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Description
[Conformist Coffee]

The park bench is strangely soft to the touch, wood impregnated by snow melting under the rare warmth from the October sun. Cherry knows her new coat will be dirty, knows her mother will get that disapproving look but still sits, carefully placing two paper cups between herself and Henrietta.
The larger girl glances away from her sketch pad, hand pausing. "Harbucks? You've seriously bought us that conformist crap?"
"Oh, but I thought... you do not usually buy your coffee there, do you?"
"Your point?"
"Then, having their coffee today would mean that you do not conform to your own habits. Besides, I asked Mr. Tweak to make this cup especially for you. 'Tis just as black as you prefer it."
There's a reluctant, agreeing nod from the dark-haired girl as she looks down again, keeps drawing with a furrowed brow and Cherry takes a deep breath, making sure she exhales quietly – there's no need for her companion to interpret a sigh, once again accusing her of not really wanting to be there.
They sit in silence, facing Stark's Pond where the thick ice is thinly glazed with water. Henrietta barely acknowledges their surroundings; the midday sun making the snow glitter, the cloudless sky, the boys' hockey team practicing by the opposite shore, the towering mountains making up the horizon. She is focused, her world consisting for several minutes of nothing but the smooth paper resting in her lap. The coal pencil is drawing up curved lines and sharp angles, her fingers smudge and shade where it is needed until the redhead speaks again.
"Say, dear, do you have any plans for tomorrow?"
"Why?"
"I was just thinking – well, tomorrow is Halloween. Are you and your friends not doing anything?"
"Halloween is a conformist holiday. It's just like Valentines, made up for people to spend money on something pointless just to keep the machinery going."
"I suppose you are correct – but then, will you not even be going to the cemetary to read poetry? I imagine there will be quite the atmosphere."
Henrietta rolls her eyes. "There'll be people all the time, making it all something... fun. Like you can just take death and blood and misery and make a stupid game out of it. Stupid conformists. And mom'll just try to make me carve stupid pumpkins with her to pretend like we're a real family."
Cherry closes her eyes, warding off the thoughts of slimy pumpkin seeds running between her fingers with a shudder.
"But I guess you'll dress up with your conformist friends and put lanterns all over your lawn. Sounds like something you'd do."
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no'? Isn't that what you do? Tag along with Lucy and Lucky and that gang when they go trick-or-treating, and then giving away the candy you get to Cartman when he whines he didn't get enough. And then you'd go and buy something sugar-free to Kyle Broflovski."
"No. We do not celebrate Halloween quite that way in my family – well, we do have some sweets at home, certainly, and I have made sure we have something for eventual diabetics. Cleaning up the garden if people are not satisfied is... such an awful bother."
"And that's it?"
"Oh, Da has bought a couple of pumpkins, certainly – the Jack O'Lantern is an Irish tradition, after all. Of course, so is the trick-or-treating, but I never could come to terms with asking strangers for anything. Especially not candy I have no intention of eating."
"Those are still the two most conformist things about the whole conformist Halloween deal."
The redhead smiles, pushing a few stray strands of hair away from her face. "Perhaps so, though I would rather view them as traditions. You have traditions too, do you not?"
"Sure. When I run out of smokes..." She picks a pack out of her pocket, taking the last cigarette out before standing up and tossing the empty carton in a nearby bin, "I get new ones. That's my tradition."
Cherry looks up, tracing the scars from zits on Henrietta's face like star constellations with her gaze before handing over the nearly forgotten (and almost cold) cup of coffee. She finds the other girl unexplainably beautiful with her strange harshness and ability to write soliloquies that resembles nothing else she's ever come across.
"You have the worst way of asking people things, by the way. But I'll come."
"Oh, I did not-" She stops herself, smiles again. "I would like that. Very much."
"Around six."
"I will wait for you."
"I know."
There are no goodbyes; Henrietta merely turns around and walks away, one stubby-fingered hand holding her cold, conformist coffee.

