Poem: "Determine Where You Start"
This poem came out of the July 6, 2022 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a discussion with Dreamwidth user Labelleizzy. It also fills the "wheelchair" square in my 7-1-22 card for the Body Parts Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.
"Determine Where You Start"
[Monday, September 28, 2015]
Quain Macallan huddled in
his electric wheelchair, trying and
failing not to feel sorry for himself.
A brisk knock at the door announced
the arrival of an energetic man who
said, "Hi, I'm Hamrish Alden from
Another Door Opens. I'm here
to talk about your opportunities."
Right, therapy guy number oh-who-cares.
"Yeah, whatever," Quain said, rolling
his eyes. At least that still worked.
Hamrish checked his tablet computer.
"According to this, you volunteered
for today's session. Did anyone
try to pressure you into this?"
"Not really, I mean, they said
I should think about my future,"
Quain muttered. "What future?
But I can't stay here forever, so,
gotta do planning sometime."
"If you're not ready for this step,
we can call it off," said Hamrish.
"Rushing yourself won't help."
"No, you're here now, might as
well get it over with," Quain said.
"Go ahead and hit me with it."
"All right then, Another Door Opens
is a charity that specializes in helping
people with acquired disabilities find
a new career after losing the old one
due to incompatible injuries. I'd
like to explore your options."
"So you're going to tell me I
should be happy I survived
the football pileup that left me
paralyzed with nothing below
the waist and dodgy control
over my arms?" said Quain.
"No, that seriously sucks,"
said Hamrish. "You're entitled
to feel sad and angry about that
until you're done with those feelings.
Have people been pushing you
to cheer up before you're ready?"
"Yeah well, that's their job,"
Quain said with a faint shrug.
"It's really not," Hamrish said,
making a note. "We can come
back to counseling later, I'm sure
I can find you someone more useful.
Let's talk about your career instead."
"I was a star quarterback planning
to go pro," Quain said bitterly.
"I don't have a career anymore."
"No backup plan?" Hamrish said,
raising his eyebrows. "Nothing
lined up for a second career
after retiring from the game?"
"Well, yeah, they coached
us on that stuff. It's why I was
taking Sport Industry as a major,"
Quain said. "That's all over now."
"What makes you say that?"
Hamrish said, frowning. "You
could get plenty of jobs after
finishing that broad a degree."
"Because I went to college on
a football scholarship," Quain said.
"No football, no money, no college."
"Now that I can fix," Hamrish said,
brightening. "Another Door Opens
has connections with many schools,
charities, and other organizations
to offer scholarships to people
with recently acquired disabilities."
"Really?" said Quain. He had worked
so hard for his scholarship, losing it
hurt almost as much as his injuries.
"Sure," said Hamrish. "It sucks
to lose as much as you have, but
but there are new opportunities too.
I hope I can convince you that
your life isn't over, even though
your football career is."
"That's hard to believe in
my present circumstances,"
Quain said, curling a finger
to gesture at his limp body.
"Your present circumstances
don't determine where you
can go," Hamrish said. "They
merely determine where you start."
"Start with what?" said Quain.
"Football's all I was good for, and
I can hardly bear to think of it now.
I've been watching soccer and
volleyball out of sheer boredom."
"If you're a sports fan and looking
for something new, watch Home Game,"
said Hamrish. "My favorite episode is
the Makepung Lampit water buffalo racing.
My sister's the roller derby fan in the family."
"How the heck do you race water buffaloes?"
Quain said, staring at him. "That's just nuts."
"Watch the show and find out," Hamrish said
with a cheeky grin. "It gets pretty wild."
Quain felt the first stirring of interest
since he'd gone down in August.
It might be good for a laugh.
"Okay, maybe I will watch that,"
he said. "Got nothing better to do."
"I'll see what I can do about getting
you busy again," said Hamrish.
"Doing what?" Quain asked.
"I'm a junior, I'm still a ways
from finishing my major,
and I don't think I could."
"What about your minor?"
Hamrish asked him.
