Welcome to Gaia! ::

The nurse mentioned that he was going to see a few different specialists today, so it had been paramount to have one of the CNA’s attend a shower. He was still labeled as a ‘fall risk’. Since he had been a so far agreeable patient, he didn’t have to suffer Posey restraints or Trendelenburg. Carol helped get him into one of the clothes sets he’d brought instead of one of the stupid gowns- yoga pants and a button down. It wasn’t fashionable, but it was comfortable. She hooked his fluids drip to the wheelchair and refrained from driving it. They’d worked out that much between them.

How did nobility ever want to have grooms or maids dressing them and seeing to every living function. It feels belittling, not elevating. The metal rims external to the wheels felt cold. He stared at the rubber-patterned footies he had to wear while the elevator went to the offices floor. There was a bridge to go to another wing. Carol got the doors and left him in a sterile looking room with all-purpose, short pile carpeting. There was monkeying over to a pleather chair with shiney metal arms. It wasn’t particularly comfortable. There was a window with Venetian blinds that overlooked the East Oval of campus.

This will be the Social Worker. ‘Are you crazy?’ Yes, probably. ‘Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy.’ It’s all a bell curve and statistics anyway. I don’t want to talk to anyone about whether they judge I need emotional and mental support. I need to be able to sleep without magic interfering. There isn’t a drug that combats that.

“Homey.”
Carol frowned, “They’ll page me once you’re done. Don’t run out of here.”

Was that supposed to be a joke? He wasn’t supposed to be running anywhere. His whole body ached from laying around for two days. He would rather be running around. Quenton looked over at the woman and offered no reply. She seemed unsettled and went out with a nervous smile.

He looked slowly from the window to the door. She was a pretty women, as aesthetics went. Average height and size for a woman, judging against the door. Probably not much older than he was himself, though it was difficult to tell with some women. She looked tired. I think most hospital workers and health care professionals do. Or most people in the city do.

Standing felt stiff, but a welcome recreation. So was walking more than the distance to a wash closet. At least he was allowed to walk. He paused at handshake distance from her, not initially breaking the barrier of the office, “Your name?”

He took her hand in a firm, professional grip, a single shake, then retreated from the contact to walk down the hall. Introductory….what? Like introducing yourself on the first day of classes in elementary school? Should I be describing my hobbies and life dreams? “Quenton is fine, Ms. Gibson. “

There didn’t look to be bands on her finger indicating fiance or marriage, but he’d heard some mental health professionals in particular avoided wearing such things. It made a person feel less ‘open’ or something. Or it was a point of threat that some unstable patients would latch onto. I wonder if she has ever had to deal with harder patient cases, like the sort on the psych floor.

He chose the plush armchair with the blanket, curling his legs up onto the seat next to his hip, weight on the opposing haunch. he pulled the blanket down to cover lap in a faux positioning of falling asleep as in a library chair mid-reading. He watched her heels, cork and fitting neatly on her slender feet. “The Insomnia- “

It deserved a capital letter at this point, “started at the end of May, I think. This isn’t new. “

The pain killers from other hospital visits barely did much. So it was never a reason to approach his general physician. “Roughly five months. Dr. Schach has been very gracious with other surprise hospitalizations and working the schedule around as much as he can.”

I feel like I’m rambling. He refocused, eyes pinpointed finally to hers and held in gaze, “What things did you need to know for your ‘introduction’ to me?”

He waited until she was completely done, not moving while watching her other than blinking and the necessary breathing. The chair was comfortable enough. It needed Faust. His lap felt empty. “I collapsed during a class. One of my students was kind enough to call the university paramedics when I wasn’t coming to. I’m a Teaching Assistant for the Art History Department, chosen by the Graduate Program Committee and receive a tuition waiver and stipend for living and college expenses. If I can keep pace, I am supposed to complete undergraduate studies in December. Dr. Schach is the head of the Art History Department, one of the tenured professors. I run his regular discussion sections, prepare lecture notes, lead group discussions, grade exams, assign written projects and proctor exams. I’m required to make myself available for extra-class consultation with students twice a week for regular office hours- one fixed and two by arrangement. “


“I live alone, except for my pet cat. He’s a massive, pushy black beast who eats and sleeps too much. It’s a studio apartment in the old hotel off the North end of campus. “

“I have one cousin in the city, older than myself. Stroud. She’s an art restoration antiquary and socialite. We don’t get along. She’s a hedonist. “

“I used to have a boyfriend. The monsters and terrorists in the night turned him into a subhuman creature and he’s slowly starving to death and going mad in isolation borne of his unique state. My scars and other hospitalizations are from similar situations where I ran afoul of the combat on campus going between studio and home.”

“You look tired, Ms. Gibson.”

