The Disability Chat

T.Mor:

I thought about that for a moment. I mean, yeah...technically... it was pretty nice...best bed I'd ever stayed in in my life...weirdest and most frequent food... A tree... In theory it...it could be really nice... But at the same time... all those tests the one Doctor guy had been talking about... and surgery...and... like...I didn't have any control over...what all was going on at home...and... there were lots of not so good things that came along with the good things. ...Maybe I'd feel kind of better if Ana was here too...so that I wouldn't have to worry about things at home...

...But then Ana would be here...

"...Well... ...kind of..." I answered after a minute.

Cricket

I knew precisely what he was talking about when he said 'kind of'. ". . . But bright side."

T.Mor:

...I was actually really happy to have Cricket rooming with me...because...well, like, what he just said. I wasn't really...all that...good at looking for good parts of things...

"...Well... yeah... but...I mean... I'm still... this is...I'm..." I didn't really know if I would have wanted to finish that sentence if I knew how. ...Worried? Scared? ...uhm... More words that kinda have to do with those?

It was about then that some lady came in with two food trays, and another little cup of pills for me...which...I still didn't know what they were suppoused to do...except make me pass out...so...I didn't really want to take them...er.

Cricket

Some lady came in with food, which smelled . . . fairly good, actually, but I'd rather talk and watch silent movies than eat at the moment. I glanced at her, and she set it next to me on the bed.

Oh yeah. The silent movies. "A-ah . . ." I waved, and she paused at the door. ". . . Do you 'ave something t' play movies on? . . . On th' internet, per'aps, or . . ."

T.Mor:

Cricket asked about movies...and the lady turned back to look at him. I was kind of idly stirring the weird soup that was on my tray of food...Maybe I'd actually try to eat the soup. I was also still ignoring the little plastic cup of pills on my tray.

"Well...we have the TV, right there..."She pointed at the thing on the wall that wasn't a shrinebox. "And if you can't find anything on there that you'd like, I'll see about getting you two a laptop with a HDMI connector...I'm guessing you have accounts somewhere...?"

"...Oh..uhm...yeah...I.. yeah." We kinda had one username for everything in Auda... which was...you know, your name. Because... that was what was in the book of faces...so...

"I probably won't be able to get the forms filled out for the laptop properly 'til tomorrow, so it might take a few days to get here... but I can get you one on loan from the hospital, no problem." She added, with a helpful grin. "Anything else I can help you with right now?" She asked before making her way to the door again.

Cricket

"No, thanks." I smiled a tad sheepishly, watching the paper more than her, and then grinned at T.Mor again.

T.Mor:

The lady nodded and then left, leaving us here with all this food. ...All this food. This... this was a lot of food.

I grinned back at Cricket, before staring into the depths of my soup. ...SO much food. I didn't even... how did people eat all that..?

...I tried the soup...just because it looked like... like something that would taste kinda familiar. ...And it did. It was like yellow noodle soup...only with more weird bits that weren't noodles.

Cricket

I nitpicked around my food, noticing that T.Mor was eating, which was good. He could use a bit of meat on his bones, though . . . if he planned on going back to Auda food, the transition might be tough. But there was food. Let him eat. Let's all have one big weeks-long feast, shall we?

One or two bites of some sort of salad-ish concoction, and I decided I was hungry again after all.

T.Mor:

I got about halfway through the bowl of soup before I ended up feeling all...like...full of stuff... and I realised that there was a whole lot more on the tray that I hadn't even touched.

...Maybe it was one of those kinds of..."pick your favourite" type things...

I didn't know quite what to do with the rest of it...siting here on my bed... So I kind of just sat and watched Cricket eat his...weird green tree food for a bit.

Cricket

The rest of the night went by slowly and quietly and smoothly. We watched a bit of flashing images that sped across the screen of the not-a-shrinebox television, talked a bit . . . it was refreshing and a downer all at once, to simply sit all evening.

But oi my my. The beds were lovely, even if they were too plain and too clean. It still took me a while to actually get to sleep, however, since . . . well, for the millionth time, I couldn't hear a thing. Which might not be a problem for some people trying to sleep, but it turned out to be less of a comfort for me. I was used to noise. Moon's Lullaby, you know, squacks of ravens, crashing waves, distant whistles, yadda yadda you name it. It's always been the different sounds that wake me up, like odd voices and such. Silence is a different sound. I woke up several times worried as to why everything was so deathly quiet. Not as many times as I used to when I first went deaf, which might have meant I was getting used to it . . . which also worried me if I thought about it too much.

