floating in a tin can

The shadow that falls over him as he sits in the courtyard may make it seem like a cloud has passed over the sun, but should he look up he will find something considerably more solid.

Lee Shalit towers over most, at six and a half feet; even slouching, they can be hard to look at. Their pristine white jeans and silver jacket hardly help, nor the cloud of bleached white-blonde hair that hangs past their shoulders and catches the too-bright afternoon light. They look like a ghost in broad daylight.

"Did you write this?" they ask, a hand forward to offer one of his newsletters -- maybe the only one that didn't end up in the trash.

Painstakingly shy, but possessed of the face of an Eastern European supermodel -- the kind that doesn't get out of bed for less than 20 grand -- their reputation around campus as a heartbreaker has a lot to do with the string of boys (and some girls) that follow them around. And the raucous house parties they attend for the sole purpose of getting blackout drunk. The binge-drinking is a little less obvious, though there are rumours related to the full semester they took off last year. People say it was rehab.

They wait for an answer, posture slightly turned in.

thursday, 12:01 am

uri: hey
uri: you awake?
uri: i feel crappy right now

September, 1969

Time—something that work had always made easy to track—has long since ceased to function for Michael. It had effectively become meaningless back in May, but within the past few weeks, it’s gotten even more unclear how or why one day blurs into the next. Pills are put in his hand, food is put in front of him, he sleeps, he wakes up, it’s dark, it’s light. It doesn’t mean anything. Sounds echo emptily or seem muffled. It’s hard to focus. He can’t manage to write or doodle in his journal anymore. Even the prospect of talking to Lee is barely enough to get him to socialize. He wants to die more than ever.

His condition is thanks to a couple of things. A little while back, Lee had caught on to his starvation strategy; she’s far from stupid, and although it must have been disappointing to have to cut herself off from the bonus nutrition, she was adamant that he start feeding himself. He refused, explaining to her once again that he was simply a problem that needed to be solved, an imbalance that needed to be corrected—and to his shock, she went to the orderlies on him. He still doesn’t understand it. Lee can’t stand them, and the rules drive her crazy. Why would she do that to him? Why would she take that away from him, one of the only things left he could control about his life?

( birds were singing to calm us down )

August, 1969

It’s been about three months since Michael Ginsberg dove off the top of his tenement building. A lot of things about that night come up blurry when he’s asked to think about them during therapy; they happened too fast and too close, like the pavement going by out a taxi window. Some things, though, are crystal clear. Suspended. The view from the roof; the rush of adrenaline; the beating of the wind; the weightlessness and relief of falling; the overwhelming, unforgiving solidity of that stupid car. The doctors said it was landing on the car that probably saved his life. It hadn’t been there when he’d looked down. What a fucking joke.

( i can't find the light in my heart )

July, 1969

Lee Rosenberg almost never comes out of her room; like a ghost haunting the halls of the sanitarium, she’s more rumour than person. She’s barely even there at mealtimes, and when she is she sits by herself as far away from everyone else as possible despite the nurses’ urging to socialise. She refuses to socialise. It’s 1969 and she’s a schizophrenic transvestite homosexual Jew. She has nothing to say to these people.

But one day during group she shuffles out of her room and into the circle of chairs, sitting down with her head down and staring at the floor. She’s not dressed, like most everyone else, and her feet are bare. Her short hair is choppy and uneven like it was hacked off with a knife and the hems of her pyjama trousers are ragged like she’s been walking around in them for a long time. A shiny gold Magen David peeks out of the collar of her shirt. After a while she reaches into the pocket of her shirt and pulls out a packet of cigarettes, waiting for an aid to come around with a lighter, and she sits there smoking moodily and not contributing anything.

Someone makes a sarcastic kissing sound and the aid running the group shushes him but a few men chuckle knowingly. Lee says, “Fuck you,” gets up and leaves.

( we are lunatics from the hospital up the highway, psycho-ceramics, the cracked pots of mankind. )

[Sent: 1:42 AM] Hey. Are you awake?

So turns out when you buy up an old storefront that's sat abandoned for years in the mutant ghetto, there's kind of a mess inside. They're not... exactly surprised, except by the sheer scope of it. The windows were broken long before they got here, and they keep looking up from the task at hand to glance, worriedly, at where the glass ought to be. Those old boards nailed in place don't really look safe.

Kevin's in the back, where the storage-slash-break room is supposed to be, ostensibly cleaning the place out of dead rats and roach corpses but he's probably just hiding back there where they can't see him. Ah, well. He's a teenager. Not the most reliable.

They drop a heavy box on one of the counters, kicking up what feels like a cloud of dust in the process, and wipe their dirty hands off on their jeans. Technically they're already open to the public (they put a sign up and everything) but they're not expecting anyone to come in. They only advertise by word of mouth and it takes a while before word gets around. The first week or so is bound to be slow, which gives them time to make this place less of an embarrassing mess and keep them out of the houspartment while Michael freaks out about them being back in the Dangerous City.

