The Third Floor | The Bear Awakens? (51.08)

[mragland]

8.11.2051 – Sherman Oaks

Marwa was lost in thought. Homesick, maybe? The party was nice, she supposed. Mostly coworkers. She would find something to drink, or a least something in a glass she could hold in order to do something with her hands. She didn't drink, as a rule. She would slowly walk from one corner of the house to another, pause for ten minutes or so, then walk outside to the patio and the pool. There was always a pool at these houses, it seemed. She had not seen anybody swim in one since she'd first moved to California.

She did this for the better part of an hour. Catching bits of conversation as she moved around. Baseball talk, mostly. She would smile at the other guests as they acknowledged her, but she didn't have much to say. Still afraid, a little, of saying something foolish.

"Pretty much the only reason to go to one of the Martians' games."

"The equipment manager says they're all in storage somewhere off site. I've only seen the same drawings everybody else has. I assume they'll be introduced next year, but who knows?"

"So, in Mexico it's a sandwich, but in Spain it's a cake. That was the source of the confusion, I think."

"Because he's Russian, at least by birth, and because he was a top 5 draft pick with top five draft pick expectations, and because he has taken so long to round into form, the people in player development have taken to calling him The Sleeping Bear."

"Why do we still call it the film industry, anyway? When's the last time a movie was shot on film?”

"I haven't been up there, but I hear it's nice. I have a cousin who lives not too far away, over in San Jose, maybe I'll go up for a visit and we can take in a game together, you know, when we draft somebody worth seeing."

"It's enough to make me want to take the train into work, almost."

"This time last year he was sitting in single-a with an OPS+ of 91. Now he's putting up an OPS+ of 142 in AAA. So, yeah, I think that proverbial light bulb might have switched on."

"I have three. Two boys and one undecided."

"But the elbow. I mean, at some point we have to ask some serious ethical questions about bringing him back a third time, don't we?"

"It's a reference to an old movie from the nineteen-seventies. Personally, I think they'd have been better off sticking it out in Havana."

"Here we are in 2051 and defensive metrics are still pretty much garbage. We'll get a cure for the common cold before we get good defensive stats."

"Upper management must be thrilled. Hard to live with throwing away a pick that high."

"Why not a team in Houston? The market is enormous!"

"No, I take the 405 all the way in. I know, I know, but at that time of day it isn't too bad."

"Looks fairly polished defensively, but it would be nice if he threw a few more runners out."

"Shouldn't be a problem, air quality permitting, as they say."

"Personally, I'd love a birthday sandwich."

"I'll tell you what it looks like. It looks like the doctors don't know what the hell they're doing is what it looks like."

"At this point, I'd say fifty-fifty. Have you looked at that September schedule, though? Tasty."

"Not really. He grew up in the states and went to school in one of those corporate-sponsored baseball factories."

It wasn't that she had nothing to say, but that she didn't really have anyone to say it to. There were thousands of Lebanese, or people of Lebanese descent, living in the area, sure, but they were still strangers. She needed to figure something out, you can't just live inside yourself for weeks, months at a time, and not go crazy. Maybe she had underestimated the challenges of living as an expatriate. The people she worked with were generally kind and courteous, but Marwa did not feel settled.

She set her drink down in the kitchen, thanked the hosts, and went back to her apartment.