daemonmuses Californication
I’m confused. Are you asking about what psychological environment I grew up in? Or are you referring to the actual physical environment that we lived in?
I grew up in Huntington Beach, at least an hour out of Los Angeles County. We lived in a bungalow with a swimming pool and we were twenty minutes away from the beach. That’s not a particular accomplishment-when you’re in California you’re always at least an hour to twenty minutes away from some body of water.
Before the plague became a big deal I can remember swimming a lot in the pool. Mom would always get in the water; dad would stay out with Dupree sitting at the foot of his chair reading something. Dad read a lot-a habit I was encouraged to pick up. Mysteries, James Bond Novels (Those were his favorites. He was a big bond fan) Medical Textbooks, Journals of American Science, The American Surgeon’s Magazine (During the Plague years there were a host of “ready-to-read” available magazines for the public that were supposed to make the latest medical advances easier to access for the public.)
Mom’d get in the pool with me. She’d swim even on bad-weather days. Dad used to give her hell for it, but like clockwork she’d be out in the pool with Samaritan hovering overhead. She said it was exercise for him just as much as it was for her-she was big on exercise-she was a paramedic after all.
Psychologically? I can’t say that I knew them very well. They were rarely if ever there. It’s an…it’s a habit I think I might have picked up I’m sorry to say.
Dad I remember vividly because of Dupree. I don’t get sentimental about my own looks, but I took after him more then my mother. As a kid I found it kind of funny that someone who prided himself on his looks could have such a sloppy daemon. Dupree was a mountain of fur ambling along beside him. He had this habit of tangling his fingers in her hair whenever he was nervous or upset-I told him once and he complimented me on finding his “Tell”. He used to tell me that having a Monkey Daemon was the best thing that could have ever happened to him as a surgeon.
Don’t laugh. When you knock someone out, nine times out of ten all the GENterns-I’m sorry, all the nurses are there for is to restrain their daemon. Dupree was my father’s right hand, his assistant-and she was apparently until the day he died.
That’s what his colleagues said. Right when his heart gave out she was there, tucking hands over chests and settling dying daemons on the bodies of the soon-to-be deceased.
My mother’s name was Patricia. I’d seen pictures of her as a child and Samaritan was always a dog or some sort of ground-animal. She told me that he settled the day she got her paramedic license as (of all things) a cardinal. They had this trick-she was a paramedic you see. Whenever they’d go onto the scene of accidents she wouldn’t hold up two fingers-the cognitive test was “Do you see the great big red bird following me around?” and the patient would respond yes or no and they’d make their judgments based on that.
Mom was very much a Californian-meaning that she took living in the sunshine state rather literally. Surfing, swimming, she lived for the outdoors. When that first nuclear winter fell she took it hard. Dad was always at the hospital, she’d had to take fewer shifts at the fire station to be with me and I’ll never forget Sam fluttering anxiously at the window, slamming his head into the glass.
She missed the sun.
Dupree was the gentler of the two. Whenever Casia or I misbehaved she’d simply pick Casia up by the scruff and I’d be immobilized. When I was sick and my father would make sure that I was taking my medicine she’d position herself at the foot of my bed holding Casia and running her fingers back and forth over her back.
The simple things that environment can do. Did we like it? …Sure. I could never muster anything but a weak opinion about it. They’re both dead now and I can’t afford to live in a world with petty comforts-physically our environment is in the toilet.
Psychologically I think we all miss the sun.
And I think it’s driving us a little mad.
I grew up in Huntington Beach, at least an hour out of Los Angeles County. We lived in a bungalow with a swimming pool and we were twenty minutes away from the beach. That’s not a particular accomplishment-when you’re in California you’re always at least an hour to twenty minutes away from some body of water.
Before the plague became a big deal I can remember swimming a lot in the pool. Mom would always get in the water; dad would stay out with Dupree sitting at the foot of his chair reading something. Dad read a lot-a habit I was encouraged to pick up. Mysteries, James Bond Novels (Those were his favorites. He was a big bond fan) Medical Textbooks, Journals of American Science, The American Surgeon’s Magazine (During the Plague years there were a host of “ready-to-read” available magazines for the public that were supposed to make the latest medical advances easier to access for the public.)
Mom’d get in the pool with me. She’d swim even on bad-weather days. Dad used to give her hell for it, but like clockwork she’d be out in the pool with Samaritan hovering overhead. She said it was exercise for him just as much as it was for her-she was big on exercise-she was a paramedic after all.
Psychologically? I can’t say that I knew them very well. They were rarely if ever there. It’s an…it’s a habit I think I might have picked up I’m sorry to say.
Dad I remember vividly because of Dupree. I don’t get sentimental about my own looks, but I took after him more then my mother. As a kid I found it kind of funny that someone who prided himself on his looks could have such a sloppy daemon. Dupree was a mountain of fur ambling along beside him. He had this habit of tangling his fingers in her hair whenever he was nervous or upset-I told him once and he complimented me on finding his “Tell”. He used to tell me that having a Monkey Daemon was the best thing that could have ever happened to him as a surgeon.
Don’t laugh. When you knock someone out, nine times out of ten all the GENterns-I’m sorry, all the nurses are there for is to restrain their daemon. Dupree was my father’s right hand, his assistant-and she was apparently until the day he died.
That’s what his colleagues said. Right when his heart gave out she was there, tucking hands over chests and settling dying daemons on the bodies of the soon-to-be deceased.
My mother’s name was Patricia. I’d seen pictures of her as a child and Samaritan was always a dog or some sort of ground-animal. She told me that he settled the day she got her paramedic license as (of all things) a cardinal. They had this trick-she was a paramedic you see. Whenever they’d go onto the scene of accidents she wouldn’t hold up two fingers-the cognitive test was “Do you see the great big red bird following me around?” and the patient would respond yes or no and they’d make their judgments based on that.
Mom was very much a Californian-meaning that she took living in the sunshine state rather literally. Surfing, swimming, she lived for the outdoors. When that first nuclear winter fell she took it hard. Dad was always at the hospital, she’d had to take fewer shifts at the fire station to be with me and I’ll never forget Sam fluttering anxiously at the window, slamming his head into the glass.
She missed the sun.
Dupree was the gentler of the two. Whenever Casia or I misbehaved she’d simply pick Casia up by the scruff and I’d be immobilized. When I was sick and my father would make sure that I was taking my medicine she’d position herself at the foot of my bed holding Casia and running her fingers back and forth over her back.
The simple things that environment can do. Did we like it? …Sure. I could never muster anything but a weak opinion about it. They’re both dead now and I can’t afford to live in a world with petty comforts-physically our environment is in the toilet.
Psychologically I think we all miss the sun.
And I think it’s driving us a little mad.