"I don't have one,"
Quain said. "Football
took up all the time
that I wasn't spending
on my major classes."
"Well, you have a lot of
classes completed toward
Sport Industry," said Hamrish.
"We can turn that into a minor."
"That'd be nice," said Quain.
"At least it won't be wholly wasted."
"What kind of limitations are you
dealing with, physically or mentally?"
said Hamrish. "You seem pretty down
about that, and it'll help me figure out
which categories to offer or cross off.
I've got everything from the usual --"
"Oh, fuck no," Quain groaned.
"If one more person suggests
that I could do great things in
Disability Advocacy, I'll hurl."
"Crossing that off," Hamrish said,
drawing a line on his tablet screen.
"Shall I axe the whole field of
helping professions as well?"
"Yeah, that's really not
my thing," said Quain.
"If you need your gutters
cleaned, I'm -- I was your guy,
but I suck at talk-it-over stuff."
"Done," Hamrish said with
a broad slashing gesture. "I'll
knock out high theory too, probably
boring for you. So you don't mind
helping, just with a more physical focus.
What kind of things did you like doing
back before you got into football?
Any wild childhood dreams?"
"Well ... when I was a little kid,
I wanted to be an astronaut,"
Quain admitted, blushing.
"I can work with that,"
Hamrish said, grinning as
he clapped his hands and
rubbed them together.
"That's no use now,
though, astronauts need
to have perfect health,"
Quain pointed out.
"Only if they plan
to take their bodies
into space with them,"
Hamrish said smugly.
"Allow me to present
NASA's robonaut team."
The picture he displayed
had a smiling group of people
all in electric wheelchairs. One
of them seemed to be only
a head and half a torso.
"The robonauts are involved
in the design, programming,
and control of space probes
from the orbital explorers to
ground crawlers," said Hamrish.
"It's a pretty exciting position."
"That does sound cool,"
Quain admitted. "How do
they make that work?"
"Depends on the person,"
said Quain. "Some need
voice commands. Others
capitalize on their experience
with electric wheelchair controls
to maneuver the landing craft."
Quain grinned. "There's a game
called the Blue Bird of Happiness
to teach wheelchair controls now,"
he said. "I got really good at that --
made it through all levels, all birds."
"You're way ahead of me, then,"
said Hamrish. "All that I managed
to do was die in lots of funny ways."
"That's part of the fun, though,"
Quain said. "I liked the jingle bells."
"Snowbird," Hamrish countered,
and then they both cracked up.
"Okay, so your manual dexterity
survived enough for video games.
Any limitations I need to know about?"
Quain grimaced. "I have these, like,
neural ghosts," he said. "Not quite
the usual phantom limb syndrome
because everything's still attached, it
just doesn't all work anymore. It's like
weird feelings, or memories that replay
under my skin. One therapist thinks
it's because I went down on the field."
"That could do it," said Hamrish.
"Does it stop you from doing things?"
"Not really, I mean, no more than
being paralyzed already does,"
said Quain. "It's just distracting
to be sitting around and suddenly
feel rained on or muddy. They
say that it usually goes away
after a year or two. Or not."
"That sounds pretty awful,"
Hamrish said. "My sympathies.
Quain twitched a shrug. "It is
what it is, that's all," he said.
"True," said Hamrish. "Let's check
for potential here. How good are
you with math and science?"
"Aced all those classes
in general requirements,"
Quain said. His teammates
had called him a nerd for weeks.
"Excellent, then we can recycle
your general education credits,
so that you won't have to start over
completely from scratch," said Hamrish.
"How are you at using computers?"
"I played RoboDerby in seventh grade,"
Quain said fondly. "I won a medal too."
"Congratulations, that's very useful,"
said Hamrish. "Why did you quit?"
"I didn't want to, but that summer, we
moved," said Quain. "The new school
didn't have anything with robotics, but
they did offer a junior football team. I
did so well at that, by high school
it was all anyone talked about
in terms of college prep stuff."
"Let me see what I can
do with that," Hamrish said,
turning to his tablet computer.
Quain took the opportunity
to get on his own tablet and
look up the television schedule.
