How to Save a Life (Pyper)

[Ethan (DELETED 5711)]

The book lays open in front of him, unwilling to divulge any sort of epiphany. He can feel the weight of the librarian's surly gaze on him, the prim woman tsk'ing every time he pulls a new book from the shelves or a new file from the archives. Ethan has been here for nearly a week now from open to close, struggling with his thesis. The screen of his laptop glares at him tauntingly, the title in big bold print. Advances in Bionic Implants and Their Relation to Handicapable Functionality. Strewn haphazardly about his desk are a plethora of research materials, though there seems to be no coherent organization to them. In the course of this past week, more than a few of the library's resources have found themselves with new coffee stains and smeared thumbprints.

A student at Harper Rock's local university, Ethan is just under a year away from graduating with a degree in Biomedical Engineering. If he can hammer this out. The thesis is nearing completion, but is still too short of the mark. The draft glowing on his screen now is little more than a constant reminder of his frustration with himself. Starting things has always been easy for him, but finishing them is another tale altogether.

When he first began college, he went after a degree in Criminal Law. That endeavor lasted a year. The story is very much the same before and since. In high school, projects and homework were only turned in last minute (if he was lucky; more than a few received marks off for being late). In college, his studying occurs in late-night binges, rather than being spaced out properly. Much of this is due to his own procrastination.

It is not that he is lazy, it is that he is too easily distracted. Attention Deficit Disorder, the numerous child therapists had told his mother. She had scoffed at them.

"That's not a real disorder," she would tell his father when they thought he wasn't listening. "It's an excuse for being lazy and unfocused so they can get us to shell out more money for some sugar pills."

If only you could see me now, Ethan thought to himself bitterly. He does not blame her for her stance on it, knowing the statistics. ADD and ADHD are two of the most commonly misdiagnosed disorders in the civilized world. Too many hyper children are labeled with it when, as his mother was keen to believe of Ethan, they really just needed a firm hand.

So even though he confines himself to the library, cuts off contact with all friends and family, and even disables the wireless connection of his laptop, he struggles. When a sentence, a word, or even a passing reference to an obscure pratice catches his interest, he has to know everything about it. Before he realizes that he has lost focus from the original goal, hours have flown by and a new stack of books has magically appeared on the corner of his desk.

Such is the case now as he pores over a tome in search of implants that reportedly mitigate the symptoms of schizophrenia. Halfway through a particularly interesting page describing the suppression of dopamine receptor activity, his stomach rumbles and growls hard. Glancing at his watch, he realizes he has been lost in his own world for four hours now. The library is just an hour from closing and Ethan has once again made no real progress on the thesis.

Cursing himself for his lack of focus once again, he shovels a pile of books into his lap. Hands dropping to the wheels of his wheelchair, he pulls himself away from the desk and rolls through the shelves, lifting the books one by one to replace them. Maybe the librarian will be nicer to him if he cleans up after himself this time.

[Pyper]

She ducked out of the double doors after the wave of her hand. It was dismissive, as was the standoffish attitude nearing the termination of the heated discussion. It played back in her head. Their exchange of words. Their reactions to one another.


Simone: "Neither of you are exactly ..... sociable people. Nor are you affectionate, or experienced. It just ...... Well, it just sems really weird and a bit fucked up. If I were you - I'd get some experience with a professional, before trying anything with Roderic. He ..... doesn't seem to be too experienced. So you need to know what to do. 'Cause he won't."
Pyper: "That, is what makes us, pairs."
Simone: "Yes, it makes you a pair. But it doesn't necessarily make you a couple. Just because you're the same as someone else, doesn't mean you should date or marry, or anything like that hun. And with the way you two are ..... a pair. I don't know if it's a good thing for you to be a couple."
Pyper: "That, is a pair. To me. A couple, a pair."
Simone: "It's different though - when it comes to a relationship couple. Yes, a pair is two things that are the same as each other. But a couple, can be two different things that compliment each other and make each other better. A couple and a pair are very different things."
Pyper: "By, that understanding. A pair, can never be the same. As a couple. That, is not right."
Simone: "Not never, depends on the couple. But a couple has to bring out the best in each other as I said. And the ... sort of people you two are, I can't see it. You're both too introverted and unskilled in social thing to bring out the best in each other. You see him in the same things as you se in yourself. You don't look at him and feel sexual attraction, and think you'd be happy if there were only the two of you, together, forever and no one else to talk to. Or be with, or see, etc. etc."
Pyper: "No."

From there, the conversation took a nose dive and Pyper's nervous tics had become exacerbated and rendered her unable to contain all of her thoughts. All of the emotions that were bubbling to the surface. That anger, that disposition for violence to close off the things she didn't want to talk about. The books that they had been scouring through for Pyper's education, flung themselves at a shelf. They crashed, bodily. Simone hadn't reacted much to it, but it struck with the other Altaire.

