in the brig; think of it as a holiday
Being practical by nature, Trudy makes the best of her current circumstances. She has nothing to do, she's not injured, she's not having to navigate by sight through misty, moving mountains, nothing's trying to kill her, she doesn't have to deal with highly-strung scientists, she's not being shot at: Think of it as a holiday.
The kind of holiday with four walls, a hard bench and thin mattress for a bed, and absolutely nothing to do.
That kind of holiday.
As is normal whenever she finds herself in the brig, Trudy reflects that she really can't blame her older brother for choosing the Army over prison.
- -
Saying that she has nothing to do isn't quite correct. She has nothing she has to do. This is not the same as saying she has the freedom to do whatever she wants - she is, after all, in the damn brig - but within the limitations of her sentence, there is quite a bit of flexibility. She could, for example and should she wish, spend the entire time asleep.
(She has, for the record, done this in the past. Once.
The fact that she hadn't really had more than an hour or two uninterrupted sleep for the previous seventy-two - stims, war, and being eighteen does wonders for one's endurance - had quite a lot to do with that.)
What she actually does is this:
She wakes up according to her internal clock at the same time she does every day, be she in the brig, in the barracks, or in Carl's bed. She stretches out, twists her wrists this way and that, and then her ankles. She gets up, pulls her tangled mess of bedhair back into a rough ponytail, and starts to warm up. She stretches her arms, stretches her legs; she sits on the floor, touches her toes with her knees straight and stretches out her entire body. That done, she runs through as much of her normal work-out as she can. Add in the warm down, and it nicely fills in the time until breakfast.
After breakfast, she alternates between meditation (which she can do anywhere) and sketching (no one actually wants to see her go insane from boredom). She enjoys the discipline of the former, but it's the latter she spends the majority of her time on.
She sketches.
She draws.
She draws patterns and mazes that twist the eye in a way reminisce of Escher; she draws cartoons like the Moche and other ancient peoples of Peru painted on their walls; she draws in a kind of pseudo-realistic style that takes her hours of work.
It fills in the time, it keeps her sane and relatively happy, and it bleeds off her demons.
- -
Mostly, the drawing bleeds off her demons.
But that's all she can ever ask for.
- -
(Except for the night she wakes up screaming. Her fifth in the brig, ten more nights to go, and she wakes up choking on screams and blood. The blood is all in her head; the screams aren't. It takes her an hour to stop shaking, and she refuses to tell the Marine who has pulled brig-shift, what she saw.
Not that Mads presses her too hard - at some point, just about everyone on Pandora wakes up screaming)
- -
She misses:
Flying.
Seeing the sky.
Seeing the plants.
Talking to people other than the Marines on brig-duty.
Her bed, pampered thing she's turning into.
- -
And she's off-duty, so she's allowed to miss Carl.
So she does.
- -
By the ninth day, Trudy thinks that once she gets out, she's going to do the following:
Have a shower.
Change into different clothes.
Go to Milliways and sit in a tree for a while.
- -
On the tenth day, they bring someone else in. Jack Lee, Jackly, Specialist John F. Lee; he's in the cell across from her and one over, and he's screaming.
Stimulants and Pandora don't tend to mix well together, Trudy knows. It's partly why she can handle the thought of having to knock out Carl if he flips on her - she's gotten quite good at knocking out people who have flipped.
She's also pretty sure that whatever madness has taken over the other Marine is temporary (it normally is), but she really wishes he'd snap out of it sooner rather than later (or, at least, someone would give him some damn medication to knock him out).
She listens to Jackly kick the wall for over an hour, and she thinks, yeah, sitting in a tree for a while sounds real nice right about now.
The kind of holiday with four walls, a hard bench and thin mattress for a bed, and absolutely nothing to do.
That kind of holiday.
As is normal whenever she finds herself in the brig, Trudy reflects that she really can't blame her older brother for choosing the Army over prison.
- -
Saying that she has nothing to do isn't quite correct. She has nothing she has to do. This is not the same as saying she has the freedom to do whatever she wants - she is, after all, in the damn brig - but within the limitations of her sentence, there is quite a bit of flexibility. She could, for example and should she wish, spend the entire time asleep.
(She has, for the record, done this in the past. Once.
The fact that she hadn't really had more than an hour or two uninterrupted sleep for the previous seventy-two - stims, war, and being eighteen does wonders for one's endurance - had quite a lot to do with that.)
What she actually does is this:
She wakes up according to her internal clock at the same time she does every day, be she in the brig, in the barracks, or in Carl's bed. She stretches out, twists her wrists this way and that, and then her ankles. She gets up, pulls her tangled mess of bedhair back into a rough ponytail, and starts to warm up. She stretches her arms, stretches her legs; she sits on the floor, touches her toes with her knees straight and stretches out her entire body. That done, she runs through as much of her normal work-out as she can. Add in the warm down, and it nicely fills in the time until breakfast.
After breakfast, she alternates between meditation (which she can do anywhere) and sketching (no one actually wants to see her go insane from boredom). She enjoys the discipline of the former, but it's the latter she spends the majority of her time on.
She sketches.
She draws.
She draws patterns and mazes that twist the eye in a way reminisce of Escher; she draws cartoons like the Moche and other ancient peoples of Peru painted on their walls; she draws in a kind of pseudo-realistic style that takes her hours of work.
It fills in the time, it keeps her sane and relatively happy, and it bleeds off her demons.
- -
Mostly, the drawing bleeds off her demons.
But that's all she can ever ask for.
- -
(Except for the night she wakes up screaming. Her fifth in the brig, ten more nights to go, and she wakes up choking on screams and blood. The blood is all in her head; the screams aren't. It takes her an hour to stop shaking, and she refuses to tell the Marine who has pulled brig-shift, what she saw.
Not that Mads presses her too hard - at some point, just about everyone on Pandora wakes up screaming)
- -
She misses:
Flying.
Seeing the sky.
Seeing the plants.
Talking to people other than the Marines on brig-duty.
Her bed, pampered thing she's turning into.
- -
And she's off-duty, so she's allowed to miss Carl.
So she does.
- -
By the ninth day, Trudy thinks that once she gets out, she's going to do the following:
Have a shower.
Change into different clothes.
Go to Milliways and sit in a tree for a while.
- -
On the tenth day, they bring someone else in. Jack Lee, Jackly, Specialist John F. Lee; he's in the cell across from her and one over, and he's screaming.
Stimulants and Pandora don't tend to mix well together, Trudy knows. It's partly why she can handle the thought of having to knock out Carl if he flips on her - she's gotten quite good at knocking out people who have flipped.
She's also pretty sure that whatever madness has taken over the other Marine is temporary (it normally is), but she really wishes he'd snap out of it sooner rather than later (or, at least, someone would give him some damn medication to knock him out).
She listens to Jackly kick the wall for over an hour, and she thinks, yeah, sitting in a tree for a while sounds real nice right about now.