Emory University, Atlanta Georgia; Wednesday September 3rd, 1963.
If one did not consider a few of the finer details, the lack of technology, the infrequency of bizarre and probably impossible things, and the new and foreign feeling of loneliness, one could easily consider the transition between Fandom High and pre-grad medical school almost perfectly seamless. Well, perhaps not entirely. Mobility was more of an issue here, with a bigger campus, and there were more people, but the level of freedom felt the same, and Adah did enjoy that quite a lot. She was back to sharing a room, with a wide-eyed blonde girl from just outside the city who had a bad habit of gawking at Adah's medical books as if they might bite her. Adah found herself half expecting that they would, before reminding herself that things like that weren't likely to happen now that she was back in what she felt she could only call the Tangible Sphere of Reality From Which We Emerged, Floundering, Fluttering, Pink and Screaming Like Newborns. Or, The Real World for short.
She sat at the long table of a desk, smack dab in the center of the sloped floor auditorium, waiting for the start of her physics lecture, tapping a pen on a blank sheet of notebook paper. The professor was a small, boring, hairy man, who rambled on in a voice that could barely be heard even by her own perceptive ears, and rarely said anything she hadn't already read in some book somewhere, so she was in the habit of doing other things. Doodling, sketching, filling the inside cover of her textbook with backwards Poe lines for the next person to have it to boggle and wonder about the text's previous owner. Sometimes they were letters, always to the Eel, but none of which she had sent yet. They were piling up, unfinished, in a box under her bed. Maybe one day she'll be able to write one that didn't start trying to decline in a downhill slope of words she couldn't control about how much she missed him, how lonely she was, how she just constantly thought of his smi--
Something fell clumsily into the chair beside her and Adah, startled like a rabbit, jumped a little, and glanced over at the body there. She stared in disapproval, and blinked, because she realized that the student there had chosen this seat specifically to grin at her. Just grinned. He didn't say anything, and so, eventually, Adah, since she doubted she could get in a good punch, just asked, "What?"
"I was right," he said, puzzling her further and then he leaned forward on the desk. She shifted her notebook away. "I did recognize you when I saw you in class yesterday. You're that hemiplegic that visited over the summer."
...How nice. Her half body reputation had preceded her. Adah wondered if this boy had a point with his obvious observation.
"...Don't you remember me? I was sure I'd have left an impression on you, oh Dr. Price."
Clearly, her teal deer-in-headlights stare wasn't enough so she helped the idiot out a bit, "No."
"Seriously? You're kidding?" He quickly introduced himself, hands pressed against his chest as if trying to hold in the very essence of what made him who he was, and Adah shook her head again. "I'm studying neurology, remember?"
Adah's eyes shifted with the firing of a synapse that seemed to recollect at least something about neurology coming up during the summer, but there was nothing more than that simple little flare. She sighed, turning away from him slightly, as if paying attention to the desk was a needed mental exercise to prepare for class, but it only make the idiot neurologist chuckle a bit.
"I've decided," he announced as if she cared, "to do my thesis on hemiplegia, you know. You inspired me; what do you think of that?"
"...Good for you?"
He laughed again. "So, what do you say? You know, I wasn't really sure if you'd even return, so when I thought I saw you last week, I thought it was real nifty. I mean, this isn't an easy program for girls at all. If you ever need any he--"
"No."
"I mean, we're in the same class toge--"
"I'm not interested."
"And you could--"
Adah didn't even say anything that time; he knew from the rigid straightening of her crooked back that he wasn't getting anywhere. At least he wasn't that stupid. He just let out a long whistle and shook his head. Leaning back in his chair, he folded his arms behind his head, put his feet up on the desk, and all Adah could think about was pushing them off and making him fall on head.
Luckily for him, the professor came in just when she was really starting to plan out the action.
[[ I've been meaning to do this post for, like, ever. NFI, unless you have some crazy reason to be in a 1963 Emory classroom! OOC comments are always looove, naturally! it's all building up towards some shiny canon catch up eventually yay! ]]
She sat at the long table of a desk, smack dab in the center of the sloped floor auditorium, waiting for the start of her physics lecture, tapping a pen on a blank sheet of notebook paper. The professor was a small, boring, hairy man, who rambled on in a voice that could barely be heard even by her own perceptive ears, and rarely said anything she hadn't already read in some book somewhere, so she was in the habit of doing other things. Doodling, sketching, filling the inside cover of her textbook with backwards Poe lines for the next person to have it to boggle and wonder about the text's previous owner. Sometimes they were letters, always to the Eel, but none of which she had sent yet. They were piling up, unfinished, in a box under her bed. Maybe one day she'll be able to write one that didn't start trying to decline in a downhill slope of words she couldn't control about how much she missed him, how lonely she was, how she just constantly thought of his smi--
Something fell clumsily into the chair beside her and Adah, startled like a rabbit, jumped a little, and glanced over at the body there. She stared in disapproval, and blinked, because she realized that the student there had chosen this seat specifically to grin at her. Just grinned. He didn't say anything, and so, eventually, Adah, since she doubted she could get in a good punch, just asked, "What?"
"I was right," he said, puzzling her further and then he leaned forward on the desk. She shifted her notebook away. "I did recognize you when I saw you in class yesterday. You're that hemiplegic that visited over the summer."
...How nice. Her half body reputation had preceded her. Adah wondered if this boy had a point with his obvious observation.
"...Don't you remember me? I was sure I'd have left an impression on you, oh Dr. Price."
Clearly, her teal deer-in-headlights stare wasn't enough so she helped the idiot out a bit, "No."
"Seriously? You're kidding?" He quickly introduced himself, hands pressed against his chest as if trying to hold in the very essence of what made him who he was, and Adah shook her head again. "I'm studying neurology, remember?"
Adah's eyes shifted with the firing of a synapse that seemed to recollect at least something about neurology coming up during the summer, but there was nothing more than that simple little flare. She sighed, turning away from him slightly, as if paying attention to the desk was a needed mental exercise to prepare for class, but it only make the idiot neurologist chuckle a bit.
"I've decided," he announced as if she cared, "to do my thesis on hemiplegia, you know. You inspired me; what do you think of that?"
"...Good for you?"
He laughed again. "So, what do you say? You know, I wasn't really sure if you'd even return, so when I thought I saw you last week, I thought it was real nifty. I mean, this isn't an easy program for girls at all. If you ever need any he--"
"No."
"I mean, we're in the same class toge--"
"I'm not interested."
"And you could--"
Adah didn't even say anything that time; he knew from the rigid straightening of her crooked back that he wasn't getting anywhere. At least he wasn't that stupid. He just let out a long whistle and shook his head. Leaning back in his chair, he folded his arms behind his head, put his feet up on the desk, and all Adah could think about was pushing them off and making him fall on head.
Luckily for him, the professor came in just when she was really starting to plan out the action.
[[ I've been meaning to do this post for, like, ever. NFI, unless you have some crazy reason to be in a 1963 Emory classroom! OOC comments are always looove, naturally! it's all building up towards some shiny canon catch up eventually yay! ]]