The mail that the Asylum usually received was comprised of bills, catalogs and junk. However, today’s mail contained an envelope of a higher quality paper than usual. The feel of it is what first caught his attention. Upon opening it, he saw it was an application for a job. Doc lifted an eyebrow, as he perused the letter.
My name is Nona Burrows and it`s been a life-long dream of mine to one day became a psychiatric technician. While I don`t have the employment experience, I have clinical experience from interning at The Ottawa Hospital through its direct relationship with University of Ottawa. The experience not only taught me valuable lessons about human life, but also reinforced my interest in employment in a clinical setting. I graduated in 2012 with a B.A. in Psychology.
I`m highly self-motivated, and eager to learn new skills and enhance my experience with Winterbrook Asylum. My strengths also include organization and communication.
Thank you for your consideration and if you have any questions, feel free to call [Y!M: swallow_your_frown) or correspond through email. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Nona Burrows
The truth of the matter was, he hadn’t thought about hiring anyone. But as he thought about it. It might not be a bad idea. The ball and Chain was a Psychologist, and she didn’t seem to have any issues with needing help. However, there were times when he wanted to take her out, and inevitably one of the gets called to back to the Asylum.
Picking up the phone he called the number in the body of the letter. He got voicemail. He glanced at his watch. It was pretty late, voicemail was understandable. When he heard the beep, he left his message.
“This message is for Ms. Burrows. I am Dr. Nilson, I received your application today. If you are still interested, I have an opening at 7pm tomorrow at Winterbrook.”
After he disconnected, he picked up the files that the Ball and Chain left on his desk for his review. The one on top was ******* Freddie again. Freddie Botwell was a frequent flyer. He was constantly having a melt down. Doc thought he just liked spending time with Cytherea, aka the Ball and Chain. But she seemed to think that his meltdowns were legitimate. Freddie was bipolar mass murderer, which is what landed him in the asylum. He was found guilty, even with the mental disorder, due to the heinous nature with which he killed.
His victims included a cop's 11-year-old son, whom he chased and shot in the throat with a shotgun; a day laborer, whom he repeated attacked with a tree limb until the victim died; a skateboarder, whom he repeatedly kicked in the stomach as he stole the board; an off-duty bank guard, whom he brutally ambushed; and an elderly woman, whom he pummeled with the leather sap. Maybe he would see what insight Ms. Burrows would have about ******* Freddie.
"Uh, yes, this message is for Dr. Nilson. Dr. Nilson, this is Nona Burrows, returning your call. I just wanted to confirm that I will be there at seven o'clock to meet with you. Thank you again for this opportunity, and... I really look forward to it. Thank you."
She quickly hung up after the message had been left and realized only after her screen went black that she'd said 'Thank you' twice. Nona touched her cellphone to her forehead and sighed. It was one of those calls that required a pace around the house -- a quick stalk from the living room, to the bathroom, to the bedroom, to the small courtyard and back again until the last word had been said, as if movement was the only thing that kept the wheels and cogs in her brain turning so her voice would make sound. And as soon as it was over, she stood barefoot next to the front door, not remembering how or when exactly she'd gotten there.
By force of habit, she checked the lock on the knob. For one, she'd never lived in a place where locking everything wasn't required. For two, she knew nothing about Larch Court except how to get there and what was nearby (Winterbrook Asylum being something, right around the corner, in fact.) It still was, for all intents and purposes, Clover's home -- the one that she had picked out and made her own before giving it over to Nona and Okoro -- and it was very hard to forget that. The neighbors still felt like Clover's neighbors, the bed still Clover's bed. They were just crashing on it for a while until they found their way.
The interview could lead to Nona's.
She walked back to the single bedroom, feet padding silent across the floor. The door sat cracked open and without thinking twice, she pushed it aside to walk in. Okoro stood at the wardrobe, fussing with the cuffs of his sleeves, shirt undone and open, but slacks on snug. And though he wore an undershirt, the unexpectedness of walking in on him caused her to jerk back and turn away.
"I should've knocked," she said. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he assured, and she heard the rustle of fabric from within the room. She assumed he closed his shirt completely. "I'm dressed," he confirmed.
"I'm sorry," she said again.