Home Game was available.
The water buffalo episode
was not on, but apparently
there was something involving
the use of a dead goat as a ball.
If it was any good, he could
replay that one for Halloween.
"You're in luck," Hamrish said.
"Ohio State University has degrees
in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
That'd be a great setup for robonautics."
"I don't know if I'm that good at it,"
Quain said. "It's a tough degree."
"You aced your college math and
science classes, plus you've played
RoboDerby," said Hamrish. "Besides,
football isn't for the lazy or faint of
heart. I think you've got a chance."
All of a sudden, Quain's knees
chose that moment to remember
the time he had knelt on top of
his flailing robot to repair it before
shoving it back into the fray where
it had demolished the competition.
Quain recalled how much fun
he'd had in that RoboDerby club,
and wondered if he could still
build a robot that totally badass.
What the hell, it was worth a try.
"Yeah, okay," said Quain.
"Engineering, here I come."
People had been agitating
to explore some other moons.
Maybe he could get in on that.
"Great," said Hamrish. "I'll
set you up with some pretests
to gauge your level on math
and science. If you need
to brush up on anything,
you have all fall before
spring semester starts."
"Thank you," said Quain.
"If nothing else, I have
plenty of time to study."
"Earlier you said something
that makes me suspect
your current counselors
aren't helping you as much
as they should," said Hamrish.
"I'm willing to hunt around for
better options if you want."
"Yeah, they've been ...
not totally awful, but not
very useful either," said Quain.
"You also mentioned that there
are sport-related counselors,"
said Hamrish. "Nobody offered
to connect you with one of them?"
"No, just generic ones," said Quain.
"But that's okay, they probably didn't
know about the football exit counselors.
It's not something that we -- I mean
football players -- talk about with
the audience. It spoils the image."
"Would you like me to look for one?"
Hamrish said. "It might help you."
"If you could actually find me
a football exit counselor, then
that'd be great," said Quain.
"At least they'd know where
I'm coming from, and I'd be
familiar with their approach.
This head stuff is not me."
"I feel you," Hamrish said.
"It's important to know what
works for you and what doesn't
when you're problem-solving."
"I really appreciate you taking
no for an answer on the stuff I
don't like," said Quain. "People
here are trying to be helpful, but
they just think differently than
I do, they're not sport buffs. I
need to get a grip on things,
not just talk them to death."
"That's not helpful, that's
helpy," said Hamrish. "I'll
have words with them. That
makes my job harder, besides
annoying their hapless victims."
"Thanks, I appreciate it," said Quain.
"It'll be interesting to see what happens."
"On that note, let me give you some of
my materials," said Hamrish. "Can you
handle hardcopies comfortably, or
would you prefer digital ones?"
"Hardcopy," said Quain. "I
have some hand use left, and
I'm supposed to exercise that."
"Okay, here are flyers for colleges
in Ohio that have free tuition with us,"
said Hamrish. "I also have lists of
popular careers for people who have
mobility issues, and here's an article
on NASA's robonaut department."
Quain concentrated and managed
to take the stack of pages from him,
then set it carefully on the bed table.
The paper felt strange in his grip,
as so many things did these days.
"I'll look through these," he said.
"I think that I'll also try to find
a few other ideas in case
engineering doesn't make
the touchdown after all."
"That's a wise move,"
said Hamrish. "Here's
my card. Call me if you
have questions or need
any more help redirecting
your educational plans."
"Thanks," said Quain.
"I really appreciate it."
They shook hands, which
he could mostly feel, and
then parted company.
Quain was half-tempted
to turn on Home Game and
relax, but he hadn't become
a star player by loafing.
Instead he brought up
the menu of activities
his physiotherapist had
recommended for him.
There had been some sort
of wheelchair obstacle course
that he'd shied away from earlier
because it reminded him painfully
of sport training he'd never do again.
Now, though, he was thinking about
RoboDerby and the hostile surface
of nearby planets and their moons.
It might be a good idea for him to get
some practice navigating with a joystick.
