05 January 2007
Lennox Hill psych ward

The staffer who leads Jackson onto the ward is not an actual nurse, but a med student from a nearby college, who technically is working one floor down on the children's unit. Still, she has a badge and this provides clearance onto the floor; the girl drops Jackson off at the nurses' desk before disappearing into ( Read more... )

28 December 2006
Central Park North

Like a white dove among crows or a diamond among common rocks, Central Park is a welcome refuge from the otherwise nature-lacking urban jungle of New York...a city that, while still becoming, will never be clean or new again. But here, beauty is to be found amid the plethora of trees and open green space, ( Read more... )

Piotr was scarce on Christmas Day, having no presents or even cards for anyone and not wishing to dampen anyone else's spirits with his presence. He spent much of the day alone in his room hunched over his desk, but for once he was not drawing. Instead he wrote, covering page after page in neat Cyrillic characters written in pencil on lined paper. ( Read more... )

09 December 2006
The Art Room

The denim on Jackson's overly wide-legged jeans swishes softly as he walks down the hall towards the art room, having already checked Piotr's room and gotten no answer. A small plate of chocolate chip cookies balances on one hand, his other shoved deep into one pocket. He pauses in the doorway, leaning against the frame ( Read more... )

I am so glad of the progress we are making with the little one. To hear her speak, even a word that suggests such sorrow and lonliness, is a great comfort, and it gives gives me hope that with our help she may one day be able to lead something like a normal life. In her brightness, her cheer, her eagerness to learn... she reminds me a little of my ( Read more... )

28 November 2006
Central Park North

The blue canvas bag that Piotr takes with him to college -- now covered in dust on the bottom and spattered with paint on the top from its somewhat unceremonious resting place on the art studio floor -- today contains a rather more interesting cargo on top of its usual load of sketchbooks and physics textbooks; it ( Read more... )

21 November 2006
Living Room

There is a movie playing, on the television screen; a woman sits at a pottery wheel, crying, while a deceased Patrick Swayze looks on. The movie is an Oscar winner, but Jackson is not paying much attention to it, at the moment, profound though it may be. Eyes half-closed, head pillowed against his companion's lap, floppy ( Read more... )

15 November 2006
The Ancient Oak Tree

Despite the slow approach of the end of the year and the shortening days, it is not a particularly cold day in Westchester, and the large man seated in the fork of two gnarled old roots is accordingly not bundled up against the weather, wearing a simple blue sweater and comfortable khakis. His shoulders form a ( Read more... )

07 November 2006
Jackson's apartment

After a solid, sleepless night of work the same day he got his cast off, Jackson's painting of Temperance has finally been finished and set aside to dry. The canvas in front of him now holds the beginnings of a new painting, but only halfway through the first layer of paint, it is too early to tell what the ( Read more... )

OOC: since the school went public, Piotr went through and made his journal friends only. This particular entry was, after some consideration, locked to his fellow ex-students only.

I was wrong to allow myself to despair. True, the world is not such a friendly place for us now, but before I began to fear what this may bring, I should have looked ( Read more... )