The one bedroom house meant that the room was theirs to share, as was the bed. And they slept in it, side by side, while the sun was out bright and dangerous in the sky, draining all of the energy from her body in a way that she never knew exhaustion could do. And it didn't make sense to her, as to what the big deal was. There shouldn't have been one. There wasn't one. She'd seen his legs before. She'd touched a healing bullet wound in one. She'd been there when he was turned, when they were turned together.
Nona shook her head and almost apologized for apologizing, but Okoro smiled and secured his shirt closed, one button at a time. "Who was that?" he asked instead, referencing the phone in her hand.
"Oh, uh... Just someone about an interview, possibly. We'll see," she said, moving her phone down. He walked toward the open door and she stood back to grant him more than enough room for him to pass around her.
"That's good!" he said. "That's good news. I'm sure you'll do great."
"I'm not going to get my hopes up," she said, watching him walk to the bathroom. He paused at the hall, glanced back at her questioningly, and before he could ask anything she said, "We'll see! I'll let you know how it goes. Are you on your way to work?"
He and Clover, their sire, worked together at some club. A lounge, or a restaurant. She wasn't entirely sure what they did, exactly, only that people (vampires and other) stopped there for drinks and conversation. It sounded like no place she ever expected Okoro to invest in, or Clover for that matter, but a job was a job, and if the only position Dr. Nilson could offer her involved scrubbing the toilets, she wasn't entirely certain she would decline it.
"Yes," he answered her. "I'll be leaving in a minute. Will you be okay?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine," she said, and then smiled, whether he saw it or not.
Funny, she thought, that he would ask if she'd be alright. He didn't know where the interview was, or for who, or for what even. He didn't know that it was with the criminally insane -- for Winterbrook had always been very honest about that, from what she could tell. Winterbrook was the place that no one in the field immediately set out to strive for, or any place that worked with the violent and the unpredictable. Too often, even the most professional psychologists held their misconceptions and preconceived notions about the violent to want to work with them, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't have her own reserves.
The Ottawa Hospital could in no way have prepared her for this, even though there was always an undercurrent of unpredictability for every shift she served there. The only thing the two places had in common, so far as she could tell, was the ever present need to resolve a current crisis, unlike being stuck in a room with the rich and mildly troubled which was more 'crisis prevention.' For these people, the ones in a facility that needed help, the crisis already happened, or would continue to.
And every crisis is and forever would be different. She told herself she would do well to remember that.
She was ready by half past six, and for the interview she kept her cloud of hair loose and down, as tamed as it could ever be without being restrained (and even then, it was hardly docile). Thanks to Clover's generosity, or simple need to see that neither she or Okoro went without, her clothes were new -- washed only once to get the store smell off them -- and she almost regretted that Okoro had already gone before getting a peek at just how well she could clean up when she wanted to.
Fifteen minutes before seven, Nona walked through the front doors of Winterbrook with her trusty bag hanging at her side. She'd worn it the night she was turned and continued to carry it with her any time she went out in the public, even for a job interview.
Though she'd lived in Harper Rock for two years (or was it nearly three now?), she'd never been there simply from lack of need. All of her applications had been to general hospitals, some small-time clinics that shared buildings with other offices. Winterbrook seemed different, from the very sight -- consuming, almost, but not off-putting.
"Hello," she said as she made her way through the lobby. "I have an interview with Dr. Nilson at seven. I'm a little early."
She took my heart, I think she took my soul. With the moon I run, far from the carnage of the fiery sun. And it's coming closer.
"--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--"
Doc: The Penguin knocked on the office door briefly before opening it. “There ees a Mees Burro here to see you.” The nun’s spanish accent was thick.
Doc barely looked up from the file, “It is Burrows, not Burro.”
“Thees ees what I say.” The nun frowned in consternation.
“No, you said, ‘burro’ as in ***, Donkey, beast of burden. It is Burrows, as in tunnels.”
The little nun frowned, she was sure she said it correctly. Dr. Nilson was just an angry tired man. It was clear he did not get enough sleep. She would pray an extra prayer just for him. “Do I send Mees..” the little nun deepened her voice, as if the deeper she said it, made it correct. “Burro, in?”
Doc pinched the bridge of his nose, as the penguin asked her question. “Five minutes. Send her back in five minutes.” He sighed. Sometimes he felt like the inmates were the sane ones.