At least, he was determined to make a start.
Lifting his chin, Quain called his physiotherapist.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its character and content notes appear separately.
"Determine Where You Start"
[Monday, September 28, 2015]
Quain Macallan huddled in
his electric wheelchair, trying and
failing not to feel sorry for himself.
A brisk knock at the door announced
the arrival of an energetic man who
said, "Hi, I'm Hamrish Alden from
Another Door Opens. I'm here
to talk about your opportunities."
Right, therapy guy number oh-who-cares.
"Yeah, whatever," Quain said, rolling
his eyes. At least that still worked.
Hamrish checked his tablet computer.
"According to this, you volunteered
for today's session. Did anyone
try to pressure you into this?"
"Not really, I mean, they said
I should think about my future,"
Quain muttered. "What future?
But I can't stay here forever, so,
gotta do planning sometime."
"If you're not ready for this step,
we can call it off," said Hamrish.
"Rushing yourself won't help."
"No, you're here now, might as
well get it over with," Quain said.
"Go ahead and hit me with it."
"All right then, Another Door Opens
is a charity that specializes in helping
people with acquired disabilities find
a new career after losing the old one
due to incompatible injuries. I'd
like to explore your options."
"So you're going to tell me I
should be happy I survived
the football pileup that left me
paralyzed with nothing below
the waist and dodgy control
over my arms?" said Quain.
"No, that seriously sucks,"
said Hamrish. "You're entitled
to feel sad and angry about that
until you're done with those feelings.
Have people been pushing you
to cheer up before you're ready?"
"Yeah well, that's their job,"
Quain said with a faint shrug.
"It's really not," Hamrish said,
making a note. "We can come
back to counseling later, I'm sure
I can find you someone more useful.
Let's talk about your career instead."
"I was a star quarterback planning
to go pro," Quain said bitterly.
"I don't have a career anymore."
"No backup plan?" Hamrish said,
raising his eyebrows. "Nothing
lined up for a second career
after retiring from the game?"
"Well, yeah, they coached
us on that stuff. It's why I was
taking Sport Industry as a major,"
Quain said. "That's all over now."
"What makes you say that?"
Hamrish said, frowning. "You
could get plenty of jobs after
finishing that broad a degree."
"Because I went to college on
a football scholarship," Quain said.
"No football, no money, no college."
"Now that I can fix," Hamrish said,
brightening. "Another Door Opens
has connections with many schools,
charities, and other organizations
to offer scholarships to people
with recently acquired disabilities."
"Really?" said Quain. He had worked
so hard for his scholarship, losing it
hurt almost as much as his injuries.
"Sure," said Hamrish. "It sucks
to lose as much as you have, but
but there are new opportunities too.
I hope I can convince you that
your life isn't over, even though
your football career is."
"That's hard to believe in
my present circumstances,"
Quain said, curling a finger
to gesture at his limp body.
"Your present circumstances
don't determine where you
can go," Hamrish said. "They
merely determine where you start."
"Start with what?" said Quain.
"Football's all I was good for, and
I can hardly bear to think of it now.
I've been watching soccer and
volleyball out of sheer boredom."
"If you're a sports fan and looking
for something new, watch Home Game,"
said Hamrish. "My favorite episode is
the Makepung Lampit water buffalo racing.
My sister's the roller derby fan in the family."
"How the heck do you race water buffaloes?"
Quain said, staring at him. "That's just nuts."
"Watch the show and find out," Hamrish said
with a cheeky grin. "It gets pretty wild."
Quain felt the first stirring of interest
since he'd gone down in August.
It might be good for a laugh.
"Okay, maybe I will watch that,"
he said. "Got nothing better to do."
"I'll see what I can do about getting
you busy again," said Hamrish.
"Doing what?" Quain asked.
"I'm a junior, I'm still a ways
from finishing my major,
and I don't think I could."
"What about your minor?"
Hamrish asked him.
"I don't have one,"
Quain said. "Football
took up all the time
that I wasn't spending
on my major classes."
"Well, you have a lot of
classes completed toward
Sport Industry," said Hamrish.
