Fan Fiction ❯ Robin ❯ Life ( Chapter 1 )

I'm thinking of using this character in a series of short stories, maybe a novel. She's mine. What do you think of her?

She had never gone to college but that hadn't had nearly the effect on her life that people had said it would. She had a perfectly good, if somewhat boring, job working as an accountant in a large business firm, and as far as Robin could tell college probably wouldn't have helped her much. The owners of the company were surprisingly liberal and she got away with far more then she should have been allowed to.

People tended to invite her to parties and then forget that they had when she arrived. Not that she minded, as she had trouble talking to the kind of people who would invite her anywhere. She preferred to mingle with the other guests and tell them lies about herself, knowing that she would never see them again. She always lied about her job, first. She was a little afraid that if she told them what she really did for a living, they would just say "Oh" and walk away. Occasionally she would say she worked for the FBI or that she was a spy but she got the feeling that nobody believed her. Later, when someone tried to recall exactly what it was that she had said, they would be unable to remember much of anything except that it had seemed interesting at the time. She speaks precisely and her sentences are like crystals.

Robin's younger brother, Samuel, had gone to college. He was six years her junior and wanted to be an architect. Right now he was working as an intern in a company for a man with less then half his own talent and he often called his big sister for advice. She often wished she could tell him that she didn't have any, but she loved him very much and because he needed it she would make things up. She almost felt guilty that he trusted her so thoroughly. She knew he would be fine, but that wasn't what he needed to hear.

Robin's hair is dry and straight, and long and she often wore it loose. Somebody once told her that her eyes were too wide and now whenever she pictures herself in her mind's eye she has an expression on her face like a frightened deer. She wears a lot of browns and yellows, because she thinks they look good on her and she never wears jeans. She is of average height, and this is something she has always been grateful for because it means that she can always find clothes that fit.

Her parents had met each other late in life and had had their two children while in their forties. When she was seven she had walked into their living room after coming home from school and had found her father lying on the floor. He looked very relaxed but he didn't say hi when she came in. Her mother was on the phone in the kitchen and every time she breathed in it sounded like she was choking. She had always been told it was rude to interrupt when someone was talking so she sat on the floor next to her father and waited for him to wake up.

Now that she was grown and knew what a heart attack was, her nightmares, when she had them, always consisted of sitting alone with her father in the dark. They would sit across from each other and even though he had his eyes open he wouldn't speak to her. Of course, she did have better dreams. She especially liked the ones where she was lost in a crowd somewhere. The people in these dreams ignored her and she had all the time she wanted to observe them and watch how they interacted with each other. She loved to watch people in conversation.

When she had free time she liked to go walking. She would walk until she found a nice crowded office building or factory and she would go inside and act like she belonged there. She would talk with people and sometimes help them with their work. Nobody ever questioned her right to be there. All they could remember later was that she had been very pleasant if somewhat distant, and that when she talked she seemed to bite off the ends of her words.

She didn't often talk to her mother. Her mother had had a busy time raising her two small children and had, after a few years, begun to resent the amount of time they needed her. Now that both were grown she was taking time off to be alone and neither Sam nor Robin minded much. They had each to talk to, after all, and their mother had always seemed distant to them anyhow.

Robin was sure that she wanted to do something else with her life. The only problem was that she could never think of anything.