Re: Quiet Home: Misha & Oliver
The halls were quiet as churchmice, that was true as could be. Most patients spent their days in the big old sitting room. It was a place filled with chairs gone soft and chessboards missing pieces. The ceiling was cathedral high, and they rolled the patients in there early and let them sit while there was light. There was some kind of old believing, reaching on back to the days of tuberculosis wards, that sunshine and daylight was good for making folks better, and light streamed into that room and warmed it through. But patients like Misha, wish privileges for leaving, they didn't spend all their time curled in those comfortable chairs, drool dripping from partly parted lips. He got to go to meetings, like today, and he could wander at will, as long as he took his pills and did his treatments real quiet.
"I don't think you got to believe in God. Folks do, and some folks think it's a requirement, like it's some ticket to get into Heaven, but it ain't that way. Believing, that's rules folks and religions put on scared people, but it don't got a thing to do with that. Any religion's good as none," Misha explained idle, stopping before that yellow door.
Inside, and Misha watched Oliver's face. He knew what the room looked like, seeing as he'd brought it there. He knew the original owner, see, and wasn't anyone walking down this hall would find the room but Oliver. It made Misha feel real proud, despite it breaking his own rule about doing things that weren't real human. But there wasn't any way Oliver would know this room hadn't been here all the while, and why not make someone's face brighten? There was rustling quiet in the room, but it wasn't anything jarring, and Misha didn't expect Oliver would notice it any.
"Ain't it pretty?" Misha didn't art, but he sang, and he reckoned they were related on some creative spectrum.
He went and sat atop a table, legs crossed and his back to the window, and he watched to see what Oliver would do in the big space. "I fiddle and sing. Maybe you wouldn't mind me keeping you company sometimes in here." Which was good as any invitation to come on back and do what he liked here. Misha, he was only allowed out a few hours, and bringing things he liked back was becoming real important these days.