Zinnia Ramey ‡ Alessa Gillespie (letmeburn) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2015-03-31 21:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | pandora bludsworth, zinnia ramey |
Who: Zinnia and OPEN
What: A little mandated socialization.
Where: A coffee shop in Los Angeles, California
When: Tuesday, March 31; evening
Warnings: PG-13 in case Zinnia gets disturbing
Sometimes, Zinnia's therapist gave her homework. It was supposed to help her get outside her comfort zone. Zinnia didn't really like being outside her comfort zone, but if she did what her therapist said, they were less likely to put her into a hospital, as long as they didn't realize that she wasn't taking her pills like she was supposed to. If she did what the therapist asked, and lied about how she felt about it (good, always good, it helped her), her therapist thought she was getting better. It usually wasn't anything that was really difficult. Talk to the person checking her out at the grocery store. Call and order takeout instead of placing her order online. Take a train instead of a taxi to get home. Something that made her be around other people, instead of closing herself up with her paintings.
This time, her homework was to go sit in a coffee shop for two hours. Her therapist said that she could take her sketch book, and she didn't expect her to talk to anyone while she was there, so Zinnia ordered her iced coffee with the book tucked under her arm and gone to settle into a seat where she could press her back against the wall and watch the crowd. Everybody there at the time she'd chosen seemed to be just as interested in sticking to themselves as she did, which was why she'd put it off until so late at night instead of going right after her appointment, like she usually did just to get it out of the way.
This time, she had to admit that maybe her therapist had been right. This really wasn't so bad. There were at least plenty of interesting people to look at, though she was pretty sure that her therapist hadn't meant for her to use the people she saw there as models for sketches of new monsters, exaggerating their features until they were grotesque copies of themselves and then erasing and adding in bits until they were only slightly recognizable as themselves at all. It kept her engrossed enough through the first hour that she didn't even notice the ice in her coffee melting until she took a sip and grimaced at how watery it was. She sighed and put her pencil down, trying to decide if it was worth going up to get a new one, instead.