July, 1972

Leah doesn’t live that far from the Lower East Side, it’s nearly in her backyard, but she’s only here intermittently. Usually to stop by a bakery or a deli or something, and then she leaves. Most of her friends live in the East Village, or in the Village, or in Chelsea still. And then Michael works in Midtown, so sometimes she makes the voyage all the way there to see him at work. But she’s here now, feeling acutely out of place. People stare at her anywhere she goes, she’s over six feet tall for God’s sake, but it doesn’t help that she looks like a hippie. Like people expect her to pay for things with pocket change. Or not pay at all. She’d thought about dressing up, but then she realised that she’s married. She doesn’t have to please him. So she’s wearing a dress that’s too short and her legs are too bare and she has her long hair loose and unstyled like Janis wore it. She’s already had two strange men try to sit across from her. ‘I’m married’ never works. ‘I’m waiting for someone’ only sometimes does.

She’s watching the door, so she sees him come in, though she doesn’t recognise him immediately. She only really met him once and then they never spoke again. He didn’t even come to the wedding. Should she stand up? Probably, but she came of age in a time when all the social rules started to change. So she doesn’t. She waits for him to sit down before she puts out the stub of her cigarette in the ash tray, then immediately lights a new one. She needs something to do with her hands. She doesn’t know why she’s nervous. Why does she care about this man’s opinion. He certainly doesn’t care about hers.

“I wasn’t really expecting you to come,” she says.

( repair of the world; construction for eternity )

February 28, 2016

Sinclair stands outside the police station, blinking tiredly at his cell phone. He has over thirty missed calls and almost 200 unread texts. No surprise there.

As guilty as he feels, this isn't the time to respond to any of them. The longer he stands here, the more he's tempting fate. It would be fantastic if he could just hail a cab on his own and go home without any fanfare, but he's not that stupid and this isn't the time to play roulette. He's always telling the kids in the District to ask for help when they need it and he tries to practice what he preaches.

Who to ask, though? Someone who's probably not working right now, or is flexible with their hours. (Also awake or could be awake. What time is it, anyway...) Someone who can travel more safely than he can. Someone trustworthy. Someone who won't give him a bunch of shit.

He goes to his contacts, hits the name ‘Samantha,’ and puts the phone to his ear.

"Hi."

Ori Lighthoof's presence is preceded by the click-clack of their hooves on the concrete floor of the used vehicles shop. They're alone for once; their master stayed back at the junkyard, haggling with a new client over the price of junked droids. They've been sent alone to pick up some used vehicles, so trashed they're not worth reselling but which Boze Ampbe will take off the Ginzos' hands for a small fee, because Ori can make use of them. They're full of useful parts that don't work together anymore.

Being around predators always makes Ori a little nervous, but nearly every sentient being in the galaxy evolved from omnivorous predatory species like primates or reptiles; sentient prey species are a minority. So they're scared of everyone. But Ginzo is too jittery to be much of a threat in spite of the teeth, so they're only skittish when they duck their head under the doorway and stand there with their hands in the pockets of their sleeveless overcoat. "Have something for me today?"

September 4, 2015 • after these events

Lee is already in bed, sleeping again. They’ve been stuck at home for the past two weeks, unable to get back to New York without Michael’s help (or rather, his permission, since it’s not that hard to magic your way from one place to another) but having absolutely nothing to do in New Jersey. They’re bored. They’d picked New Jersey only because it was close and a lot cheaper than Manhattan, not because it’s a great place to live. Boredom and medication lead to a lot of long naps.

They stir when the door opens and raise their head briefly only to lower it again when they see who it is. They’re trying to go back to sleep, but now they’re awake, so when footsteps cross the room they roll over onto their side and pull the covers up around their nose.

“Mmmmmhi.” They reach out blindly with a hand, seeking Michael’s. Their fingers wrap around his and then they tug, pulling him down with them. “Where you have been?”

( and we're fighting for our lives to fill the corners up with light )

September 4, 2015

Karen’s office is clean but homey, with art on the walls and a mid-sized fish tank bubbling on a desk by the window. Two small blue fish currently occupy it. There is no couch, but two overstuffed arm chairs, one with a wool throw draped artfully over the back and the other with a small decorative pillow on it. Her desk is nestled in the corner, home to a desktop computer and a laptop which she opens when she sits down, the screen facing towards her though she doesn’t yet look at it. She gestures to one of the chairs. She’s wearing a blazer and grey slacks, her long dark hair pulled out of her face with a clip in the back. Her degrees and license are hung on the wall behind her in plain brown frames. A bookshelf to the left holds a copy of the DSM-IV and V amongst various workbooks on subjects like OCD and anxiety, a few titles that look like memoirs, and some binders with various labels.

“Michael, hello. I’m Dr Wu.” She inclines her head, but doesn’t hold her hand out to shake. She works with a lot of people who don’t like to be touched. His girlfriend is one of them.

( lie down on the couch. what does that mean? )

May 8, 2015

It’s nighttime. The stars are out, bright in the clear grey-blue sky and shining defiantly over the city’s harsh lights. Michael sits on his bed and looks at them through his open window, arms folded on the sill. The breeze ruffles his overgrown hair. He wants to climb out and go to space.

