of them being the theatre.

Sam smiled sheepishly as she noticed Teagan seemed rather uncomfortable after her joke. Then it was Sam's turn to feel uncomfortable at the other girl's comment. She had been avoiding most of her family at all costs lately. Her mother's continous deppressive behaviour depressed her and her father's continous uncomfortable silence made her uncomfortable. "Oh, I suppose it can be benefitting" she replied lightly. "You learn lots of innappropiate jokes, for one thing, as you've already noticed" she added jokingly.

Sam's face broke into a smirk at the other girl's suggestion, before changing into one of mock horror. "Am I hearing correctly? Teagan Neala Teuiski is suggesting something that involves cheating?" she exclaimed teasingly, before winking and turning her face of mock inignation back into her smile/smir/sneer. "Just kidding, sounds great to me. I can do the last half, and you do the first" she replied, relieved at having to only actually think hard about half of the work.

"That's good. I should probably do more physical activities. I'm in the worst shape ever. A friend made me do squats the day before yesterday and my legs still hurt. I'm not even kidding" she replied. It was true; Sam never did much exersice unless she was forced to. She remained skinny thanks to her ridiculously healthy eating and her fast metabolism, but she would get tired after a few minutes of working out.

[TEAGAN NEALA TEUISKI]

It didn’t surprise her that Sam would be into someone like Diogenes. Though the man’s behavior wasn’t anything that Teagan would have done herself she had, admittedly, found herself chuckling on a few occasions over her readings. Simplicity was something that she valued and Diogenes seemed to bring that to the table in a fresh light that went beyond cryptic enlightenment and into the raw nature of life. She might not have been willing to stand too close to the man if she’d lived back in those times, personal hygiene hadn’t been the best back then as it was but with someone like Diogenes she imagined that it would be ten times worse than that on most occasions.

Giving her a slight nod she could agree with that. When it came to family one tended to learn all sorts of things. Sam and her one cousin seemed to suit each other’s personalities though as far as she could tell. Teagan hadn’t ever seen Sam interact with the boy but she thought it might be similar to the way she and Liam were. Not like a mirrored image of course because the pairs were so contrast to one another, but in the general sense that there was a strong bond between them and understanding, that they could rely on one another. It was a good thing to have. She hoped that was the case with Sam as well, especially with the vibe that tended to subtly come off Sam when family was a subject of topic.

Her cheeks flushed a violent red as Sam called her out on the conditions. Teagan hadn’t thought that it would be cheating and even with her sticking to that belief as Sam teased she was still overcome with the embarrassment of it. She had never cheated in her life and that goodie-two-shoes reputation was actually something that she wanted to keep in tact. Other girls might not have seemed too concerned with it and by the actions she’d observed even could be said they strayed as far away from it as possible, but Teagan liked that security of being the shy, nice girl. Brightening up a little, smiling softly, Teagan was relieved when Sam agreed. ”Okay.”

Reading over the first question as Sam spoke and referring to the textbook that she had in front of her, Teagan made sure to glance up and give Sam the attention that a conversation deserved. It was only for a moment but she still wanted to give her the courtesy of letting her know that she was listening. ”You could start running with me.” Teagan offered. ”I usually get up around five in the morning and get a run in before school starts.” That way she could be sure to shower and get ready for the day ahead of her. That wasn’t for everyone though- not many were early risers she’d noticed.