[Fic] Stranger in the Street
Jul. 9th, 2009 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeCharacter: Sorcerer (Doctor Variation)
Community: Theatrical Muse
Prompt: You see a stranger crying in the street. What do you do?
People.
Too many people, all of them, walking back and forth like the same hundred people all circulating around him like lines on a treadmill. Gray suits and black suits and women in little colored dresses, he looked at them all at first through his own eyes and then as though he was floating above them and he couldn't bring himself back down. The buildings loomed over him to either side, black glass and concrete. There were too many of them.
He walked through. In this city, no one paid any attention if you acted strange or reacted strangely. You were assumed to be crazy and off your meds and dismissed like a scrap of trash. Some days that would have irritated him. Today he was grateful for it.
Anchor back. Back in himself, he could breathe again, move again, one foot in front of the other in front of the other. As long as he kept going. As long as he...
Stop.
Wait.
Head turning. Too small a head on too long a neck and this perspective is making me dizzy he hears her voice in his head. A little girl, standing on the street corner, with her little gingham dress and her little leather shoes and her hands over her face as she cries in a manner most artistic. Any artist would wet himself with glee at such a subject. The isolation of man in the world or the pace of the new technology or something stupid and symbolic like that when skewed perspective this wasn't about that at all, it was just a young woman, lost. Not a little girl at all.
He shook his head and twitched his shoulders. The doctor said something about his medication maybe having to be changed, the dosage, but the side effects of the new dosage might be worse. He'd live with the voices in his head and the occasionally floating out of his body. Doctor doesn't know shit, anyway. Just like that he was strong again, confident, a normal person. Walking up to a woman with a map and a lost expression and the frustrated tears on her face of someone who desperately doesn't want to be seen as so vulnerable she's in tears, but can't help it.
"Excuse me, Miss," he said, touching her elbow. She jumped. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you, it's just... well, you look kind of lost?"
Young women didn't like being approached by strange men, he knew that somewhere. But he was so charming, and smiled well and left her her personal space, and truth be told there was something just a little bit damaged about him, but in the harmless way. That was how everyone at the shelter had referred to him. Damaged, but harmless.
"I am lost," she smiled finally, admitting defeat. "I was here, that's where the hotel was, and I took the bus..." she turned over the map and guided him along her route with her finger. "Here. And I need to get to the Chevron building for my interview and it was supposed to be around here somewhere, but..."
"I know where that is," he smiled. Bright and happy, he did know where that was, too, and he could help her. "Actually, I just came from there. My doctor's there."
"Really?" her smile broadened, and it looked like her tears were finally drying up, her smile coming out like the sun after a sudden rain. "I hear it's all doctor's offices... I came here out of medical school, I was going to apply for a nurse's position at a hospital but even with the shortage they weren't hiring..."
He guided her with his hand at the crook of her elbow, listening and nodding at what he thought were the appropriate points. She was sweet, pretty. And he had helped her, and he was pathetically glad of that, because so far he hadn't even been able to help himself. Goddamn medications. But he was helping her. Talking to her, carrying on a conversation. That was progress, kind of. As long as he had something outside himself to focus on he was okay. He'd have to tell his doctor about that.
Right after he throttled the bastard.
Community: Theatrical Muse
Prompt: You see a stranger crying in the street. What do you do?
People.
Too many people, all of them, walking back and forth like the same hundred people all circulating around him like lines on a treadmill. Gray suits and black suits and women in little colored dresses, he looked at them all at first through his own eyes and then as though he was floating above them and he couldn't bring himself back down. The buildings loomed over him to either side, black glass and concrete. There were too many of them.
He walked through. In this city, no one paid any attention if you acted strange or reacted strangely. You were assumed to be crazy and off your meds and dismissed like a scrap of trash. Some days that would have irritated him. Today he was grateful for it.
Anchor back. Back in himself, he could breathe again, move again, one foot in front of the other in front of the other. As long as he kept going. As long as he...
Stop.
Wait.
Head turning. Too small a head on too long a neck and this perspective is making me dizzy he hears her voice in his head. A little girl, standing on the street corner, with her little gingham dress and her little leather shoes and her hands over her face as she cries in a manner most artistic. Any artist would wet himself with glee at such a subject. The isolation of man in the world or the pace of the new technology or something stupid and symbolic like that when skewed perspective this wasn't about that at all, it was just a young woman, lost. Not a little girl at all.
He shook his head and twitched his shoulders. The doctor said something about his medication maybe having to be changed, the dosage, but the side effects of the new dosage might be worse. He'd live with the voices in his head and the occasionally floating out of his body. Doctor doesn't know shit, anyway. Just like that he was strong again, confident, a normal person. Walking up to a woman with a map and a lost expression and the frustrated tears on her face of someone who desperately doesn't want to be seen as so vulnerable she's in tears, but can't help it.
"Excuse me, Miss," he said, touching her elbow. She jumped. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you, it's just... well, you look kind of lost?"
Young women didn't like being approached by strange men, he knew that somewhere. But he was so charming, and smiled well and left her her personal space, and truth be told there was something just a little bit damaged about him, but in the harmless way. That was how everyone at the shelter had referred to him. Damaged, but harmless.
"I am lost," she smiled finally, admitting defeat. "I was here, that's where the hotel was, and I took the bus..." she turned over the map and guided him along her route with her finger. "Here. And I need to get to the Chevron building for my interview and it was supposed to be around here somewhere, but..."
"I know where that is," he smiled. Bright and happy, he did know where that was, too, and he could help her. "Actually, I just came from there. My doctor's there."
"Really?" her smile broadened, and it looked like her tears were finally drying up, her smile coming out like the sun after a sudden rain. "I hear it's all doctor's offices... I came here out of medical school, I was going to apply for a nurse's position at a hospital but even with the shortage they weren't hiring..."
He guided her with his hand at the crook of her elbow, listening and nodding at what he thought were the appropriate points. She was sweet, pretty. And he had helped her, and he was pathetically glad of that, because so far he hadn't even been able to help himself. Goddamn medications. But he was helping her. Talking to her, carrying on a conversation. That was progress, kind of. As long as he had something outside himself to focus on he was okay. He'd have to tell his doctor about that.
Right after he throttled the bastard.