.001 [Video]

[thebestnose]

[She's been pushing buttons and has finally figured out the video function. Hooray! Now she's glaring at the screen.] Well, I’ll be jaundiced. I guess all that wasn’t a dream. [Long, awkward pause.] Name’s Jane. I'm apparently a warden here. [Another long, awkward pause until she gets annoyed at herself and talks a little faster.] Look, I know

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[mrs_persson]

Hello, Jane-welcome aboard. I'm Una Persson, also a warden.

[mrs_persson]

And I'm not even one of the people with the longest tenure.

The coma phenomenon is something that we've all become disturbingly blasé over, and is something you ought to know about. Occasionally perfectly healthy people here will simply fall into unconsciousness-a deep heavy sleep from which they might wake after a matter of days or weeks. Rarely does anyone seem to be the worse for it and the infirmary staff is quite accustomed to handling it, but it can be alarming at first.

Actually, it never stops being at least a little alarming to me.

[thebestnose]

For no reason? They simply fall asleep for no reason and then they just...wake up? Are they different? Do they remember?

What happens to them while they're sleeping?

[mrs_persson]

It's been proposed that it might be due to stress, but nothing has been conclusively determined. Generally one wakes up, memories intact, with little sense of elapsed time.

If I dreamed very much when it happened to me, I don't recall.

I will say that you can look forward to your memories getting messed about at least once before too long. If not by the floods, then by someone else's mischief.

[thebestnose]

And this is...normal?

[mrs_persson]

It's less unusual than it ought to be, that's for certain. And you can say that for a lot of things about life on the Barge.

[thebestnose]

I'm beginning to see that...

[mrs_persson]

Have you gotten the full briefing from anyone else yet?

[thebestnose]

I'm getting pieces from everyone and I get that this place just goes brown at a moment's notice...

[mrs_persson]

That's one way of putting it, certainly. All I can say is, brace yourself. However strange anyone has said things get here, it's all of that and then some.

[thebestnose]

That sounds like a warning.

[mrs_persson]

It is, most definitely.