Pyper: "I disagree. With you. About pairs. Your couples. I think, that, people work well. No matter, differences. Sameness."
Simone: "Well, answer the question. Do you think of Ric and think you and he could be the last two people or animals in the whole world and you would be happy forever - just you and he? Can you see yourself telling him your deepest and darkest secrets, opening yourself up to him mentally and physically and letting him touch you and do things to you - and enjoying them?"
Pyper: "I could, see some thing. Do, I have to picture, everything. To, know, that I like him? He knows, secrets, already. I do, trust him."
Simone: "Yes, but do you trust him as a friend and a family member? Or is there something in you that wants more? To make him your special man, above everyone else."
Pyper: "I trust, Roderic, with everything. He understands, my patterns. My things. My ways. Why, should, it be wrong. To want someone, with you. Like that?"
Simone: "Sounds like a best friend to me. Not a partner."
Pyper: "Opinion, of one person."
Simone: "And obviously not an important enough person to be considered. So I'll leave you for tonight. Enjoy whatever it is you're trying to do with Roderic. I hope it works, I do. But I won't be surprised if it fails."

The books. They weren't real in her hands. Or was it that her hands weren't the real ones? They were still there, bindings bent and threatening to wear with permanent damage. Spines pried open to spill out their vestibule of wordy columns. Providing the visual stimulus of pictures. It gave the mind (and the imagination) a pause. It was a resting period; a person didn't have to create the imagery, because it was all already imprinted with ink on paper. In this case, they bore down the anatomical correctness of the human's systems. More specific than that, a human's reproductive tools.

The nurses (No, no, no they were librarians) started whispering, their back and forth stirred amongst the pages and leather.

Lib 1: "What should we do?"
She sounded young. Uncertain. Jarred.
Lib 2: "If she doesn't leave, we call the police. Five minutes."
This one's voice rasped, just as Pyper's does from time to time. Was it from cigarettes? Or was it from underuse? Overuse? Or age distortion. No one's voices stayed the same over prolonged periods of time. Not human's.

Pyper collected the books from the floor. She set them down on the booth's table top. The one she and Simone were using for their loosely based lesson. Would Simone tell Phoenix? After the incident with Zahara, refraining from divulging her projections (or attacking, as Saige had called it) onto family had become an active habit. They couldn't store her things. Not like other things could. This was not the same as that. Having been upset by the conversation, the cells along the top surfaces of her palm crawled with urgency. Her hand had communicated its desire and her mind reciprocated. It facilitated, it compensated for the body part's stationary limitations.

Was this a power? Was this a defect? Was it safe to tell Phoenix? To ask her whether everyone could do this. Concepts, traits and responses that bound together to package her personality weren't always accepted. Those quirks (such as the soothing, consolation method via self mutilation) weren't encouraged. Phoenix had not been positively receptive to them. She had - unbeknownest to herself - shamed Pyper. Those moments where she gave into that nagging voice - that persuasive other self - she suffered the guilt that draped itself around her afterwards. Hope that this wasn't another perpetuated defect flickered dimly in the Altaire.

Pyper saw the human through the wall of science reference texts as she was putting hers away. She knew how to follow the Dewey Decimal system to file away the nonfiction bindings. People teetered on whether to consider psychology a science, or an offshoot category of a science. The set up of the library's genres told Pyper that they considered it closely related to the other. The more concise and concrete subject. He had several, intimidating volumes in his possession. She could make out half of the titles from the side. Their letters were a gold foil, pressed flat by a form of machinery that she never figured out. Against the better part of her that spent so much time dedicated towards enforcing the protection of the Masquerade, Pyper dismissed the flight from her legs and rooted herself.

He wasn't sitting in a chair. Not one that belonged to the library. The very peak point of the two wheels leveled with the height of the table he had commandeered that night. He was a paraplegic. This, she ascertained, by being familiar with hospital protocol, and the terms that peppered the staff's conversations. Pyper had only been confined to the same type of chair upon arrival of a hospital stay, or the departure from one. Being that neither was happening to the studious male, he must have another reason to need one. Her fabricated one made sense.

There wasn't enough time to lurk past the blockades of written knowledge. She couldn't hinder him with interrogative queries about his books, what he was doing. Why he needed a chair. Words jumbled together, the questions were filling up her head. They tried to fit together in coherent sentences, like the ones she was suppose to be practicing every day. They hung, their low tones remind her of the ones in the asylum. The singular words of the unstable, the sick and the demented. The dangerous. Would he be here again tomorrow?

To ensure it, she lodged a word in his head. It had worked for the hospital's receptionist. It could work on him. After she knew it burrowed into his mind, she bolted for the door. She had Bastian to attend to at home. She had work.

This voice she used was raspy, and lowly registered version of her own,
"Tomorrow."