Rising Shards

I had heard about a good ice breaker that I wanted to try, and if I went first that made it feel less like I was forcing a bunch of my friends and a date to do workplace office breakers while we were partying.

It was to tell one story about your life that you felt summed you up.

"Mine starts with high school. I'd get to class exhausted from my morning routine, and meet up for Stella for breakfast," I said.

I wore the uniform like it was an incredibly expensive rental car; I couldn't have a single fray on it. Stella didn't have the familial pressure to be perfect, but she had her own familial pressures. We both would sigh when we saw each other, silently asking, "What else are we going to go through?"

"I'd ask Stella how things were going with Zeta, and she'd give me the latest on the new baby, she'd ask off for class a lot to watch her when she was really little," I said.

"OK, if I may interrupt," Stella said, clinking two empty shot glasses together to pull my focus out of my story.

"Huh?" I said, snapped out of my flashback-like daze.

"You don't have to bring me up so much, you're telling your story here, Pips," Stella said.

"I know!" I said. "Just…you're important to me, so if I'm telling one story from my life that sums it up, you gotta be there."

"Aww…" Stella's eyes welled up about as fast as they would have if I told her that when we were sober, and we needed to pause for her to hug me and loudly announce to everyone in the hotel bar that she was my best friend.

Back to the story. I had a catalog that had all these clunky tech things like laptops that could only play two games or a two way camera that was basically a baby monitor but it was promoted as a way to talk to friends. Stella wanted it to keep an eye on Zeta, and had been saving up for it's steep $39.99 price tag. I remember her circling it when she got the magazine, because right as she did I felt a hand on my shoulder.

My mother made me stand up, looking my uniform over for anything off. Her visits weren't too surprising as she was on the Staverius school board, but they were infrequent. I was her spitting image, a possum Kanibari, but I hoped I never earned her scowl.

After straightening my uniform's tie, she nodded slightly, saying what she always said. "That's that."

My mother had always been obsessed with keeping everything orderly. Anything slightly messy, slightly amiss, it was a puzzle for her to fix. That attitude led to situations like the one that day, where I watched her walk away, having a feeling that would be the last time I saw her for a while. It was about four years, when I was well into college that she reappeared.

Like Stella's parents, my mother is part of the "avoidant" generation, obsessed wtih trips to the void to the point that a ton of them just noped away to the void. My mother saw the place as an infinite mess, more puzzles to solve with pristine cleanliness and the like. So she'd vanish.

I'd get to leave my shell a bit more each time she left, and my focus mainly went to technology. I even decided in that long stretch that I'd major in it, and that helped me end up with an IT job at Rising Shards.

The others were quiet as I finished the story.

"Sorry if that was too sad," I said. "Didn't want to bum anyone out."

"Pips, that was just like," Stella blinked. "Like, about your mom."

"Yeah? She kind of led me to like, who I am," I said. "Even if she sucks, If I had to tell a story that explained it?"

"But. That leaves a bunch of you stuff out!" Stella said.

"I don't get this explain game at all, sorry, but my brain is pretty fried already," Evy said.

"Yeah, I'm trying to think of one I'd tell," Mahina said.

The others didn't seem to really get it…but they didn't need to. Next to me, Alix sniffed.

"Yeah, my…." Her overtly warbly voice gave away how she was barely able to hold in her emotions. "My family…"

I rubbed her back. "Yeah, I get it. You're among good company with that."

Alix surprised me with a hug, and we had our next round of drinks quietly before anyone spoke up.

"Kay, I think I got a good story that sums me up," Mahina said.

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