Description
[Conformist Coffee]

The park bench is strangely soft to the touch, wood impregnated by snow melting under the rare warmth from the October sun. Cherry knows her new coat will be dirty, knows her mother will get that disapproving look but still sits, carefully placing two paper cups between herself and Henrietta.
The larger girl glances away from her sketch pad, hand pausing. "Harbucks? You've seriously bought us that conformist crap?"
"Oh, but I thought... you do not usually buy your coffee there, do you?"
"Your point?"
"Then, having their coffee today would mean that you do not conform to your own habits. Besides, I asked Mr. Tweak to make this cup especially for you. 'Tis just as black as you prefer it."
There's a reluctant, agreeing nod from the dark-haired girl as she looks down again, keeps drawing with a furrowed brow and Cherry takes a deep breath, making sure she exhales quietly – there's no need for her companion to interpret a sigh, once again accusing her of not really wanting to be there.
They sit in silence, facing Stark's Pond where the thick ice is thinly glazed with water. Henrietta barely acknowledges their surroundings; the midday sun making the snow glitter, the cloudless sky, the boys' hockey team practicing by the opposite shore, the towering mountains making up the horizon. She is focused, her world consisting for several minutes of nothing but the smooth paper resting in her lap. The coal pencil is drawing up curved lines and sharp angles, her fingers smudge and shade where it is needed until the redhead speaks again.
"Say, dear, do you have any plans for tomorrow?"
"Why?"
"I was just thinking – well, tomorrow is Halloween. Are you and your friends not doing anything?"
"Halloween is a conformist holiday. It's just like Valentines, made up for people to spend money on something pointless just to keep the machinery going."
"I suppose you are correct – but then, will you not even be going to the cemetary to read poetry? I imagine there will be quite the atmosphere."
Henrietta rolls her eyes. "There'll be people all the time, making it all something... fun. Like you can just take death and blood and misery and make a stupid game out of it. Stupid conformists. And mom'll just try to make me carve stupid pumpkins with her to pretend like we're a real family."
Cherry closes her eyes, warding off the thoughts of slimy pumpkin seeds running between her fingers with a shudder.
"But I guess you'll dress up with your conformist friends and put lanterns all over your lawn. Sounds like something you'd do."
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no'? Isn't that what you do? Tag along with Lucy and Lucky and that gang when they go trick-or-treating, and then giving away the candy you get to Cartman when he whines he didn't get enough. And then you'd go and buy something sugar-free to Kyle Broflovski."
"No. We do not celebrate Halloween quite that way in my family – well, we do have some sweets at home, certainly, and I have made sure we have something for eventual diabetics. Cleaning up the garden if people are not satisfied is... such an awful bother."
"And that's it?"
"Oh, Da has bought a couple of pumpkins, certainly – the Jack O'Lantern is an Irish tradition, after all. Of course, so is the trick-or-treating, but I never could come to terms with asking strangers for anything. Especially not candy I have no intention of eating."
"Those are still the two most conformist things about the whole conformist Halloween deal."
The redhead smiles, pushing a few stray strands of hair away from her face. "Perhaps so, though I would rather view them as traditions. You have traditions too, do you not?"
"Sure. When I run out of smokes..." She picks a pack out of her pocket, taking the last cigarette out before standing up and tossing the empty carton in a nearby bin, "I get new ones. That's my tradition."
Cherry looks up, tracing the scars from zits on Henrietta's face like star constellations with her gaze before handing over the nearly forgotten (and almost cold) cup of coffee. She finds the other girl unexplainably beautiful with her strange harshness and ability to write soliloquies that resembles nothing else she's ever come across.
"You have the worst way of asking people things, by the way. But I'll come."
"Oh, I did not-" She stops herself, smiles again. "I would like that. Very much."
"Around six."
"I will wait for you."
"I know."
There are no goodbyes; Henrietta merely turns around and walks away, one stubby-fingered hand holding her cold, conformist coffee.