Anyhow, I eventually stayed asleep.

T.Mor:

So...after the movies were over, I was kind of up all night. I noticed that Cricket kept on like shifting and kinda making sudden movements of like when you suddenly wake up.

Once it started being daytime outside two people came in and seemed kinda shocked I was up... I'd guessed they were kinda here about the whole... uhm... my uhm... those problems...

...So.. anyway, uhm... after that all was dealt with... and I had daytime clothes on and stuff, I''d been kind of expecting them to go away...so I could wake Cricket and we could go down to breakfast... and I would get coffee and Cricket would eat...and all that... but they weren't leaving.

"...uhm... I... I can wake him...it's... really... no problem..." I said quietly... I really just wanted them to leave because like... this was just... uhm.... this was weird.

"Actually, we're bringing both of you down the hall a ways to start on all the testing that Dr.Stein wanted done... and then we'll take you down to breakfast after that, alright?" One of them said to me as the other kinda shook Cricket by the shoulder to try to wake him up, I think.

...Tests. ...We were starting tests. ...Oh Internet. I..that... that was really scary. I kind of didn't want to. But... ...I wanted to get better as well...so...like... I was just really nervous... I mean... I kinda felt my stomach flip flop around while I was sitting there.

Cricket

Something was on my shoulder.

I flinched and whipped around to blindly throw a fist at whatever dared be on my shoulder at this time of day and threaten my very existance . . .

. . . Right. Hospital. Bed. Sleep. Either I just punched a doctor, or I missed and looked like some sort of lazy buffoon. I slowly sank my face back down into the pillow.

Something was on my shoulder again.

. . . Sure wish it would stop that.

T.Mor:

I kept watching the assistant person and Cricket kinda... not really fighting because Cricket wasn't all the way awake really to like...actually... do anything, but he was trying to keep being asleep and that... that wasn't going to happen.

After a few more minutes of that, the assistant finally got sick of that and pulled back the sheets on him....which, I didn't think was fair...but... they did kind of need us to erm... yeah...testing...

Cricket

Oh, hello open air. I think I whistled something.

". . . Nice try," I muttered into my pillow. Or, I thought I did, and if not . . . I think the image of me not moving an inch got the message across just fine.

Probably needed to get up eventually . . . T.Mor would want coffee . . . but why'd the audience have to be there, anyhow?

After a while, I grunted something and sat up. I wasn't smiling . . . but I sat up. Whoever woke me up could go die or something. Honestly . . .

T.Mor:

That finally got him to sit up...eventually, looking still like he was mostly sleeping. It was kind of amusing to see him making that irritated face about like....sleeping... but I also... actually... no...nevermind. I couldn't really get how he felt about going back to sleep...because... I hated sleep...so... uhm, but yeah.

"Good morning!" The person who'd pulled back the sheets told him.

"... ...He... he can't hear you..." I said, wondering if not everyone here got to read all our files...It would be nice to know that some people didn't know everything that went on in our lives... "...Uhm... "I looked for the paper...and found it on the floor... not that I could reach. "Give him that....so...so he can read...uhm..."

The person held the paper in front of him and tried that again.

Cricket

I sat there a moment until the white flash of magical paper was in front of me.

Good morning!

"Bloody 'ell." I took the paper anyhow and swayed to my feet. And . . . they were still there. Igh . . . I had to talk now. " . . . Why th' audience . . . ?"

T.Mor :

"Because you both are headed off to testing this morning. Since we were already going to be here anyway for T.Mor, Dr. Stein just figured that we could bring you both down the hall to get everything started." The guy answered, and I had to wonder how he could be so...calm.

I was also aware that I got all...like... they mentioned that they were thee for me...and I like.. felt like hiding almost.

Cricket

Testing . . . Ah. Right. I remembered.

That testing. The blood testing and all the other ones that I couldn't at the moment remember.

We're now going to drag you off to somewhere where a person will stick needles into you. Oh, and good morning.

Perfect.

I sighed, ran a hand through my hair. Well, I was ready when they were . . . got away with sleeping in my clothes, this time around. The pajamas seemed a bit pointless to me. You're already dressed, so why dress out and dress back in to something different?

T.Mor:

"Don't worry...it's not that bad." One of them said, and pulled on my brake levers for me... which was kind of... I always did that.

