05-19-2013, 11:54 PM
The press of a body that comes that Friday night stirs only Jim's unconscious. Though the word, only, belies just how much of Jim that entails.
When Sid is looking down at his face his eyes stay shut, his breathing remains subdued by the steady tidal lapping of good (necessary) sleep. And though his body doesn't move much it does seem like... Well, maybe it does the same thing that had gotten her on the bed and left her eventually clinging to him. His muscles and bones and being seems drawn to her. To another living being that is the same in important ways and (just as importantly) different in ways that intrigue him.
Maybe it's how two Cheerios feel in a bowl of milk. Sticking together when a spoon is coming to eat them.
Jim tries and mostly manages to keep this barely-voluntary bonding experience as bearable as possible. The guitar helps. The junk food helps. The smell doesn't. The door and walls don't for some of them. For Jim it's the children outside playing, that sound is what both does and doesn't make it easy. When they do Jim sometimes claws his way to the window, glancing at them through the thin slits of curtains. Watches them with an awe and a curiosity and like it's the best television show he's ever seen – the TV stays off, so his basis for comparison may be limited, but his basis for comparison is also real life outside a digital fishbowl, so there's that.
The questions help the most. And the stories. Sleepaway camp for wayward willworkers and deviants. Jim's first time was on a train to a museum. He never got off the train. He grew up in...
Wait for it...
Cherry Hills Village. He went to school at the University of Denver. Has a degree.
What did he study?
Botany. Biochemistry. Cognitive neuroscience. He rattles them off like he shouldn't stop at one, just like he did the day he skipped from the first to the next.
“What is this a job interview?”
A day passes. A second. He is able to withstand the time with all these social and mental and observational exercises. His spirits build.
Sometimes he's meditating. Sometimes he's writing in his own little book with little words and ideas of varying size and impact. Sometimes he transitions fluidly between one and the other.
But when Sid says she wants to leave, he nods, and almost looks uncomfortable with Sera looking at him for an answer. "Watch your back. I'll be watching it too."
And with that, though the spell remains, the curse of it is lifted by Sid's gumption and Jim's word. He still doesn't seem thrilled with that last part. Heap responsibility on an Ecstatic... Well, he's the one who had done that. But tell him what it is. Make him aware of it. And see how he reacts.
Jim reacts by getting up to take a piss.
When Sid is looking down at his face his eyes stay shut, his breathing remains subdued by the steady tidal lapping of good (necessary) sleep. And though his body doesn't move much it does seem like... Well, maybe it does the same thing that had gotten her on the bed and left her eventually clinging to him. His muscles and bones and being seems drawn to her. To another living being that is the same in important ways and (just as importantly) different in ways that intrigue him.
Maybe it's how two Cheerios feel in a bowl of milk. Sticking together when a spoon is coming to eat them.
Jim tries and mostly manages to keep this barely-voluntary bonding experience as bearable as possible. The guitar helps. The junk food helps. The smell doesn't. The door and walls don't for some of them. For Jim it's the children outside playing, that sound is what both does and doesn't make it easy. When they do Jim sometimes claws his way to the window, glancing at them through the thin slits of curtains. Watches them with an awe and a curiosity and like it's the best television show he's ever seen – the TV stays off, so his basis for comparison may be limited, but his basis for comparison is also real life outside a digital fishbowl, so there's that.
The questions help the most. And the stories. Sleepaway camp for wayward willworkers and deviants. Jim's first time was on a train to a museum. He never got off the train. He grew up in...
Wait for it...
Cherry Hills Village. He went to school at the University of Denver. Has a degree.
What did he study?
Botany. Biochemistry. Cognitive neuroscience. He rattles them off like he shouldn't stop at one, just like he did the day he skipped from the first to the next.
“What is this a job interview?”
A day passes. A second. He is able to withstand the time with all these social and mental and observational exercises. His spirits build.
Sometimes he's meditating. Sometimes he's writing in his own little book with little words and ideas of varying size and impact. Sometimes he transitions fluidly between one and the other.
But when Sid says she wants to leave, he nods, and almost looks uncomfortable with Sera looking at him for an answer. "Watch your back. I'll be watching it too."
And with that, though the spell remains, the curse of it is lifted by Sid's gumption and Jim's word. He still doesn't seem thrilled with that last part. Heap responsibility on an Ecstatic... Well, he's the one who had done that. But tell him what it is. Make him aware of it. And see how he reacts.
Jim reacts by getting up to take a piss.