"We can turn that into a minor."
"That'd be nice," said Quain.
"At least it won't be wholly wasted."
"What kind of limitations are you
dealing with, physically or mentally?"
said Hamrish. "You seem pretty down
about that, and it'll help me figure out
which categories to offer or cross off.
I've got everything from the usual --"
"Oh, fuck no," Quain groaned.
"If one more person suggests
that I could do great things in
Disability Advocacy, I'll hurl."
"Crossing that off," Hamrish said,
drawing a line on his tablet screen.
"Shall I axe the whole field of
helping professions as well?"
"Yeah, that's really not
my thing," said Quain.
"If you need your gutters
cleaned, I'm -- I was your guy,
but I suck at talk-it-over stuff."
"Done," Hamrish said with
a broad slashing gesture. "I'll
knock out high theory too, probably
boring for you. So you don't mind
helping, just with a more physical focus.
What kind of things did you like doing
back before you got into football?
Any wild childhood dreams?"
"Well ... when I was a little kid,
I wanted to be an astronaut,"
Quain admitted, blushing.
"I can work with that,"
Hamrish said, grinning as
he clapped his hands and
rubbed them together.
"That's no use now,
though, astronauts need
to have perfect health,"
Quain pointed out.
"Only if they plan
to take their bodies
into space with them,"
Hamrish said smugly.
"Allow me to present
NASA's robonaut team."
The picture he displayed
had a smiling group of people
all in electric wheelchairs. One
of them seemed to be only
a head and half a torso.
"The robonauts are involved
in the design, programming,
and control of space probes
from the orbital explorers to
ground crawlers," said Hamrish.
"It's a pretty exciting position."
"That does sound cool,"
Quain admitted. "How do
they make that work?"
"Depends on the person,"
said Quain. "Some need
voice commands. Others
capitalize on their experience
with electric wheelchair controls
to maneuver the landing craft."
Quain grinned. "There's a game
called the Blue Bird of Happiness
to teach wheelchair controls now,"
he said. "I got really good at that --
made it through all levels, all birds."
"You're way ahead of me, then,"
said Hamrish. "All that I managed
to do was die in lots of funny ways."
"That's part of the fun, though,"
Quain said. "I liked the jingle bells."
"Snowbird," Hamrish countered,
and then they both cracked up.
"Okay, so your manual dexterity
survived enough for video games.
Any limitations I need to know about?"
Quain grimaced. "I have these, like,
neural ghosts," he said. "Not quite
the usual phantom limb syndrome
because everything's still attached, it
just doesn't all work anymore. It's like
weird feelings, or memories that replay
under my skin. One therapist thinks
it's because I went down on the field."
"That could do it," said Hamrish.
"Does it stop you from doing things?"
"Not really, I mean, no more than
being paralyzed already does,"
said Quain. "It's just distracting
to be sitting around and suddenly
feel rained on or muddy. They
say that it usually goes away
after a year or two. Or not."
"That sounds pretty awful,"
Hamrish said. "My sympathies.
Quain twitched a shrug. "It is
what it is, that's all," he said.
"True," said Hamrish. "Let's check
for potential here. How good are
you with math and science?"
"Aced all those classes
in general requirements,"
Quain said. His teammates
had called him a nerd for weeks.
"Excellent, then we can recycle
your general education credits,
so that you won't have to start over
completely from scratch," said Hamrish.
"How are you at using computers?"
"I played RoboDerby in seventh grade,"
Quain said fondly. "I won a medal too."
"Congratulations, that's very useful,"
said Hamrish. "Why did you quit?"
"I didn't want to, but that summer, we
moved," said Quain. "The new school
didn't have anything with robotics, but
they did offer a junior football team. I
did so well at that, by high school
it was all anyone talked about
in terms of college prep stuff."
"Let me see what I can
do with that," Hamrish said,
turning to his tablet computer.
Quain took the opportunity
to get on his own tablet and
look up the television schedule.
Home Game was available.
The water buffalo episode
was not on, but apparently
there was something involving
the use of a dead goat as a ball.
