Other People's Shite: Patsy's Stolen and Repurposed Designs

Best friends - Ruby Kurtones III and Patricia ‘Patsy’ Murdock - were out on a shared off day. Enjoying their weekly stroll and catching up through the collective faction’s neighborhood park. It was the most pleasant day: ungodly humid with a suffocating fog. However, the air was the right amount of stale and putrid where they could wander at their leisure without dragging along their discount oxygen helmets or rashing up their faces with vent masks. Instead, dressed in their most cordial hazard gear - matching vibrant oranges and yellow reflective stripes - with their identification patches flashing, an infinite scrolling loop of their names and faction numbers.

Patricia - otherwise known as Patsy, Sty, or Pat – had taken up a tiny whisper tune, shifting between tones like a faulty radio until hitting a series of notes, she found a rhythm in. Beginning to bob, adding a little limp to her step. Patsy was grooving inwardly to this snippet of a compilation. When Ruby, a most fidgety sort of woman, started up once again – after a customary thirty-second pause. Ruby went straight for her most recent inquires and preferred sparking of conversation - with the mild natured and comfortably quiet Patsy. In turn, Patsy took a constant tone of amusing appeasement and level-headedness to Ruby’s high octane drifting manner.

Ruby began on her tirade about finding hobbies for them to do together and how Patsy was practically a hermit with nothing but work on the mind. When Patsy set Ruby straight and replied matter-of-factly about her most favored creative outlet – waiting for a perfect time to include Ruby in on her secret hobby.

“You are absurd! That’s insane.” Ruby gasped.

“Eh, don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” Patsy smirked blandly.

“I don’t see the point…or the legality.” Returned Ruby.

“Gah, lighten up.” Patsy quipped, “Everyone has their hobby.”

“Robbery is not a hobby. It is a crime.”

“But Mother Margett’s Hand Tossed Salad Tosser Service is not? I forget ya former position.” chuckled Patsy.

“That woman is an artist. I have never had a more portioned salad. And I do not appreciate the reminder, Patricia.” Ruby replied, deadly serious.

“My most sincere apologies, my dearest friend and hopeful partner in hobby…oh, I mean crime.” Patsy swerved to miss Ruby’s lazy swat before coming to pace with her again. These maskless and helmetless days were the most enjoyable; because they could speak unmuffled together – both Patsy and Ruby finding themselves harder of hearing and worse for the wear.

Patsy continued, uncharacteristically, picking up the trailing conversation of what is art, “…What I do is art too. Just come with me once. I tell ya, it's right fun.”

“There is nothing right about it. What on faction are ya takin’ anyway? Ya never have nothin’ when I ask to borrow.” Ruby scoffed, which ignited a coughing fit, causing her to stop on the track, reaching out for Patsy's shoulder for support.

Patsy paused beside her as Ruby got sorted, clutching into her hazard suit with a crunch, “It's small stuff. Ya, know…things that inspire me. You liked the vase, didn’t ya?”

“What? You stole that?!” Ruby shouted, just as she caught her breath, giving Patsy a proper smack across the shoulder, “Ya said ya made it yourself, ya bastard.”

“Eh, I did; from the stolen stuff. I took everything to the ol’ factory in the outers on off days, and set em to the furnace, then create from the molt left over.” Patsy replied with a proud smile.

Ruby mulled it over. As an opportune gust at that moment, interrupted their walk once more, as Ruby and Patsy embraced each other for protection - hunkering down while it passed. Widely known as the morning garbage tumble: a vacuum action blast from the far north Executes faction factory - that sent a backwind across the entire southbound collectives. The daily discharges even caught up the horde flies: traveling so securely appearing like floating exercise balls on ordinary occasions. They held form even tighter – just as Ruby and Patsy were locked together - in these backdrafts and were as dangerous as the flying trash. It was more than a common occurrence for someone to be knocked off their feet - or unconscious - by these hurdling balls of flies.

They heard a curse carried on the winds as the morning garbage tumble finally passed. A series of shouts were not far off from the tracks, “Oi, Korna got knocked again!” “Well then, get her up and right again, Sharol!”

Ruby looked to Patsy’s sly smile with her own as they brushed each other's shoulders off and started on once again; as Ruby asked, “So, what thievery went into my tainted vase?”

