End World: Volume One

Chapter 4 - It Takes a Village to Raise a Child Part 2

The next day, Sefara continued to help with the Festival as normal. She tried not to let her thoughts wander into the events of yesterday and being Jodi's assistant allowed her to do just that.

Over the few days that she'd been helping Jodi, Sefara learned a lot about the arts as she did small jobs like fetching tools or materials that Jodi needed or relaying messages to people. However, there was a lot that she didn't understand, more about Jodi herself than of the arts.

Although she was a player first and foremost, Jodi had been placed in charge of designing the theatre space and seemed to have a plethora of knowledge on how to do so.

To most people, the area where Jodi worked may have seemed chaotic as all sorts of exciting objects lay about on several broad wooden tables. Artists would hurry to and fro collecting what they needed and returning them to new places — it was a wonder how Jodi managed to account for everything at the end of the day. In truth, she didn't, that arduous task had been placed on the shoulders of a very stressed-out coordinator named Nomsa. Whenever Sefara ran an errand for Jodi, she would sometimes encounter Nomsa hard at work, with a clipboard in hand, looking as though she would snap at any moment.

On her little journeys, she also met many other artists who busied themselves with disparate ideas. She wondered how all these different ideas could possibly fit together into one whole.

At a point, Sefara kept track of a short, muscular man with a bald head. At first, the man picked up a hammer from one of the tables and then walked off disappearing into the motions of busybodies. Minutes later, he returned with his sleeves rolled up and the beginnings of a balloon model in hand. He then picked up a packet of balloons from the tables and disappeared again. It seemed bizarre but that was what Sefara liked about artists. To most, this was a surprising if not chaotic environment, but to them these contradictions were natural.

They made a habit of putting things together that otherwise didn't belong.

Returning from one of her errands, Sefara smiled to herself as she gave a measuring tape to Jodi who stood on a ladder. "Sefara, I could just eat you. Mwah!" Jodi said as she took the tape. Sefara smiled politely, only vaguely understanding what she meant.

Jodi then measured the length of a large wooden beam. Sefara imagined it would serve as some sort of pillar perhaps for the stage or even below it.

"I thought as much," Jodi declared. "I told them that for this year's setup the standard measurements wouldn't work," she continued.

She looked at Sefara, annoyance in her expression. Sefara didn't quite know what to do or if she should say something. However, the moment passed over quickly and Jodi used the pencil she kept behind her ear to mark off where the beam would need to be cut. Sefara admired her focus.

"Did I frighten you?" Jodi asked, her concentration still on the beam.

When she had finished she looked at Sefara, a smirk on her lips. 

"You've been helping me for a couple of days now, Sefara. I thought you had acclimated," Jodi confessed.

Sefara didn't know what she meant.  At first, Jodi seemed to take everything in a stride, she was so carefree that it seemed as though nothing was important to her. However, after getting to know her more, Sefara learned not to mistake carefree with carelessness. If something was important to her, Jodi would give it her full attention. Right now, Sefara had her attention.

"Sisi'Jodi, you really know a lot about building things and you're an artist..." Sefara began.

"And a voracious bachelorette," Jodi happily added. Sefara only partly understood the words Jodi used. For a moment the words to her own question left her.