This isn’t his home. Where he was before wasn’t his home either. Up there, that’s where he should be. He tried to go there once but he couldn’t see it, couldn’t get high enough, and it was terrifying. He almost got lost. Morris told him never to do it again.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been here: in this country, in this apartment, in this room. It seems like either ages or moments. It’s not like it matters, since he’s going to be here for the rest of his life, but it’s a weird feeling. The tenement seems empty, also; he can’t hear the small sounds of Morris’s existence through the door. Maybe he’s working late. Why can’t Michael remember?

April, 1971

When Lee picks the venue for dinner she picks a real dive. It's in the Village, the lighting is dim, it's cheap, no one cares what anyone else is doing, and it's the kind of place everyone is going to be comfortable in for all those reasons. She so rarely manages to talk Ginsberg into going out and being social, for reasons she absolutely understands; she doesn't like socialising either, and it's particularly tough when it's with all someone else's friends, but she tries to get him to go out and do something at least once a month, even if it's just sitting in the park hollering at strangers. It's good for him.

They arrived first and Lee's only on her first beer. (She's not supposed to be drinking at all, but she made a deal with Michael that he can cut her off at three.) The weight of the ring around her finger is still strange but welcome; she's had it sized so it fits perfectly without being irritating, but she's always aware of its presence. She still startles herself sometimes when she moves her left hand, which is always. And it feels nice to wear real clothes, not just her pajamas.

It's not a long wait until she spies a few familiar faces coming in through the front door. She tugs on Michael's hand to give him some warning, then stands up and waves. All she has to do is stand up to stand out in a crowd, though. “Sinclair! Over here.” A brief headcount assures them that everyone actually showed up, such a rarity.

April 18, 2015

Saturday. Shabbat. One is commanded to rest.

Despite the increased trouble he’s been having with sleep recently, Michael obeys. When he has access to a bed during daytime hours his body forces him down no matter how valiantly his mind tries to fight. Today is no different; he’s out cold until after seven PM. It’s a late start for him, and it will make Sunday and Monday even more difficult. Wolfgang will have to help.

At the moment, though, tomorrow and the next day are far from his mind. He’s just begun to wake up, pressing his face against whatever warmth is wrapped up all around him as his eyes squeeze more tightly shut against the small amount of light in the room. He breathes in deep and sighs it out. Already a tiny amount of listless energy is collecting inside him, but he can ignore it for maybe five minutes. There’s nowhere to be. He’s in Wolfgang’s arms. Good.

Except when he wakes up a bit more he realizes Wolfgang is also in his arms, and one of his legs is between theirs, and his face is right against their chest, and it’s not good at all. Michael’s not sure what to do. Should he roll over? Get up? Pretend he fell back asleep and wait for them to leave? In the end he does nothing but lie there silently, worrying and trying not to move a muscle.

April 16, 2015

Funny the difference a few months can make. A few months ago, no one in the District wanted to speak to Wolfgang, an outsider and a flatscan; now, they can't go out without being barraged by people who just have a quick question that ultimately ends in a request for (free) help, or by grateful friendly people who hold them up at the bodega. Often going out is more trouble than it's worth. It's not that they're unsocial — okay, no, they're unsocial. Wolfgang is introverted; dealing with other people is draining for them. Not relaxing.

Still, even they need human interaction sometimes. And not just with their boyfriend. Much as they like spending time with him, even Wolfgang knows he can't be their only source of socialization. So sometimes, they go out.

They try to stay local — support local businesses, they tend to support you right back, and it helps your reputation in the community if you make a habit of spreading your money within that community. Also, who wants to take the train just to go to a fancy bar? There's a perfectly good dive bar a block from their shop, and Michael's working late tonight (he does that a lot), so instead of going back to their apartment, they go out to have a few beers. They've dressed down, not wanting to draw attention to themself, but they're a 6' 4" androgynous beauty queen with magic powers, it's a little difficult.

They sit at the bar and order something bottled — at least then you can be mostly sure it's not watered down — and put their head in their arms on the counter, and sigh heavily. Rough week.

March, 1971

It’s late. Michael’s not sure how late, but it’s dark out and it’s been that way for a while. He keeps forgetting to look at clocks, can’t remember what time it was when he left the office (or when he last ate, or when he last sat down). His singlemindedness continues to override any protest his body tries to stage—though by the time he makes his way back to the Village, he’s stumbling and blurry-eyed and sweaty, hair and clothes mussed beyond his usual level of disorder.

He climbs the stairs to the apartment with surprising speed and a complete lack of grace, sacrificing the rest of his energy for the home stretch. Michael uses the door to stop his momentum, catching himself on it with a thud and then scrambling for his key. He tries to get it in the lock but his hand is shaking too badly. He can’t concentrate. There are at least forty bees swarming in his skull. His skin is crawling, he could scream with how frustrated he is. It’s imperative that he get inside right away. Now. Five minutes ago. This is important. It’s the most important thing he might ever do.

“Lee?” he calls from the hallway, panicked. What if she’s asleep? He’ll have to break the door down, and doors cost a lot. “Lee!”