See... ...when people say things aren't that bad.. ...they're normally lying to make you feel better... because like... ...that's what I got told...waaaay back when I was little... and...like... they say that when you're little and late to work for the first time, but you don't realise that...like... it's just a lie...it's a lie they tell you so...so you don't freak out... and I mean... alright... these people were a lot nicer than work people... but at the same time... ...how...how could you believe a word of it?

So, basically...We were just leaving the room and I was already clinging to my armrests all... worriedly.

Cricket

I followed groggily, relying on my fingertips against T.Mor's wheelchair to tell me where to go as I refused to stare at bright white walls this early in the day. Tests ... Best to get them over with. They wanted to do ridiculous things to me for the sake of hospital stuff I might not understand? So be it. Couldn't make me any worse off, really. I don't think.

... It was still a lousy thing to wake up to.

T.Mor:

We pulled into a smallish room with a plastic bed looking thing and some cabinets in it, and I was parked against a wall. As we were going down the halls to...wherever here was, I'd noticed Cricket's hand on one side of my chair, he was probably still kind of half asleep, I figured.

I glanced back up at the two hospital people who'd brought us here, because I figured that they were going to say something about...like... what was going to happen now...or...or something. I didn't know, and I was still like... kinda...really scared about whatever was going to happen. I watched one of them pull some things in white paper packages out of the cabinets...two of each. One for me and one for Cricket, I assumed... I... I still didn't want to think about all that...

"So..before we really get started for today, we're going to check your hearts and blood pressure... do a few things that we need for our files. My assistant here is going to be writing this all in your files, because he's still at med-school...so we'll kinda have to take turns, ok?" I still didn't quite understand how this guy could be talking so calmly about all this stuff, but I gave a little nod anyway.

I wondered who would have to go first...and how much school you had to have before you could do all this... I mean... yeah.

"So...do I have a volunteer...?" He asked slightly hesitantly with one of those: I'm not a bad guy, really, smiles.

I looked over at Cricket. I kind of just wanted to see what would happen...but at the same time didn't want to force Cricket into anything, because I wouldn't want to be forced into anything but like... uhm, yeah. I don't know, I was really nervous.

Cricket

I lazily skimmed the words that appeared on the paper, then happened to catch a glance of T.Mor in the small amount of time I had my eyes open wide enough . . . Alright, laddie. When you look at me like that . . . I mean, a guy's got to have a small bit of a heart even if it's too early in the morning, and he looked, I have to admit, a small bit more terrified than I was. In fact, I wasn't terrified. I was half asleep.

" . . . Pft." I waved my hand once and stepped forward, and tried to keep one eye on the magical paper.

T.Mor:

Cricket stepped forward...and I was like..so relieved. I mean...if this ended up being horrible...I'd feel really really really bad...but... for now... I was glad that he'd stepped up to go first.

"Alright." The doctor guy said, kinda surprised he didn't have to pick one of us, I think... and picked up a weird metal circle on some wire. Or... at least that's what it looked like. "This is a stethoscope, and I'm going to use it to listen to your heart. It miiiiight be a bit cold, alright?" though he didn't really give Cricket time to answer that question before putting the circle-y bit down the front of his shirt and seeming to listen to whatever was happening inside him. It was totally weird...but...didn't look...painful... so... uhm.

Cricket

Prick of ice-frozen metal against my chest without a moment spared for verification or invitation or anything of the sort usually a word ending in 'ation' holy Hell AGH. I think I whistled something. I think. Flinched just barely for a fraction of a second, and then just stood there with an overwhelming and slightly awkward self-consciousness of my own heartbeat, plus the awkward suppression of the desire to get this stranger's hand out of my shirt, both of which I could feel plastered across my expression.

T.Mor:
He let out a weird little whistle of surprise, and I figured that that weird metal circle must have been cold like the guy said.

I watched Cricket's face. He didn't seem to be in pain...just kinda... weirded out by the whole thing... like... Well, I mean, I could understand- I wouldn't really like it if I had some guy's hand in my shirt... but, I guess that was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not...because it was part of...testing.

The doctor guy moved his hand around to the other side of Cricket for a minute and then really quickly seemed to have that circle-y thing up the back of Cricket's shirt. "If I could just get you to breathe reaaaaallly deep for me a few times..." He said, as if this was all... you know, just regular old stuff to be doing...putting a metal circle up the back of someone's shirt... though I mean...ok, compared to some of the stuff my mind had made up... this...this wasn't that bad at all.