If it was any good, he could
replay that one for Halloween.
"You're in luck," Hamrish said.
"Ohio State University has degrees
in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
That'd be a great setup for robonautics."
"I don't know if I'm that good at it,"
Quain said. "It's a tough degree."
"You aced your college math and
science classes, plus you've played
RoboDerby," said Hamrish. "Besides,
football isn't for the lazy or faint of
heart. I think you've got a chance."
All of a sudden, Quain's knees
chose that moment to remember
the time he had knelt on top of
his flailing robot to repair it before
shoving it back into the fray where
it had demolished the competition.
Quain recalled how much fun
he'd had in that RoboDerby club,
and wondered if he could still
build a robot that totally badass.
What the hell, it was worth a try.
"Yeah, okay," said Quain.
"Engineering, here I come."
People had been agitating
to explore some other moons.
Maybe he could get in on that.
"Great," said Hamrish. "I'll
set you up with some pretests
to gauge your level on math
and science. If you need
to brush up on anything,
you have all fall before
spring semester starts."
"Thank you," said Quain.
"If nothing else, I have
plenty of time to study."
"Earlier you said something
that makes me suspect
your current counselors
aren't helping you as much
as they should," said Hamrish.
"I'm willing to hunt around for
better options if you want."
"Yeah, they've been ...
not totally awful, but not
very useful either," said Quain.
"You also mentioned that there
are sport-related counselors,"
said Hamrish. "Nobody offered
to connect you with one of them?"
"No, just generic ones," said Quain.
"But that's okay, they probably didn't
know about the football exit counselors.
It's not something that we -- I mean
football players -- talk about with
the audience. It spoils the image."
"Would you like me to look for one?"
Hamrish said. "It might help you."
"If you could actually find me
a football exit counselor, then
that'd be great," said Quain.
"At least they'd know where
I'm coming from, and I'd be
familiar with their approach.
This head stuff is not me."
"I feel you," Hamrish said.
"It's important to know what
works for you and what doesn't
when you're problem-solving."
"I really appreciate you taking
no for an answer on the stuff I
don't like," said Quain. "People
here are trying to be helpful, but
they just think differently than
I do, they're not sport buffs. I
need to get a grip on things,
not just talk them to death."
"That's not helpful, that's
helpy," said Hamrish. "I'll
have words with them. That
makes my job harder, besides
annoying their hapless victims."
"Thanks, I appreciate it," said Quain.
"It'll be interesting to see what happens."
"On that note, let me give you some of
my materials," said Hamrish. "Can you
handle hardcopies comfortably, or
would you prefer digital ones?"
"Hardcopy," said Quain. "I
have some hand use left, and
I'm supposed to exercise that."
"Okay, here are flyers for colleges
in Ohio that have free tuition with us,"
said Hamrish. "I also have lists of
popular careers for people who have
mobility issues, and here's an article
on NASA's robonaut department."
Quain concentrated and managed
to take the stack of pages from him,
then set it carefully on the bed table.
The paper felt strange in his grip,
as so many things did these days.
"I'll look through these," he said.
"I think that I'll also try to find
a few other ideas in case
engineering doesn't make
the touchdown after all."
"That's a wise move,"
said Hamrish. "Here's
my card. Call me if you
have questions or need
any more help redirecting
your educational plans."
"Thanks," said Quain.
"I really appreciate it."
They shook hands, which
he could mostly feel, and
then parted company.
Quain was half-tempted
to turn on Home Game and
relax, but he hadn't become
a star player by loafing.
Instead he brought up
the menu of activities
his physiotherapist had
recommended for him.
There had been some sort
of wheelchair obstacle course
that he'd shied away from earlier
because it reminded him painfully
of sport training he'd never do again.
Now, though, he was thinking about
RoboDerby and the hostile surface
of nearby planets and their moons.
It might be a good idea for him to get
some practice navigating with a joystick.
At least, he was determined to make a start.
Lifting his chin, Quain called his physiotherapist.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its character and content notes appear separately.