Re: Hope you don't mind me addinglisacharlyJune 19 2006, 18:31:13 UTC
She's the last one left, and that's because she wasn't able to fight. It's a burning pain she'll carry with her the rest of her life. The wars have calmed down, in the States, at least, as if that's the whole world to them now. Africa won't let her in, and she doesn't want to face the humiliation of travelling the airways with handicap accomodations anyway.
There was a point where she thought she would recover to full strength the use of her legs, then a point where she was happy just to stay able to walk short distances, and then a point where she thought she could slow the descent into paralysis, and then a point...
She knows, now, that she'll never use her legs again. She wonders if this is how Charles felt.
There's no point to even doing the therapeutic exercises that Moira'd assigned before her death. She knows neither of them has carried on with Moira's advice. He's not taking Quetiapine anymore, nothing could convince him to put it back in his body when he remembered what 'unmedicated' felt like. Truth be told, for the argument they'd had about it, she'd enjoyed the words. It was something angry and passionate and frustrating, and at the very least it was a change from grieving and numbness.
And anyway, she thinks, she isn't sure medication would have saved him from what happened to him after the police had dredged half of Theresa's body from the river.
Nor will she confront him about it. She hates to admit it, but they've started to need each other. The house in Harlem closes in, rubbing aggravated claustrophic wounds and it panics her, when she's alone. It may not be so terrifying if she wasn't helpless, if she had somebody to turn to or even talk to. But when nothing echoes her own silence but the air in the building, she dreams of fire to the point of fever. Sometimes she dreams of taking the remains of her torn world down with her, sometimes she thinks of it as ascension, sometimes she doesn't dream at all beyond the scorching heat.
Every day his voice breaks her out of the fire, even if only for a sentence, even if only for a word. "I spoke with Theresa today. She wishes you well."
It used to sadden her that he never lied about that.
Between them, they make one healthy mind and one healthy body, and that should be enough to live in the city.
There was a point where she thought she would recover to full strength the use of her legs, then a point where she was happy just to stay able to walk short distances, and then a point where she thought she could slow the descent into paralysis, and then a point...
She knows, now, that she'll never use her legs again. She wonders if this is how Charles felt.
There's no point to even doing the therapeutic exercises that Moira'd assigned before her death. She knows neither of them has carried on with Moira's advice. He's not taking Quetiapine anymore, nothing could convince him to put it back in his body when he remembered what 'unmedicated' felt like. Truth be told, for the argument they'd had about it, she'd enjoyed the words. It was something angry and passionate and frustrating, and at the very least it was a change from grieving and numbness.
And anyway, she thinks, she isn't sure medication would have saved him from what happened to him after the police had dredged half of Theresa's body from the river.
Nor will she confront him about it. She hates to admit it, but they've started to need each other. The house in Harlem closes in, rubbing aggravated claustrophic wounds and it panics her, when she's alone. It may not be so terrifying if she wasn't helpless, if she had somebody to turn to or even talk to. But when nothing echoes her own silence but the air in the building, she dreams of fire to the point of fever. Sometimes she dreams of taking the remains of her torn world down with her, sometimes she thinks of it as ascension, sometimes she doesn't dream at all beyond the scorching heat.
Every day his voice breaks her out of the fire, even if only for a sentence, even if only for a word. "I spoke with Theresa today. She wishes you well."
It used to sadden her that he never lied about that.
Between them, they make one healthy mind and one healthy body, and that should be enough to live in the city.
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