The Nun left, and as she left she did not close the office door. Doc grimaced. How many times did he need to remind them, to shut his ******* door?! He counted. Ms. Burrows would be shown back in a few minutes it wasn’t worth the effort to get up and shut it himself.
Dominique: Dominique was done and over it rather easily in the time that passed since she left Doc’s office. In her mind big girls don’t pout or cry. They get mad, they take a long run then they find a can of monster, load some Godsmack in the music player and they craft traps that will make even bigger monsters cry. She was moving forward and true to her character she was back in the saddle again. Less than forty eight hours later It was back to business and to her routine of checking in on her sire. It was as important as feeding Rufus his greens and making sure Vader and Hello KItty were not tearing up Vita Beta. Life was always good given enough time to get over the potholes that tried to trip you up.
Doc: Doc closed the patient file he had been looking at, and filed it away under lock and key. In it’s place he sat down a file, that had all the patient’s identifying information redacted. Employing an additional psychologist had not been in the plan. But knowing how Cytherea tended to ‘bond’ with her patients, it would not be a bad idea to have an alternate view now and again. Cytherea automatically discounted all safeguards that Doc wanted put in place. She maintained she could handle them. However, having another professional, agree with Doc that precautions were a good thing, might just make his wife see he isn’t being overbearing. He was being thorough.
The file he had originally meant to show Ms. Burrows for her insight, was Freddie. However, after thinking through the iterations, he realized that if he did want to hire her, showing her one of the more dangerous inmates files with all the gory detail, might actually put her off. Make run screaming from the place. So he changed his mind, and decided on a file of one of less violent, yet just as mentally ill patients. Mr. Rory Watkins a medicated and functioning schizophrenic, who suffered a psychotic break when his family died in house fire while he was out of town on business. There was hopes that he could be rehabilitated, however, during a court hearing, he grabbed for the court officer's sidearm, and thus was deemed a hazard to the public. In speaking with Mr. Watkins, he remarked it looked like toy to him. He only wanted to touch it to see if it was real.
Dominique: LESS took the lead and pulled the door open so that she could step inside the building where Dr. Charles Nilson would be found behind a desk or in a lab hard at work. She moved in a long stride despite her petite stature.This was going to take fifteen minutes tops. That was all she needed to get a visual on Doc to see that he was fine. It was also just enough time to get what she could have used the last time they talked. Just a couple scratches. That was the thought she had when she felt a slow burn moving across her skin. She looked down at her arm while pulling the fabric of her sleeve back to investigate. That was all it took to lose focus of where she was heading. One step had her bouncing off a pillowy and round nun. She looked up and winced. the burn was intense as her hand lifted to block anymore contact with the woman while her feet stepped back. HOPE pulled back in shock and with it had a pink welt raising in the shape of the rosary she just made contact with.
“Excuse me…” Her eyes widened at the nun who looked like she was about to scream.
Dominique didn’t waste any time taking off running faster than the nun had a prayer's chance in hell of catching up with. the squeak of her soles trying to grip to the tile beneath echoed behind her as she cleared one corner. Soon the sounds of several voices collectively gathering up at the end of the hallway she was in. Black and white material billowed as it rolled around the corner catching her by surprise. Great. She back pedaled and took the way she just came from. Now she really needed to see him. The welt on her hand was rising and felt like she was elbow deep in fire. The sounds of her soles sticking to the tile suddenly faded and she was a blur of fur racing across the tile clearing the same path the trio of Brazilian nuns were taking.
"--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--"
Dominique: “OOOH!” One voice announced as the sounds of their six feet stomped after her in pursuit.
The sand kitten was never going to be caught. One more corner to clear and she was in his office. Tiny paws pedaled faster until the inevitable wall in the way came up too quick. She slid and rolled like a ball of fur bouncing off the wall. Wasting no time she quickly popped back up and darted into the small space of the office door thankfully left open. From there it was a few jumps from the empty office chair across the top of his desk and finally like a champion freeform rock climber she clawed her way up his chest and curled up behind his neck. Just as she did the trio sister act bust through the doorway huffing and puffing.
