"...some days I think....I'm fallin' in love....some days I think...I'm drowning..." Ozzy hummed to himself.
His baratone heightened by the tile-acoustics of the locker room, he sat on the middle bench methodically wrapping his knuckles with thin, white tape.
"What's the point?" Adem asked, leaning against his own locker a few feet away.
Baxter continued to hum, looking up at the observing alien.
"I don't know....habit...nostalgia...comfort..." Ozzy shrugged. "...call it what you want..."
"Hm." Adem contemplated. "I wonder what Doctor Huerta would call it...."
"Ha, ha." Baxter droned. "Listen, it makes me feel good, okay? It's centering....familiar..."
"And, yet, pointless." Adem replied. "The first time your fist strikes a surface beyond the natural stress-parameters of what your wrappings were created to withstand, the tape will simply peel away."
"Well, hell, Adem....so will my clothes..." Ozzy frowned. "...what's your damn point?"
"That I find this ritual of yours....amusing." he said with a small smile. "All of you humans cling to a comforting repetition in almost every facet of your culture. Some do it for emotional reasons, others do it for quasi-religious purposes. And still others, like yourself, do things out of....habit...for no reason they can readily explain."
Ozzy paused, looking up at Adem again.
"Are you saying that humans are.....boring?" he asked with a slight grin.
"Predictable, would be a better word." the alien added. "Hopelessly infected with a bizarre cultural romanticism, would be another."
Ozzy thought about this for a moment.
"And why, again, are you here in the locker room?" he finally asked.
Different shrugged, coming to a full stance.
"Everyone comes in here at some point, to get ready, before each mission." he stated casually.
"And?" Baxter chuckled. "It's not like you have to do anything to get prepared. You wear the same clothes all the time..."
Adem's current attire, consisting of a variation on a Naval pilot's jumpsuit, shimmered and melted quickly into a suit of Elizabethian armor.
"Better?" he grinned.
"The point is, Adem...." Baxter sighed, finishing his knuckles. "...you don't really have a reason to be here. You come in the locker room, before every mission, just to...what? Observe humanity?"
"Exactly..."
"Well, what didn't you learn on your first trip, huh?" Baxter asked. "Why keep coming in here?"
"I am simly getting into the role of a human...."
"...by creating a pointless habit for yourself..." Ozzy continued.
"Right."
"Okay..." Ozzy nodded.
Adem frowned a bit, staring at the boxer.
"...were you going somewhere with this?"
"Doesn't look like it...." Ozzy shrugged. "...bet you wish Huerta was here now, don't ya'?"
"Oh, be quiet..." Adem murmured.
Baxter stood up, throwing the roll of tape and bandages into his small locker. Adem looked him up and down, studying the normal white t-shirt and blue jeans.
"You really should buy some different clothes at some point." Adem commented.
"Ah, what's the point?" the man shrugged, closing his locker.
"Nostalgia?"
Ozzy cocked an eye at his friend.
"Shut up."
He passed by Adem, glancing behind him.
"What's in that locker of your, anyway?" he asked.
Adem shrugged, folding his arms.
"Only what I need." he stated.
Ozzy just grunted, and continued on.
Adem paused, opening his locker, and peered in. Peering back was his own visage, reflecting off a small mirror adorning the back of the otherwise empty locker.
The alien smiled quite pleasantly at himself, more than satisfied with what he saw. He then proceeded to stop smiling, and closed the locker.
The small metal cabinet went dark and silent for a moment or so. Then, the door creaked back open, Adem pausing to smile at himself again.
"...there...now I'm a mission ahead...." he commented silently to himself, closing the locker again.