Her hands didn’t look particularly suited to contracting work of the sort remodeling involved- hanging new drywall, cabinetry, measuring and cutting counters to size, laying stone tile or linoleum. His eyes finally shifted to her knees, looking for the increased redness of gathered blood and pressure indicative of having to be on hands and knees more than usual to do so. Also to her wrists and knuckles for scrapes of pulling, pushing, razoring and caulking everything into place. He looked back to her face, “You’re lying. “

It didn’t particularly matter if she was, since her life wasn’t the one being scrutinized. I wonder if she’s some part of the infiltration efforts of the Negaverse. If she watches the news to see the various reports and interviews about the ‘terrorists’. “I attend full time, and work as a TA. With the stipend and tuition waiver, I no longer needed to take side work to make ends meet. “

“I speak of both when it comes to my boyfriend. He’s an incredible intellect, creative, spontaneous and dry witted. He lacks regret and remorse, and as far as I can tell that stunted any development of empathy.” And he seeks out people who have it, or manufactured situations that would spike it in others. Make them act on it in their decisions like it would help him understand it the way dissection would the body. “One of those skulking things crawled in him and now he’s part person and part thing with claws and wings. “

“It makes it difficult to go shopping, you can imagine.”

“I don’t...clearly remember anything else specific about May. It was just when the Insomnia started- by way of night terrors. I get as far as a REM cycle and then straight awake. “

“My opinion on them, the monsters and terrorists, is that the media isn’t telling the full story. The military and government haven’t called a state of emergency or enacted any measures indicative of aiding the public. They’re conspicuously uninvolved. And people are dying. “ He lifted a hand to pull his shirt open at the top buttons, showing the staple scars over his sternum. “Regular people like students, teachers, mothers, fathers, siblings. It is a war, and it is vulgar. War plants nothing but graves, even when sides see it necessary. “

“Its also highly unusual for someone my age to follow and pursue Stoic Asceticism. Unusual, but not completely out of purview. The philosophy department is ripe with unusuals- existential nihilists, solipsists, and so forth. I don’t do drugs except where prescribed by a physician. Doing so would be illegal. The ER physicians already ran blood tests and found me lacking. Also, I detest breaking the law, and avoid doing so wherever and however possible. If they need to be changed, there are proper channels for that. “ Her recoil was interesting. Was it born of natural distaste and distress from facing wounds and violence? That was the usual explanation. “As a sculptor I’ve studied the anatomy of many animals and of human physiology. I think submitting my wounds and police reports to a forensics specialist would show that the weapons that have marked me have been claws too large and at to disparaging of widths and heights to be urban instances of puma, bear, extinct wolf populations or other apex predators indigenous to the East Coast. They aren’t hallucinations. I could even provide you with the reverse casts in latex, ballistics gel, or whatever medium you would prefer. “

“Prolonged insomnia does cause brain damage, Ms. Gibson. It also creates hallucinations- sometimes at the office out of the corner of my eye I’ll see a black shadow move and think for a moment its my cat. Mostly I’m just sad that it isn’t when that has happened.” I wonder how my being ‘sad’ or not seems to you about anything. “I’m willing to submit to MRI’s if you feel the need to rule out brain tumors. There isn’t a history of it in my family maternally or paternally. “

The question of recurrent could be innocent, routine and part of any battery in determining some Freudian meaning behind dream imagery for cause. It also smacked of similarity to talking to Faust about the pillar of black. Talking to other senshi. Every night, or day, or any time anyone tried to sleep. He wondered again if there was an agent sitting in front of him. Or an ally of them. Or maybe an senshi or knight- if the universe was kind. What a laugh.

“There were features that seemed familiar, I think. But things often have an air of familiarity in dreams. Deja Vu, or like you already know your way around some building you’ve never been in. It’s difficult to bring specifics to mind since I stopped trying to sleep regularly. Mostly naps here and there, avoidance behavior. But over the counter medications, herbals and melatonin haven’t helped.”

Well played, reaffirming the patient’s experience and then after that reaffirmation posing the question again with example of ‘others’. Credence and credibility through ‘me, too’ empathetic fishing expedition? Are you really having dreams? Are there other patients? We’ve established already I cannot trust you. But why. What use would the information do you in any event? Much like my wearing a costume of Bischofite, I expect.

So what will I do. How much do I risk? It isn’t likely that if she is an enemy, or affiliated with an enemy, that they’d risk an incident within the hospital. A report made and a few days after I got ‘home’ I’d be disappeared? Except I’m almost never there. Coming to my office hours to arrest? Or are you one of ours, suspicious I am so, and looking for some sign that you aren’t going mad yourself?

“The were more recurrent at first. Prominent was everyone turning to stone. A black pillar.” I do not think that recoil was faked. I founded the Black Watch. I’m beholden to try where I can. I just have to be strong enough to overcome opposition if it comes. When it comes. Fishing it is.

White ball gowns, full gowns, didn’t sound like the plight of most of the senshi he’d seen. There was the one corrupted he’d tried to break in the black dress. It brought Hvergelmir to mind. “Did you have some sort of object to hand in the dress- strange jewelry, stave, stick, spoon, so forth? Or was there a cat? I’ve heard of both.”

“It doesn’t sound a hallucination, Ms. Gibson. As I said, my own boyfriend turned out to be rather involved, for all the good it did him.”