“Ooh, yours was a specialty…for a special lady,” Patsy said, rubbing her vacuum gloved sealed hands with a ridged sandpapery scrape; that came off a bit menacing for Patsy’s placid eternal state.

Ruby threw away the compliment with a “Pff!” Although, Ruby was quietly amused by the energy displayed by Patsy as she spoke on her hobby. The vase was indeed a treasured masterpiece to Ruby; it pleased her to know it wasn’t just another person’s autogenerated shite that’s sold faction wide, in short supply. Even though the high price tag would’ve had its own sentiment: harking back to Ruby’s - former and lingering - expensive tastes, since her position drop to the lower factions.

Patsy continued on with the list of creative ingredients that went into Ruby’s vase. With a light in her eyes, “It was a lively mixture of the family portraits of this quaint little family out near the farm factions, including their toothbrushes and the gnomes and security cameras of this lovely suburb faction for Executes - I stumbled upon. Quite nice really, I also included the strappy belt that looks god awful on ya-“

“Oi! Not my favorite Lil’ number?! I went crazy looking for that! Miguel hand wove that for me; the man only had thumbs and one blind eye!” Ruby accentuates this by waving her gloved thumbs up and closing her eyes in Patsy’s grinning face.

“Well, there had to be something personal in the vase. It was a special project.” Patsy soothed.

“Ugh…well, I do love it, it catches the siren lights just wonderfully at curfew.” Ruby opened her eyes to look off into her memories of the crystalized twirling of lights that play across her assigned seven by seven square room.

“There were also some nice stool legs from a shantyman shed and the curtain cords of a three-star hospital motel.”

“What do ya plan to name your buy page, Other People’s Shite – Faction Four Patsy’s Stolen…Repurposed Designs?”

“Actually, that sounds nice on the tongue.”

“Absurd.”

They took another lap around the yard, just before another gang of women stalked behind them with fierce eyes (Korna and Sharol lagging behind, as they both tended to the limping Korna’s head.). 

Patsy and Ruby were running past their allotted time, and the whole faction was out - maskless and helmetless - attempting to relish the day. The timely fog horn and siren blasts rang out through the grounds as the afternoon security lights brightened a shade. Oblivious and careless to the timetables lax enforcement on off days: Ruby and Patsy went on at their limp shudder stride.

“I cannot believe you’ve chosen robbery as a hobby.”

“Didn’t you say the hobby chooses you?”

“I don’t like my words against me, Sty.”

“Oh come on, Rube, ya comin’ with, right? I promise you it's great. You’ll get addicted. You always talk about us taking up something together.”

“Yeah, I meant a regular hobby, like basket weaving or learnin’ to tunnel scuba on off days.”

“Or learn to toss other folks salads?” Patsy snorted.

Ruby clucked, “Ya make it sound dirty.”

Patsy cut off Ruby, stopping and grasping her shoulder to shake it with seriousness, as she looked plainly into Ruby’s eyes, “I’m sorry, I don’ wanna toss your salad, Ruby.”

“Oh, come off it.” Ruby huffs, slapping away Patsy’s hand and stepping on, ”Only person tossin’ my greens: is Margett.”

“What about the lass that used to de-clog ya pipes?” Patsy chuckled, skip-limping back to Ruby’s side.

“Ha. So when are we doin’ this? Do I have to purchase my own gloves and mask? I like a hobby with a low initial investment. Preferably with supplies provided by the center before I jump in.” proclaimed Ruby.

“I’ll be providing the necessary supplies, don’t worry,” Patsy relayed professionally.

“…Fine,” Ruby relents with intrigue, “When are we doing it?”

“Excellent! Meet on 3^rd behind that garbage in the alley where that guy showed you his willy, and we’ll get a bit silly,” Patsy said, with her mild enthusiasm.

Ruby could only shake her head with clipped laughter.

Shortly after making their plans to meet by the outer garbage, Ruby and Patsy were rushed off the faction track following the first curfew. As the second gang’s tussle with a third gang of women - with no humor or patience for tardiness and sharing – turned violent. The fight over the yard timeslot left an opening for Ruby and Patsy to slip away. As Korna got knocked again and Sharol got tackled when the second gang leader pointed a useless finger at the disappeared ‘Let’s Go Another’ duo.