Doc: He heard the ruckus from the Penguins in the hall, the rapid Spanish exclamations, and the excited squeaking of shoes hurrying down the hallway. Knowing Ms. Burrows was probably witness to whatever had happened, he was about to get up and check for himself, when the ball of fur, bounced like a trapeze artist, using the furniture as launching pads before landing on his chest, and scrambling up his chest. Doc who rarely smiled when he was at Winterbrook, was wearing a stupid grin, as Radar the kitten snuggled at his neck, spitting like a banshee at the three Nuns that came trundling in pursuit of her.
The Penguins looked at him and all began speaking at once, it was a mix of Spanish, and bad English. Pointing fingers, angry frowns, comments about unclean animals, and the spawn of satan. The last comment made the grin get even wider, if they only knew. “Oh good god!” Yes he purposely took the lord’s name in vain, as the penguins all rapidly crosse their chest and fingered their rosaries. “It’s a kitten for God sake! The way you are carrying on..you would think it was rat.. or something worse. You’ve scared her to death. Now just go away.. She doesn’t like you.” He reached up to sooth the kitten, who was still rather tense.
Dominique: The burn had not lessened across the top of her paw because she had become a mascot fot the wild kingdom. It hurt just as bad if not worse and her rough cool tongue scratching the bare surface didnt help. With that and the approaching beasts of black and white burden she popped up on her four paws. Quickly she arched her back feeling the line of fur down her spine stand straight up. A low warning growl came from her tiny body sending it shivering with the vibrations it inspired. While Doc tried to reason she offered up her opinion on the matter. Especially when the sparkling shine of the crosses came to view. With all the power she could muster up she hissed long and loud then spit their direction. They needed to back down.
With the slow arched crab walk her sand kitten form paced back and forth over the top of Doc’s shoulders. She was so upset she could feel at least two thirds of her fur out of place. That would take at least the next hour or more to lick back into place. So much for being in and out in twenty minutes tops. She watched and waited while her miniature form moved with the confidence of a lioness which was on standby if they came any closer.
Doc: The aggravated spit and hiss, made him want to laugh. Not because it was funny, but rather, Radar was so ******* cute. This tiny ball of fluff was mutinously standing her ground against the Penguins. Reaching up, he caught her easily and pulled her down to rest in the crook of his arm. “Shh. They are leaving..” The smile faded as he gave the Penguins a pointed look. It was a few seconds before the three trundled off. He looked back at his Kitten and rubbed under chin. “I know.. I feel the same way about them. But they are cheap and pious, and..” He shrugged lightly, “help with keeping the masquerade safe.”
He soothed the her, by giving her pointed attention. “I have an interview..” He glanced at his watch, “in two minutes. Looks like you are going to have to stick around for a bit.” He paused, “Actually would be a good idea to get your input about the candidate.. later. But for now, I need you to be adorable and listen. This person approached me.. I didn’t find them. So we need to see if they are legit. hmm?” He rubbed the side of her face, with the pad of thumb.
Dominique: Dominique lifted her furry little chin so those fingers could get right where she liked it. Doc’s words were in competition with his fingers to soothe her and in turn she began purring while beginning her grooming regimen. Ten long licks to the side of her shoulder and front paws followed by another five to his fingers.
A sound in the hall caught her attention and interrupted her movements. She paused to look towards the door with her ears moving like massive satellite dishes on her head. Back then forward they flipped. She stayed still watching as if any moment what she could tell before he could was going to walk through the door. She would be ready. There would be less than two pounds of kitten airborne and four hundred pounds landing if need be blocking admittance past the door to get at him. They better be legit or they were going to be dinner. She slowly relaxed at the last of his words and was purring at the resuming of her bath.
Doc: Hearing the tell tale sound of the penguin’s squeaking shoes headed back toward his office, Doc stood and moved toward the door, where he got the first look at Ms. Nona Burrows. He was pleasantly surprised. She was young and attractive. He liked attractive, but whether or not that would be an asset or good fit for the inmates, he wasn’t sure. He in turn, gave Ms. Burrows a polite, close lipped polite smile, and smoothly motioned toward a leather chair facing his desk. He was clad in a suit and tie, that still had that crisp look of being freshly cleaned and pressed. In his arm, rested Radar the Sand Kitten, who seemed to perusing Ms. Burrows as though she were a queen seated in her throne.
